occasion, Smith told Underhill that on the 27th of January he had crossed from the month of the canal with a party of four or five men to the levee on Smedes' plantation, in order to ascertain if we were constructing any batteries there. That soon after reaching the levee he observed a Confederate officer riding down it towards the point where he and his scouting party were. Lying close, they waited until the officer had come up to them and dismounted. While he was looking through his field-glasses at the Federal works on the opposite bank, Smith and his men sprang upon him and secured him. The mare broke away, ran out into the "overflow," and, surmounting the levee, galloped back to the point whence she had come. As soon as it became dark. Smith recrossed the Mississippi with his prisoner, and sent him to Grant's head-quarters, where he believed he was when General Maury's flag of truce came to inquire for him two days after. Captain Smith showed Underhill the opera-glass which he had taken from his prisoner, and retained as a trophy of his exploit. The glass was that which General Maury had on that morning lent to his cousin (with his name and rank upon it).
There are several points in this narrative which give it every appearance of truth. It agreed, in the main, with Burnett's observations, and the theory deduced from them, of which neither Underhill nor Smith had ever heard. The opera-glass seemed to fix the fact of capture, while the respectable standing of the two gentlemen, and the absence of any motive or object for such a fiction, leave us no right to question any part of their story.
As to Smith's belief that young Maury was at Grant's headquarters while that General was denying all knowledge of him, we must remember that Smith could only know that Maury had been sent up to head-quarters, while Grant, having just arrived at the army with large reinforcements, and being occupied in organizing his forces, could not be expected to be interested in, or even informed, of the capture of a lieutenant. Therefore we are justified in believing young Maury was captured and borne across to the Federal Army. What was his subsequent fate is the mystery which has never yet been revealed.
For more than fifty years the father, the uncles, and many others of the kindred of this young gentleman have been well-known officers of the naval and military service of the United
