Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/238

 220

��Captain George Hamilton Perkijts, U.S.N.

��[April,

��him at Fortress Monroe, proceeded on to New York to be refitted. This enabled Lieutenant Perkins to make a short visit to Concord, where his father, now become judge of probate of Mer- rimack County, had removed, and both himself and the family received many congratulations, personal and written, at the brilliant record he had made in the recent memorable operations on the Mississippi.

Modest and unassuming, with a genial frankness of manner that told pleasantly alike on quarter-deck or street, in family-circle or drawing-room, he wore his honors in the quietest way possible, never speaking of his own part in the brave deeds of the time, except when pressed to do so, and then with a reticence all too provoking, from the well-grounded suspicion that he kept back the pith of the real story of personal participation he might tell without tinge of exaggeration or boast- fulness.

Returning to the Cayuga he found a new commanding officer, Lieutenant- Commanding D. McN. Fairfax, another loyal Virginian, who not only stood faithful to the flag under all circum- stances, but had, as the officer from the San Jacinto, boarded the Trent and taken from her the arch-conspirators. Mason and Slidell, suffering the con- tumely of rebel womanhood in the reception accorded him by Mr. Com- missioner SHdell's daughter.

Fairfax and Perkins had known each other on the coast of Africa, and it was the meeting of old friends made doubly pleasant by the senior's hearty appre- ciation of the laurels so gallantly won by the junior, and self-congratulation in the promised comfort of retaining an executive of so much energy, ability, and reputation.

��Rejoining Farragut's squadron, Per- kins saw other gallant and varied service in the Cayuga until November, 1862, when he was transferred to the Pensacola, and the following month commissioned lieutenant - commander, a new grade created by Congress to correspond with that of major in the army.

In June, 1863, General Banks, then besieging Port Hudson, sent word to the now Rear- Admiral Farragut, that he must have more powder or give up the siege, wherefore the Admiral ordered the gunboat New London on the im- portant service of powder transporta- tion and convoy, and assigning Per- kins to the command until the officer ordered from the North by the depart- ment should arrive. The enemy had possession at that time of some three hundred miles of the river below Port Hudson, with batteries established at various points and sharpshooters dis- tributed along the banks.

Five times Perkins ran the fiery gauntlet successfully, but on the sixth his vessel was disabled in a sharp fight at Whitehall's Point. One shot from the enemy exploded the New London's boiler, and another disabled her steam chest. In that critical con- dition, directly under the guns of the hostile battery, and exposed to the fire of sharpshooters on the bank, and de- serted by his consort, the Winona, his position seemed desperate almost be- yond remedy ; but fertile in expedients and daring to rashness in their execu- tion, he finally succeeded, after almost incredible exertion and perilous per- sonal adventure, in conmiunicating with the fleet below, and the vessel was saved.

Now the commanding officer from the North having arrived, Perkins was

�� �