Touching incidents sometimes occur on such occasions. There was one deeply so on this occasion. General Sherman, whose history ran back to the stirring times of the Texas Republic, was in command of the Confederate ram that fought the "Harriet Lane." Lieutenant Sherman, just fallen on her deck, was his son. There they had met in deadly strife, father and son, the latter mortally hurt, and life fast ebbing away. But they did not recognize each other till the bloody contest was over, and then, at the moment of recognition, the son exclaims in feeble tones: "O, is that you, father? and have we been fighting each other? The day is lost, and I am dying now, father! Can I not have the holy sacrament to my comfort before I die?" We will not attempt to describe the agony of that father's heart, as he bent to embrace his dying boy, and to say, "Yes, my son; O, my darling son!" The sacrament was given and taken together by living father and dying son, who in one short hour afterward as each said--"Forgive me, father," and "Forgive me, my son"--breathed his life out sweetly, lying on his father's bosom. The next day a solemn military procession, with soft and reverent tread, passed to the cemetery, where the father himself read the sublime service of the Episcopal Church--of which father and son were both members--over his boy's grave. Solemn salutes were fired in honor of the noble dead. The victory and the defeat were alike forgotten, and regretted for the day, under the sublime touch of a human scene so tender, so grandly holy! We know the father well, a _good_ man, though a rebel.
The news of the victory passed over the State with an electric thrill, and gave the people an elevation of spirits, from which they never fully came down, even at the close of the war. This, with an easy victory obtained at Sabine Pass, about the same time, by an Irish company of artillery in fortifications, by which a fleet was repulsed, and one or two of the largest vessels disabled and captured, gave Texas somewhat of a feeling of invincibility.
The next day after the retaking of Galveston, another sensation occurred, but of an entirely different character, showing other phases of human nature, and developing a different class of feelings. The circumstances were as follows: That day a fleet of transports hove in sight outside, just from New Orleans, bringing fifteen thousand troops, to reinforce the small garrison already there--one or two regiments. These troops belonged to General Banks' Department, and were sent to Galveston to commence operations on a larger scale than had ever been attempted before. It was an earnest purpose and part of a general plan for the subjugation of the "Lone Star" State. They were to make Galveston the Gulf base of operations, and penetrate inland to Houston, and thus up the Texas Central Railroad into the interior of the country, forming a junction with the expedition coming in from the Red River way, in accordance with plans traced on military maps. This would create a diversion, and compel the Texas forces to remain at home, and not be sent to fight Banks' main expedition. The scheme was doubtless a good one in its conception, and looked like the scheme of Grant and Sherman to break that portion of the Confederate backbone, lying west of the Mississippi. More than this, it was a part of the grand whole devised by them for crushing every part of the monster east and west of the Father of Waters.