A friend of the writer was, during the Rebellion, investigating some subject connected with the history of medicine. In one of the books he examined he found mention made of Charlemagne's physician, a wonderfully skilful and learned man, named _Farraguth_. Our famous Admiral was then in the Gulf of Mexico, engaged in the preparations for the attack on Mobile which took place during August of that year. So odd was this coincidence, that its discoverer wrote to the Admiral to ask whether he knew any thing of this mediæval doctor, and received in reply a very friendly and agreeably written letter, from which some extracts may here be given without any violation of confidence, as giving the most authentic information about his ancestry. "My own name is probably Castilian. My grandfather came from Ciudadela, in the island of Minorca. I know nothing of the history of my family before they came to this country and settled in Florida. You may remember that in the 17th century, a colony settled there, and among them, I believe, was my grandfather. My father served through the war of Independence, and was at the battle of the Cowpens. Judge Anderson, formerly Comptroller of the Treasurer, has frequently told me that my father received his majority from George Washington on the same day with himself; and his children have always supposed that this promotion was for his good conduct in that fight. Notwithstanding this statement * * * * I have never been able to find my father's name in any list of the officers of the Revolution. "With two men, Ogden and McKee, he was afterwards one of the early settlers of Tennessee. Mr. McKee was a member of Congress from Alabama, and once stopped in Norfolk, where I was then residing, on purpose, as he said, to see me, as the son of his early friend. He said he had heard that I was "a chip of the old block"--what sort of a block it was I know not. This was thirty years ago. My father settled twelve miles from Knoxville, at a place called Campbell's Station, on the river, where Burnside had his fight. Thence we moved to the South, about the time of the Wilkinson and Blennerhassett trouble. My father was then appointed a master in the Navy, and sent to New Orleans in command of one of the gunboats. Hence the impression that I am a native of New Orleans. But all my father's children were born in Tennessee, and as I have said in answer to enquiries on this subject, we only moved South to crush out a couple of rebellions. "My mother died of yellow fever the first summer in New Orleans, and my father settled at Pascagoula, in Mississippi. He continued to serve throughout the 'last war,' and was at the battle of New Orleans, under Commodore Paterson, though very infirm at that time. He died the following year, and my brothers and sisters married in and about New Orleans, where their descendants still remain. * * * *