Chapter I: Preface

"FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT" is the fifth and last but one of "The Blue and the Gray Series." The character of the operations in connection with the war of the Rebellion, and the incidents in which the interest of the young reader will be concentrated, are somewhat different from most of those detailed in the preceding volumes of the series, though they all have the same patriotic tendency, and are carried out with the same devotion to the welfare of the nation as those which deal almost solely in deeds of arms.

Although the soldiers and sailors of the army and navy of the Union won all the honors gained in the field of battle or on the decks of the national ships, and deserved all the laurels they gathered by their skill and bravery in the trying days when the republic was in peril, they were not the only actors in the greatest strife of the nineteenth century. Not all the labor of "saving the Union" was done in the trenches, on the march, on the gun deck of a man-of-war, or in other military and naval operations, though without these the efforts of all others would have been in vain. Thousands of men and women who never "smelled gunpowder," who never heard the booming cannon, or the rattling musketry, who never witnessed a battle on sea or land, but who kept their minds and hearts in touch with the holy cause, labored diligently and faithfully to support and sustain the soldiers and sailors at the front.

If all those who fought no battles are not honored like the leaders and commanders in the loyal cause, if they wear no laurels on their brows, if no monuments are erected to transmit their memory to posterity, if their names and deeds are not recorded in the Valhalla of the redeemed nation, they ought not to be disregarded and ignored. It was not on the field of strife alone in the South that the battle was fought and won. The army and the navy needed a moral, as well as a material support, which was cheerfully rendered by the great army of the people who never buckled on a sword, or shouldered a musket. Their work can not be summed up in deeds, for there was little or nothing that was brilliant and dazzling in their career. They need no monuments; but their work was necessary to the final and glorious result of the most terrible war of modern times.

No apology is necessary for placing the hero of the story and his skilful associate in a position at a distance from the actual field of battle. They were working for the salvation of the Union as effectively as they could have done in the din of the strife. They were "Fighting for the Right," as they understood it, though it is not treason to say, thirty years later, that the people of the South were as sincere as those of the North; and they could hardly have fought and suffered to the extent they did if it had been otherwise.

The incidents of the volume are more various than in the preceding stories, which were so largely a repetition of battle scenes; but the hero is still as earnest as ever in the cause he loves. He attains a high position without any ambition to win it; for, like millions of others who gave the best years of their lives to sustain the Union, who suffered the most terrible hardships and privations, so many hundreds of thousands giving their lives to their country, Christy fought and labored for the cause, and not from any personal ambition. It is the young man's high character, his devotion to duty, rather than the incidents and adventures in which he is engaged, that render him worthy of respect, and deserving of the honors that were bestowed upon him. The younger participants in the war of the Rebellion, Christy Passford among the number, are beginning to be grizzled with the snows of fifty winters; but they are still rejoicing in "A Victorious Union."

William T. Adams.

Dorchester, April 18, 1892.

CONTENTS

Page CHAPTER I. A Conference at Bonnydale 15

CHAPTER II. A Complicated Case 26

CHAPTER III. The Departure of the Chateaugay 37

CHAPTER IV. Monsieur Gilfleur explains 48

CHAPTER V. An Abundance of Evidence 59

CHAPTER VI. The Boarding of the Ionian 70

CHAPTER VII. A Bold Proposition 81

CHAPTER VIII. A Notable Expedition 92

CHAPTER IX. The Frenchman in Bermuda 103

CHAPTER X. Important Information obtained 114

CHAPTER XI. An Unexpected Rencontre 125

CHAPTER XII. As Impracticable Scheme 136

CHAPTER XIII. At the End of the Chase 147

CHAPTER XIV. An Easy Victory 158

CHAPTER XV. The Gentleman with a Grizzly Beard 169

CHAPTER XVI. Among the Bahamas 180

CHAPTER XVII. The Landing at New Providence 191

CHAPTER XVIII. An Affray in Nassau 202

CHAPTER XIX. An Old Acquaintance 213

CHAPTER XX. A Band of Ruffians 224

CHAPTER XXI. A Question of Neutrality 235

CHAPTER XXII. On Board of the Snapper 246

CHAPTER XXIII. The Chateaugay in the Distance 257

CHAPTER XXIV. The Tables turned 268

CHAPTER XXV. Captain Flanger in Irons 279

CHAPTER XXVI. A Visit to Tampa Bay 290

CHAPTER XXVII. Among the Keys of Tampa 302

CHAPTER XXVIII. The Surrender of the Reindeer 313

CHAPTER XXIX. Bringing out the Prize 324

CHAPTER XXX. A Very Important Service 335

CHAPTER XXXI. An Undesired Promotion 346

FIGHTING FOR THE RIGHT