64                   
                Gen. Benham under arrest.
Here, in a sort of tank which the men had ex-
temporized, was a fine large turtle, recently
caught.  Rode back to headquarters with Fes-
senden and Hickox, another of Gen. Hunter�s
aides; at the lodgings of the former awhile,
then to Halpine�s.  Quite a little claret party
of young fellows, temporarily visited by the Gene-
ral.  Songs and smoke.  Presently I adjourn-
ed to the front office and got to work scribbling
       20.  Friday.  } till 1 1/2 A.M. finishing my
account of the James Island disaster for the
Tribune, to go North by the next day�s steamer.
As I wrote a tremendous storm of thunder, light-
ning and rain was raging without, which present-
ly exhausted itself.  Not very fall off, in one
of the apartments ending the row, was Gen-
Benham (the same unprepossessing officer I
had once met in New York at the house of Mar-
tin the clergyman) now placed under arrest
by Gen Hunter, as a reward for his recent �suc-
cessful reconnaisance� as he called it.  Halpine
had shown me Hunter�s order-book containing
a letter expressly forbidding Benham making
any attempt of the sort, and I could perceive,
was anxious that such an account should go to
the Tribune as should exonerate Hunter from
all responsibility in the matter.  Indeed all