By-and-by, greatly to the delight of the impatient Seventh, the Boston was headed for shore.  Never speak ill of the beast you bestraddle!  Therefore requiescat Boston! may her ribs lie light on soft sand when she goes to pieces! may her engines be cut up into bracelets for the arms of the patriotic fair! good-bye to her, dear old, close, dirty, slow coach!  She served her country well in a moment of trial.  Who knows but she saved it?  It was a race to see who should first get to Washington,—­and we and the Virginia mob, in alliance with the District mob, were perhaps nip and tuck for the goal.

ANNAPOLIS.

So the Seventh Regiment landed and took Annapolis.  We were the first troops ashore.

The middies of the Naval Academy no doubt believe that they had their quarters secure.  The Massachusetts boys are satisfied that they first took the town in charge.  And so they did.

But the Seventh took it a little more.  Not, of course, from its loyal men, but for its loyal men,—­for loyal Maryland, and for the Union.

Has anybody seen Annapolis?  It is a picturesque old place, sleepy enough, and astonished to find itself wide-awaked by a war and obliged to take responsibility and share for good and ill in the movement of its time.  The buildings of the Naval Academy stand parallel with the river Severn, with a green plateau toward the water and a lovely green lawn toward the town.  All the scene was fresh and fair with April, and I fancied, as the Boston touched the wharf, that I discerned the sweet fragrance of apple-blossoms coming with the spring-time airs.

I hope that the companies of the Seventh, should the day arrive, will charge upon horrid batteries or serried ranks with as much alacrity as they marched ashore on the greensward of the Naval Academy.  We disembarked, and were halted in line between the buildings and the river.

Presently, while we stood at ease, people began to arrive,—­some with smallish fruit to sell, some with smaller news to give.  Nobody knew whether Washington was taken.  Nobody knew whether Jeff.  Davis was now spitting in the Presidential spittoon, and scribbling his distiches with the nib of the Presidential goose-quill.  We were absolutely in doubt whether a seemingly inoffensive knot of rustics, on a mound without the inclosure, might not, at tap of drum, unmask a battery of giant columbiads, and belch blazes at us, raking our line.

Nothing so entertaining happened.  It was a parade, not a battle.  At sunset our band played strains sweet enough to pacify all Secession, if Secession had music in its soul.  Coffee, hot from the coppers of the Naval School, and biscuit were served out to us; and while we supped, we talked with our visitors, such as were allowed to approach.

First the boys of the School—­fine little blue-jackets—­had their story to tell.