A regiment landed, and marched up Monroe Street to the court-house. I had the pleasure of accompanying the soldiers. The band played Yankee Doodle and Hail Columbia. How proudly the soldiers marched! They halted in front of the court-house. An officer went to the top of the building, tore down the Rebel flag, and flung out the Stars and Stripes. Wild and hearty were the cheers of the troops. The buried flag had risen from its grave, to wave forevermore,--the emblem of power, justice, liberty, and law! Thus the Upper Mississippi was opened again to trade and the peaceful pursuits of commerce. How wonderfully it was repossessed. The fleet lost not a man at Island No. 10, not a man at New Madrid, not a man at Fort Pillow, not a man at Memphis, by the fire of the Rebels! How often had we been told that the strongholds of the Rebels were impregnable! How often that the Union gunboats would be blown up by torpedoes, or sent to the bottom by the batteries or by the Rebel fleet! How often that the river would never be opened till the Confederacy was recognized as an independent power! General Butler was in possession of New Orleans, Memphis was held by Commodore Davis, and the mighty river was all but open through its entire length to trade and navigation. In one year this was accomplished. So moves a nation in a career unparalleled in history, rescuing from the grasp of pirates and plunderers the garnered wealth of centuries. In 1861, when Tennessee seceded, the steamer Platte Valley, owned in St. Louis, belonging to the St. Louis and Memphis Steamboat Company, was the last boat permitted to leave for the North. All others were stolen by the secessionists, who repudiated the debts they owed Northern men. The Platte Valley, commanded by Captain Wilcox, was in Commodore Davis's fleet of transports. Captain Wilcox recognized some of his old acquaintances in the crowd, and informed them that in a day or two he would resume his regular trips between St. Louis and Memphis! They were ready to send up cargoes of sugar and cotton. So trade accompanies the flag of our country wherever it goes.