"We had indeed, sir," was the hearty response; "a number of them in both arms of the service, and none more worthy of respect and admiration than Farragut, who did such splendid service at both New Orleans and Mobile Bay, to say nothing of other places. The city of Mobile could not be captured as New Orleans had been, by reason of shoal water and obstructions in the channel, but the passage of blockade runners, carrying supplies to the Confederacy, was stopped, which was the main object of the expedition."
"Yes, he did good service to his country," returned Mr. Lilburn, "although, if I mistake not, he was a Southerner."
"He was born in Tennessee," replied Captain Raymond. "In the winter of 1860-61 he was on waiting orders at Norfolk, Virginia, where he watched with intense interest the movements of the Southern States, and especially the effort to carry Virginia out of the Union into the Confederacy; and when that was accomplished he remarked that 'the State had been dragooned out of the Union.'
"He talked very freely on the subject, and was told that a person with such sentiments as his 'could not live in Norfolk.' 'Well, then,' he replied, 'I can live somewhere else,' and that very evening left the place, with his wife and son. That was the 18th of April, 1861. He went first to Baltimore, but afterward took a cottage at Hastings-on-the-Hudson.
"The next December he was summoned to Washington, and on the 2d of February sailed from Hampton Roads for New Orleans."
"Where he certainly did splendid service to his country," remarked Mr. Lilburn. "I hope she appreciated it."
"I think she did," returned the captain; "he received many marks of the people's appreciation, among them a purse of $50,000, which was presented him for the purchase of a home in New York City."
"Did he live to see the end of the war, sir?" asked Walter.
"Yes; he was on the James River with General Gordon when Richmond was taken, and on hearing the news the two rode there post-haste, reaching the city a little ahead of President Lincoln. A few days after that the naval and military officers at Norfolk, with some of the citizens who had remained true to the Union, gave him a public reception.
"Farragut was one of the speakers, and in the course of his remarks said: 'This meeting recalls to me the most momentous events of my life, when I listened in this place till the small hours of the morning, and returned home with the feeling that Virginia was safe and firm in her place in the Union. Our Union members of the convention were elected by an overwhelming majority, and we believed that every thing was right. Judge, then, of our astonishment in finding, a few days later, that the State had been voted out by a miserable minority, for want of firmness and resolution on the part of those whom we trusted to represent us there, and that Virginia had been dragooned out of the Union. I was told by a brother officer that the State had seceded, and that I must either resign and turn traitor to the government which had supported me from childhood, or I must leave this place.