Soon after anchoring, Bailey was ordered to go on shore and demand the unconditional surrender of the city, and he asked Lieutenant Perkins to accompany him.  This duty was almost as dangerous and conspicuous as the passage of the forts had been, for an infuriated and insolent mob followed them from the landing to the mayor’s office, and while there with the mayor and General Lovell, besieged the doors, demanding the “Yankee officers” to be given up to them to be hung.  The demonstration at last became so threatening, that the mayor drew off the attention of the mob by a speech to them in front of the building, while the Union officers took a close carriage in its rear and driving rapidly down to their boat, reached the ship in safety.

Bailey had managed to hoist the flag over the mint, which a party of rebels tore down the next day, but the authorities refused to surrender the city or to haul down the insignia of rebellion.  Then ensued a correspondence which, to read at this day, makes the blood boil at rebel insolence, and the wonder grow at Farragut’s forbearance; but on the twenty-ninth of April, he sent Fleet-Captain Bell on shore with two howitzers manned by sailors and a battalion of two hundred and fifty marines and took possession of the city.  Meanwhile the forts had surrendered to Porter of the mortar fleet, and General Butler, arriving on the first of May, relieved Farragut of further responsibility as to the city.

[Illustration:  Going ashore to demand the surrender of new Orleans.]

The Cayuga had been so badly cut up by shot and shell that she was selected to take Captain Bailey north as bearer of dispatches, and landing 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 Merrimack 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 boastfulness.

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 circumstances, but had, as the officer from the San Jacinto, boarded the Trent and taken from her the arch-conspirators, Mason and Slidell, suffering the contumely of rebel womanhood in the reception accorded him by Mr. Commissioner Slidell’s daughter.