The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Telescope 167 definitive medical work on the basis of his observations. In these years, her duty had little excitement, perhaps with the exception of disbanding a Mormon Colony on Beaver Island that had defied federal authority. During the Civil War, however, the MICHIGAN became enmeshed in a plot to free the several thousand Confederate prisoners held on Johnson's Island off Sandusky, Ohio. In 1864, a Confederate agent in Sandusky, Captain Charles Cole, communicated with an officer held on the island and conceived a plot to take over the MICHIGAN, which was guarding the island, free the prisoners, and use the MICHIGAN as a raider on the lakes. One can imagine the monumental uproar that would have ensued if the Confederate forces had simultaneously opened a second front on land, and had another ALABAMA steaming on Lake Erie. Capiain Cole enlisted the charms of a female Confederate sympathizer, and they both became great friends over a period of time with the wardroom of the MICHIGAN, hoping to entice all of the officers to a dinner and drug them. It was planned that another agent, Lieutenant John Beall of the Confederate Navy, would then arrive on the scene with armed men in a pirated passenger steamer, and they would take over the federal gunboat in the confusion. The date set for the operation, 19 September 1864, was a beautiful day with a clear Indian summer sky setting off the brilliant autumn foliage on the shore of the lake. Lieutenant Beall boarded the Sandusky-bound passenger steamer PHII/) PARSONS at a Canadian stop with several of his men, all in civilian dress. At another stop the remainder of his men came aboard similarly disguised, and carrying a small armory in a leather trunk. As the PARS3NS drew close to Sandusky, Lt. Beall and his men opened the trunk and took the ship over, keeping the crew at their stations tinder force of arms; about this time, the steamer ISLAND QUEEN approached and Beall ordered her to stop. Beall deposited his collection of passengers and the crew of the ISLAND QUEEN on a remote island, later scuttling the ISLAND QUEEN in shoal water. After darkness, the PARSONS slipped back into the bay off Johnson's Island to await the signal from Cole on the MICHIGAN that he had disposed of the officers. However, Cole was at that moment jailed, as the drugging had been discovered and the Commanding Officer in the MICHIGAN, CDR. J.C. Carter was waiting for the PARSONS with decks cleared for action. Beall realized that Cole had failed, and began retiring North towards Canada at flank speed. Beall entered the Detroit River and dropped the crew of the PARSONS off at an uninhabited Island south of Detroit and then ran the steamer aground on the Canadian side of the river and escaped in- land with his men. He was later captured and both he and Cole stood trial; Cole was pardoned for reasons not clear, but Beall was hung for piracy on Governor's Island, New York in February of 1865. Immediately after the war, in 1866, the MICHIGAN figured in the suppression of the Fenian Invasion when a force of Irish Nationalists crossed the Niagara River into Canada with the hopes of conquering that country; they were soon caught in a pincers movement between the enraged Canadian Militia and the MICHIGAN offshore and surrendered to the MICHIGAN, which must have seemed the lesser of two evils to the Irishmen. The years began to flow past the MICHIGAN now, as she fulfilled her employment of training cruises and surveying the lakes. In 1870 an Ensign named Gridley served aboard her, who was later to figure as the recipient of the famous command from Dewey at Manila