We have seen that Portland has a history connecting it with the French and Indian Wars, the Revolution, and the War of 1812. It was also the scene of a curious episode in the late Civil War--the cutting out of the United States revenue cutter _Caleb Cushing_, in June, 1863. The cutter had been preparing for an encounter with the rebel privateer _Tacony_, which had been capturing and burning many vessels on the coast of New England. A delay in fitting her out had been occasioned by the illness and death of her captain. In the meantime, the _Tacony_ had captured the schooner _Archer_, and transferred her armament to the prize, which, after burning the _Tacony_, boldly sailed into Portland harbor in the guise of an innocent fisherman, with Lieutenant Reade in command. His purpose was to burn two gunboats then being fitted out in the harbor, but he found them too well guarded. He then turned his attention to the cutter, which was preparing for a fight with him with no suspicion that he was lying almost alongside. Captain Clarke had died the day before Reade’s arrival, and Lieutenant Davenport, a Georgian by birth, was in command of the cutter. At night, when only one watchman was on deck, a surprise was quietly effected, and the crew put in irons. With a good wind the cutter might easily have gotten away from the sleeping town and slipped by the unsuspicious forts; but she was becalmed just after passing the forts, and in the morning three steamers were armed and sent in pursuit. At the time it was supposed that the Southern lieutenant had turned traitor, but the event proved his loyalty; for he refused to inform his captors where the ammunition was kept, and they had only a dozen balls for the guns, which were all spent without injury to the pursuers. The affair was watched by thousands on the hills and house-tops, and on yachts which in the dead calm were rowed to the scene. At length the town was startled by the blowing up and utter demolition of the cutter; the Confederates had set fire to the vessel and tried to escape in the boats, but were at once captured by the steamers which had been circling around them. The _Archer_ was also captured, with all the chronometers and other valuables of the vessels bonded or destroyed by the _Tacony_. It proved an important check to the operations of the Confederacy on the sea, and it came just one week before the battle of Gettysburg and the capture of Vicksburg.