Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment

[105] the wharves, and presently to the angles of the chief streets; and the pretty town was our own without a shot. In spite of our detention, the surprise had been complete, and not a soul in Jacksonville had dreamed of our coming.

The day passed quickly, in eager preparations for defence; the people could or would give us no definite information about the Rebel camp, which was, however, known to be near, and our force did not permit our going out to surprise it. The night following was the most anxious I ever spent. We were all tired out; the companies were under arms, in various parts of the town, to be ready for an attack at any moment. My temporary quarters were beneath the loveliest grove of linden-trees, and as I reclined, half-dozing, the mocking-birds sang all night like nightingales,--their notes seeming to trickle down through the sweet air from amid the blossoming boughs. Day brought relief and the sense of due possession, and we could see what we had won.

Jacksonville was now a United States post again: the only post on the main-land in the Department of the South. Before the war it had three or four thousand inhabitants, and a rapidly growing lumber-trade, for which abundant facilities were evidently provided. The wharves were capacious, and the blocks of brick warehouses along the lower street were utterly unlike anything we had yet seen in that region, as were the neatness and thrift everywhere visible. It had been built up by Northern enterprise, and much of the property was owned by loyal men. It had been a great resort for invalids, though the Rebels had burned the large hotel which once accommodated them. Mills had also been burned; but the dwelling-houses were almost all in good