On this page of unwritten history McPherson and Oliver, the New Orleans war-time photographers, have caught the crew of the staunch old "Hartford" as they relaxed after their fiery test. In unconscious picturesqueness grouped about the spar-deck, the men are gossiping or telling over again their versions of the great deeds done aboard the flagship. Some have seized the opportunity for a little plain sewing, while all are interested in the new and unfamiliar process of "having their pictures taken." The notable thing about the picture is the number of young faces. Only a few of the old salts whose bearded and weather-beaten faces give evidence of service in the old navy still remain. After the great triumph in Mobile Bay, Farragut said of these men: "I have never seen a crew come up like ours. They are ahead of the old set in small arms, and fully equal to them at the great guns. They arrived here a mere lot of boys and young men, and have now fattened up and knocked the nine-inch guns about like twenty-four pounders, to the astonishment of everybody. There was but one man who showed fear and he was allowed to resign. This was the most desperate battle I ever fought since the days of the old 'Essex.'" "It was the anxious night of my life," wrote Farragut later. The spar-deck shown below recalls another speech. "Don't flinch from that fire, boys! There is a hotter fire for those who don't do their duty!" So shouted Farragut with his ship fast aground and a huge fire-raft held hard against her wooden side by the little Confederate tug "Mosher." The ship seemed all ablaze and the men, "breathing fire," were driven from their guns. Farragut, calmly pacing the poop deck, called out his orders, caring nothing for the rain of shot from Fort St. Philip. The men, inspired by such coolness, leaped to their stations again and soon a shot pierced the boiler of the plucky "Mosher" and sank her. [Illustration: SPAR-DECK OF THE "HARTFORD"] THE FIGHT FOR RICHMOND A shattered and discomfited army were the hosts of McDowell when they reached the banks of the Potomac, after that ill-fated July Sunday at Bull Run. Dispirited by the sting of defeat, this motley and unorganized mass of men became rather a mob than an army. The transformation of this chaos of demoralization into the trained, disciplined, and splendid troops of the Grand Army of the Potomac, was a triumph of the "young Napoleon"--Gen. George Brinton McClellan. Fresh from his victories in the mountains of West Virginia, he was called to Washington to transmute 200,000 American citizens, fresh from shop and farm, into soldiers.