F. STANHOPE HILL. CAMBRIDGE, 1893. CONTENTS PART I IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE PAGE I. HOW I WENT TO SEA 3 II. MY FIRST VOYAGE 24 III. THE MUTINY 40 IV. NOT BORN TO BE DROWNED 54 V. A “SHANGHAEING” EPISODE 64 VI. TO CALIFORNIA BEFORE THE GOLD DISCOVERY 77 VII. RECAPTURING A RUNAWAY 93 VIII. CHASED BY PIRATES 115 PART II IN THE NAVAL SERVICE I. THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR 137 II. A NIGHT ATTACK BY A CONFEDERATE RAM 148 III. THE PASSAGE OF THE FORTS AND THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS 162 IV. ON TO NEW ORLEANS 178 V. CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER 191 VI. A NARROW ESCAPE 205 VII. A SUCCESSFUL STILL HUNT 220 VIII. CATCHING A TARTAR 230 IX. THE NAVAL TRAITOR 240 X. HUNTING FOR BUSHWACKERS 254 XI. THE END OF THE STRUGGLE 271 TWENTY YEARS AT SEA PART I IN THE MERCHANT SERVICE CHAPTER I HOW I WENT TO SEA It was a blazing hot morning of the first week in September, 1842. The sun was pouring down with the fierce heat that so often marks the departing days of our Northern summers, and the evil smells in the filthy gutters of the southern section of Brooklyn were more than usually noxious. A Knickerbocker ice-wagon had stopped at the corner beer saloon, and the sturdy, blue-shirted driver was carrying in a great block of ice, while the children of the tenement overhead were picking up the fragments from behind the wagon. Across the street, half a dozen frowsy, tow-headed boys were striving to drive an unwilling goat, harnessed to a soap-box on wheels, in which was seated one of their number, and the little wretches were cheerfully beating the unfortunate animal with a piece of iron hoop, when it stopped, to bleat forth its complaint. A marine in blue uniform coat and white trousers, on duty at the Navy Yard gate, hard by, walked his beat, keeping close to the grateful shade of the high brick wall of the inclosure, and covertly watching the struggle between the children and the goat. The corporal of the guard lounged on a bench beneath the wooden porch of the guard-house, deeply interested in the morning paper. Two persons, evidently strangers, came down the street, stopped hesitatingly at the gate, and asked a question of the corporal. “The Bombay, is it?” said the marine. “You will find her at the dock near the shears. Keep down that path to the right, pass the commandant’s house, then take the first turn to the left, and you will see her.”