“That’s so,” said Max. “And he gave the glory of the victory where it belonged; in his dispatch to the Secretary of the Navy he said God had granted it.
“He was gallant and generous as a conqueror; when the British officers tendered him their swords after the surrender, he put them back, saying, ‘Gentlemen, your gallant conduct makes you worthy to wear your weapons. Return them to their scabbards.’
“Commodore Perry was another of our naval heroes. He won the victory in the battle of Lake Erie in the war of 1812, and wrote that famous dispatch, ‘We have met the enemy, and they are ours, two ships, two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop.’
“Then there were the great naval commanders of our civil war,” Max went on. “I don’t believe a greater one than Farragut ever lived, or as great a one, unless it might be Porter, who had a large share in the taking of New Orleans; helping ever so much with his mortar boats.
“Why, the undertaking was so difficult, that a number of English and French naval officers who visited Farragut while he was in the lower Mississippi completing his preparations for passing on up to take the city, told him they had carefully examined the defences of the Confederates, and that it would be sheer madness for him to attack the forts with wooden ships such as his; he’d be sure to be defeated.
“But he was not to be discouraged—the brave old man! He said, ‘You may be right, but I was sent here to make the attempt. I came here to reduce or pass the forts, and to take New Orleans, and I shall try it on.’ And so he did try it on, and succeeded.”
“I admire such grit,” said Albert. “I’ve read quite a good deal about that war—a tremendous one it was—and I think there were some very plucky things done on both sides.”
“Yes,” returned Max; “I’m proud of the bravery shown by both the ‘Yanks’ and the ‘Johnnies,’ as they called each other.”
Here Lulu, who had thus far contented herself with listening, put in a word:
“I don’t believe there ever was or could be a braver or more wonderful feat than Lieutenant Cushing performed when he blew up the rebel ram Albemarle. He dashed up along side of it, in his little vessel, through a perfect shower of bullets, then, finding that the ram was behind a wall of logs, he sheered off and dashed over that, he standing up in the stern of his boat, with the tiller ropes in one hand and the lanyard of a torpedo in the other, never flinching, though a big gun was trained right on him; but he got his torpedo just where he wanted it under the ram, gave his lanyard a jerk, and fired the thing off, so that it blew up the ram at the same instant that their great gun sent a hundred pound shot right through the bottom of his boat. Oh, such a roar as the two—the torpedo and the gun—must have made, going off together in that way!”