Stephen F. Blanding

Published in 1886, these are the memories of a young man who enlisted as a sailor during the Civil War. He was assigned to the U.S.S. Louisiana and spent most of his two years on that vessel on what he called the Tar river (Pamlico), in North Carolina holding the town of Little Washington.

This is easy to read, despite the time it was written in. I had to laugh, because the author kept trying to tell a moral tale to enrich and inspire the youth that may read it in the future, but he couldn't help himself at times describing the scrapes he and his shipmates got into. Hard to tell whether he would have been a stuffed shirt, or a good pal. The author doesn't spend much time moralizing. He tells about life on the ship, the various forays they went on to reconnoiter where the Rebels were, the siege they endured, the people in the town, and the soldiers who were based there. It is the first time I had heard the Negro population referred to as "contraband." All in all an interesting read.… (meer)