The labor here, as well as the vast amount involved in the construction of Fort Fisher, was all performed by slaves, impressed from time to time by the Rebel authorities. Both works were completed—Wilmington had grown rich on the profits of blockade-running; Nassau had risen to first-class commercial importance, and the beach under these guns was strewn with the wrecks, which spoke more loudly than could any balance sheet, of the profits of a business that could afford such losses—before our Congress had done disputing whether the Constitution, and a due regard for the rights of our Southern brethren, would permit us to use negroes as teamsters! ----- Footnote 5: The Stonewall seems indeed to have produced about this time an excitement along the whole coast, amounting, in some places, to panic. The naval officer at Key West, for example, issued orders to extinguish the lights in the light-houses along the coast, lest the Stonewall should run into some of the harbors and destroy the shipping. Footnote 6: The joint Committee of Congress on the Conduct of the War, after examining Generals Grant, Butler, Weitzel and Terry, and Admiral Porter, as well as the Rebel commander of the Fort, and after a careful inspection of the fortifications themselves, have, in a report published since the above was written, reached substantially the same conclusions. They attach no blame to any one for the failure to attack, in the first movement upon the Fort. CHAPTER VI. Wilmington—Unionism—Blockade Running—Destitution—Negro Talk—Land Sales. General Hawley, commanding at Wilmington, had come down to Fort Fisher, on hearing of the arrival of our party, accompanied by General Abbott, General Dodge, and a number of prominent citizens of North Carolina. They were all transferred to our vessel, and, with the tide in her favor, and under sail, the “Wayanda” astonished us all by steaming up the river at the rate of fourteen knots an hour. Captain Merryman, however, insisted she could do as much any time, only it wasn’t always convenient to get her best speed out of her! And, of course, we were bound to believe the Captain. Do we not make it a point of patriotic duty to believe all the brilliant reports of the running capacity displayed by our iron-clads and double-enders? Blockade runners had been sunk for miles up the river, and in some places the hulls and machinery still formed a partial obstruction to navigation. Torpedoes, fished out by the navy, lay here and there along the banks, and a few, it was said, were still in the channel, unless, as was hoped, the tide had washed them away.