"After the _Index_ was sent back to Glasgow, Captain Marshall took charge of the steamer _Rouen_ and I joined her as signal officer. We loaded our cargo and started for Wilmington, and on the third day out sighted a steamer about one o'clock p.m. This ship proved to be the U.S.S. _Keystone State_, which captured us after a hot chase of six hours. We were all transferred to the _Margaret and Jessie_, a former blockade runner which had been captured and utilized as a cruiser. We were taken to New York and confined in the Tombs Prison. Subsequently, all the officers and crew were discharged except four of us, and we were transferred to the Ludlow Street Jail for further investigation. After six weeks' imprisonment we succeeded in effecting our escape through the medium of English gold, after which we went down to East River and found an old barque loaded with staves and hay for St. Thomas. Each one of us gave the captain $25 in gold with the understanding that he would sail by St. George, Bermuda, and land us there. We reached this place after several weeks to find it devastated by yellow fever. Many personal friends died of this scourge, among whom was our lamented purser of the _Index_, Mr. Robert Williams, a well-known native of Wilmington, much beloved for his superior personal qualities. "I then made one voyage in the _Owl_, which became famous under the command of Capt. John Newland Maffitt. After this I joined the new steel steamer _Susan Beirne_, commanded by Captain Martin, of which my old friend and shipmate James Sprunt was purser. After a very hazardous voyage in this ship, during which we weathered a fearful gale, and although we came very near foundering, we returned to Nassau to learn from Captain Maffitt of the steamer _Owl_, which had just arrived, that the last port of the Confederacy had been closed, and that the war was practically over. "A small party of almost reckless Confederates, composed of our chief engineer, Mr. Lockhart; our second engineer, Mr. Carroll; our purser, Mr. James Sprunt, and the purser of another steamer in port, Maj. William Green, bought the steam launch belonging to our ship, a boat about forty feet in length and six feet breadth of beam, and made a perilous voyage by way of Green Turtle Cay to Cape Canaveral, Fla., where they landed in the surf after a two weeks' voyage, and proceeding on foot 175 miles to Ocala, Fla., succeeded in evading the Federal pickets and sentries at various points along the route and at last reached Wilmington, having occupied about two months on the way. "I chose an easier and more agreeable route and proceeded via New York to visit some relatives in Indiana and returned later to North Carolina to find peace restored to our unhappy and desolated country." CAPTAIN JOHN NEWLAND MAFFITT.