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THE BLOCKADE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE CRUISERS 
 

 
THE NA VY IN THE CIVIL IVAR.—L 
 
 THE BLOCKADE 
 
 AND 
 
 THE CRUISERS 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL SOLEY, 
 
 PROFESSOR U. S. NAVY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
 
 1887 
 
Copyright, 1883 , by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
 
 Trow’s 
 
 Printing and Bookbinding Company 
 201-213 East i2t/i Street 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
°\)?).) f 
 
 St> V & 
 
 CX)k .</ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 As the introductory volume of a series, it is the purpose 
 of this book to deal not only with the specific subjects men- 
 tioned in the title, but also with the general condition of 
 the Navy at the outbreak of the War, the peculiar difficul- 
 ties before it, and the way in which the difficulties were 
 met. In this connection it has been necessary to touch 
 incidentally upon matters that are the subject of animated 
 controversy in the Navy at the present moment. Such a re- 
 ference to actual questions cannot be avoided, if the lessons 
 of the War are to be fairly and fearlessly regarded. 
 
 For statements of fact, reliance has been chiefly placed 
 upon the written accounts, official or unofficial, of those 
 who took part in the events recorded. In describing the 
 operations of the blockade-runners, the narratives of Maf- 
 fitt, Roberts, and Wilkinson have been largely used. Fi- 
 nally, the writer must acknowledge his obligations to many 
 kind friends, both in and out of the service, who have aided 
 him with valuable advice and suggestions. 
 
 402880 
 

 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 List of Maps, ix 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Preparations, 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Blockade, .26 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Chesapeake, 47 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Atlantic Squadrons, 82 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Gulf Squadrons, 121 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Blockade-Runners, 163 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 viii 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Commerce-Destroyers, 168 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Conclusion, , . 231 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Vessels of the United States Navy, March 4, 1861, . 241 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Vessels Constructed or Projected, 1861-65, . . 244 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Instructions from Flag-Officer Goldsborough to 
 Officers Commanding Blockading Vessels, . . 251 
 
LIST OF MAPS. 
 
 In marking the channels in all the maps in this volume the twelve- 
 foot curve has been followed. The dotted surface therefore represents 
 a depth of twelve feet or less. 
 
 The Blockaded Coast, 
 
 Hampton Roads, . 
 
 Entrances to Cape Fear River, „ 
 Entrances to Charleston Harbor, 
 Passes of the Mississippi, 
 
 Entrance to Mobile Bat, 
 Galveston Harbor and Entrance, 
 
 to face 36 
 . 60 
 • . 92 
 
 . 106 
 . 127 
 . 133 
 . 145 
 
THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 The Naval War of 1861 was marked by two principal feat- 
 ures. The first is that while one side had a small force 
 of naval vessels, which were generally good of their kind, 
 the other entered the contest with absolutely nothing that 
 could be called a man-of-war. The second is that though 
 certain developments in the character and construction of 
 ships and of weapons had been foreshadowed before the war, 
 and had even been partially realized, it was while the strug- 
 gle was actually in progress that changes took place in these 
 respects which amounted to a revolution in naval warfare. 
 At the beginning the fact that sailing vessels were soon to 
 be laid aside was still far from general recognition, espe- 
 cially among officers of conservative tendencies; the three 
 great weapons of to-day, the rifled gun, the ram, and the 
 torpedo, were almost unknown in the service ; and iron 
 armor was still an experiment. The modifications of the 
 past fifteen years had accustomed men’s minds to the idea 
 that considerable changes would gradually take place ; but 
 none foresaw or were prepared for the tremendous develop- 
 ment that was wrought in four years of actual fighting. 
 
 L-l 1 
 
2 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Modern naval warfare was therefore almost a new art to 
 the officers that were called in 1861 into active service. The 
 long period of profound peace that followed the wars of 
 Napoleon had been broken only by the war with Mexico in 
 1846, the Crimean War in 1854, and the Franco-Austrian 
 War in 1859. None of these was marked by naval operations 
 on any important scale, and such operations as there were 
 indicated but faintly the coming development. In the con- 
 test with Mexico, steamers were used in war for the first 
 time ; but the enemy was so destitute of naval resources 
 that their overwhelming importance was not fully recog- 
 nized. The operations of the navy were confined to the 
 attack of imperfectly-fortified points on the seaboard, and to 
 blockading a country that had no commercial importance. 
 The Crimean War advanced a step farther. The destruction 
 of the Turkish fleet at Sinope, in 1853, showed the effective- 
 ness of horizontal shell-firing, as invented by Paixlians, 
 while the success of the French ironclads at Kinburn led 
 the way to the practice of casing ships-of-war in armor. In 
 1858 experiments were made at Portsmouth with the Erebus 
 and Meteor, two lightly-armored floating batteries ; and 
 these were followed, in France and in England, by the 
 Gloire and the Warrior, veritable ironclad cruisers. But 
 the new system was still in its experimental stage ; and it 
 was left to the war of 1861 to show clearly its practical 
 value. 
 
 The application of armor to the sides of vessels was accom- 
 panied, or rather induced, by improvements in ordnance, 
 especially by the introduction of rifled guns in Europe and 
 of the heavy cast-iron smooth-bores of Dahlgren in America. 
 Both these improvements, however, were of recent date. 
 The first successful employment of rifled cannon in actual 
 war was made by the French in the Italian campaign of 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 3 
 
 1859 ; while the heavy Dahlgren guns had hardly been ten 
 years in use, and were still undergoing development. 
 
 In regard to the ram, though seemingly a paradox, it may 
 be said that its employment in naval warfare was so ancient 
 that in 1861 it was really a new weapon. Its revival was a 
 direct consequence of the application of steam to the propul- 
 sion of vessels. The Greeks and Romans had used it in 
 their galley-fights with destructive effect ; and it was only 
 displaced by heavy guns when oars were displaced by sails, 
 when ships no longer fought end-on, but broadside to broad- 
 side, and when the close-hauled line ahead took the place of 
 the direct attack in line abreast, of the old galley tactics. 
 The introduction of steam, by giving ships-of-war a motive 
 power under their own control, independent of the action of 
 the wind — an advantage similar to that which the triremes 
 possessed in their banks of oars — revived the trireme’s mode 
 of attack, and made the ram once more an effective weapon. 
 But in 1861 this phase of naval development had not been 
 recognized, and the sinking of the Cumberland, in March of 
 the next year, first revealed the addition that steam had made 
 to the number and variety of implements of destruction. 
 
 Torpedoes, though of more recent introduction than rams, 
 were not wholly new weapons. The idea of the torpedo, 
 first- discovered by Bushnell, and developed by Fulton, was 
 rejected by the English Government in 1805, because it was 
 recognized as giving an advantage to a weak navy over a 
 powerful one, and its adoption could only impair the mari- 
 time supremacy of Great Britain. On account of this ad- 
 vantage which the torpedo gave to the weaker side, it was 
 brought into use by the Russians in the Crimea, and, though 
 none of the allied vessels were destroyed by its agency, it 
 none the less contributed appreciably to the protection of 
 Russian harbors. But its great importance was not estab- 
 
4 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 lished until the Civil War, and then only in the second year. 
 The Confederates took it up for the same reason that the 
 Russians had adopted it in 1854, and the English had re- 
 jected it in 1805. Driven by the poverty of their naval 
 resources to the use of every device that ingenuity could 
 suggest, in the fall of 1862 they established a bureau at 
 Richmond to elaborate and systematize torpedo warfare ; 
 and the destruction of the Housatonic, the Tecumseh, the 
 Patapsco, and many smaller vessels, showed the tremendous 
 power of the newly adopted weapon. 
 
 From the fact that the navy at this period was concerned 
 with an essentially living and growing science, it was impor- 
 tant that its officers, above all in the senior grades, should be 
 men of progressive minds and of energetic and rapid action. 
 Especially was this the case when the navy found itself 
 upon the threshold of a great war, in which every variety 
 of naval operation was to be attempted, and every contriv- 
 ance of mechanical art was to be employed. No doubt 
 a war always brings new men to the front, irrespective of 
 rank or age. But the main object of a navy’s existence in 
 time of peace is to be in a condition of instant readiness for 
 war, and this object can only be attained by having the 
 ablest and most energetic men in the foremost places. Un- 
 less such a provision is made, and made before war begins, 
 the possibilities of naval development will be neglected ; 
 the vigor and audacity that should mark the earlier opera- 
 tions of a war will be wanting ; and the opportunity of strik- 
 ing sharp and sudden blows at the outset will be lost. 
 
 Unfortunately, in 1861, the arrangement of the navy list 
 failed to meet this essential condition of readiness for active 
 operations. Long years of peace, the unbroken course of 
 seniority promotion, and the absence of any provision for 
 retirement, had filled the highest grade with gallant veter- 
 
THE PREPARATIONS, 
 
 5 
 
 ans, most of whom had reached an age that unfitted them 
 for active service afloat. At the head of the list were the 
 seventy-eight captains. A few of them were men of com- 
 manding talents, and these few left their mark upon the 
 records of the w T ar. Of the rest, some had obtained distinc- 
 tion in an earlier period of their career. But it is only in 
 exceptional men that the physical and mental vigor is to be 
 found that resists the enfeebling influences of advancing 
 years ; and it would be unjust to expect the active opera- 
 tions of war to be successfully carried on by a body of com- 
 manding officers most of whom had passed their sixtieth 
 year. 
 
 This was, however, only one of the difficulties of the situ- 
 ation. The excessive accumulation of older officers at the 
 head of the list was felt as a heavy drag all the way down 
 to the foot. Promotion was blocked, as there was no pro- 
 vision for retirement ; and the commanders and lieutenants, 
 many of whom were conspicuous for ability and energy, 
 were stagnating in subordinate positions. The commanders 
 at the head of the list were between fifty-eight and sixty 
 years of age — a time of life at which few men are useful for 
 active service. The upper lieutenants were forty-eight or 
 fifty — some indeed were past fifty — and very few were in 
 command of vessels, as there were two hundred officers 
 above them. The first-lieutenant of the Hartford, at that 
 time the flagship of the East India squadron, had been 
 thirty-four years in the service. He and his contemporaries, 
 who had entered the navy at sixteen or thereabout, had not 
 yet risen to the responsibilities of command. This enforced 
 continuance in subordinate stations could not fail to tell 
 upon even the best men. The tendency of such a system is 
 to make mere routine men, and to substitute apathy and in- 
 dolence for zeal and energy. If a man that has had proper 
 
6 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 training is not fit for command at thirty-six, it is not likely 
 that he will ever be fit for it. If he has reached the point 
 of fitness, every year of postponement, unless he is a very 
 extraordinary man, is a year of deterioration. 
 
 The efficiency of the service was further weakened by the 
 vicious system of promotion by seniority, to which the navy 
 has always clung tenaciously, in the face of reason and 
 precedent, of the analogies of civil preferment, and the ex- 
 ample of other military and naval establishments. The 
 defects of this system may be briefly indicated. Every man 
 who lives long enough, unless gross incompetency can be 
 proved against him, goes to the head of the list, while those 
 who have entered the service later, however much they may 
 excel in ability or zeal, remain below to wait their turn. It 
 is purely a question of survival. An officer comes to look 
 upon promotion as his right, apart from any considerations 
 of merit or distinction. Public opinion in the service has 
 no leaders, for the leading minds are not destined, as they 
 would be in every other profession, to gravitate to the lead- 
 ing positions. They simply take their turn. The natural 
 conservatism of a military body is exaggerated, and judg- 
 ment becomes warped by tradition. As promotion is sure, 
 there is no inducement to effort. No one will readily as- 
 sume responsibility, for he only runs a risk without any 
 prospect of reward. It is not so much the presence of poor 
 material that injures a service, as its elevation by an iron 
 rule of promotion, and the enforced subordination of more 
 capable men. As the Secretary of the Navy in 1855 tersely 
 put it, “It is neither more nor less than elevating the in- 
 competent, and then ordering the unpromoted competent to 
 do their work.” 
 
 It became evident, shortly after the war began, that steps 
 must be taken to remedy the existing state of things ; but 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 7 
 
 nothing could be done at once, and it was only in Decem- 
 ber, 1861, that a law was passed retiring all officers at the 
 age of sixty-two, or after forty-five years of service. By the 
 same law, any captain or commander might be selected for 
 the command of a squadron, with the rank of flag-officer, 
 which should give him authority over his seniors in the 
 squadron. Another act, passed in the following summer, 
 created the grades of rear-admiral and commodore, recast 
 the whole corps of officers, and established promotion by se- 
 lection temporarily in the highest grade. These measures, 
 though late in coming, had the desired effect. The veterans 
 were gradually replaced by younger men ; the commanders 
 and lieutenants were raised to the places they were qualified 
 to fill ; and new life was infused into the service. 
 
 But the spirit of routine had for thirty years pervaded the 
 naval establishment, and the change could not be effected in 
 a day. The whole tendency of the navy had been to pre- 
 serve traditions, and to repress individuality in the junior 
 officers. Men thought alike, talked alike, and acted alike. 
 The officers in active service, grown old in the lower grades, 
 and but little encouraged to exercise their powers of volition, 
 had come to regard themselves as parts of a machine, and to 
 wait for the orders of their superior. As a general thing, 
 the assumption of responsibility was neither desired nor 
 permitted ; and the subordinate who presumed, even in an 
 emergency, to act upon his own judgment, was apt to bring 
 down upon himself official censure. It is related of one of 
 the captains at the battle of New Orleans, a man of unques- 
 tioned courage, that when he fell in with the Manassas, he 
 hailed ship after ship to obtain an order from the admiral 
 to run her down. Nor was this an extreme case. As it hap- 
 pened, the character of the war was such as to call especially 
 for self-reliance, resolute action, readiness of resource, and 
 
8 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 the exercise of individual judgment. But confirmed habits 
 are not easily shaken off ; and the operations of the first two 
 years show from time to time the persistence of old tradi- 
 tions. Nothing short of a complete upheaval of the service 
 brought about the needful change ; commanders became 
 admirals by a single step ; and junior officers became first- 
 lieutenants of the ships in which they were serving as mid- 
 shipmen. Finally, when the great leaders came into posi- 
 tions of active command, their encouragement and approval 
 of individual enterprise gave to their juniors the opportuni- 
 ties of which the latter were only too eager to avail them- 
 selves. 
 
 It was another unfortunate feature of the situation, that 
 while there was a superabundance of old officers, there* was 
 a deficiency in the junior grades. Below the lieutenants 
 there were less than a hundred masters and midshipmen. 
 These, together with a dozen of the younger lieutenants, 
 were graduates of the Naval Academy ; and their service 
 during the war showed the value of their thorough training. 
 To fill the gap at the foot of the list the three upper classes 
 of acting midshipmen were ordered from the Academy into 
 active service. Most of these were mere boys. They found 
 themselves, with only the experience of two or three years 
 at the Naval School, suddenly placed in positions of difficulty 
 and responsibility. Many of them were lieutenants at nine- 
 teen ; but no better work was done in the naval war than 
 that which was placed in the hands of these lads from the 
 Academy. 
 
 The deficiency of officers was increased by the resignation 
 or dismissal of those who took side with the South. There 
 were 322 of these of all grades and corps, and among them 
 were several of marked ability. But even without the losses 
 occasioned by retirement and by resignation, the number of 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 9 
 
 officers would have been wholly insufficient to meet the de- 
 mands of the war. Volunteers were called for, and great 
 numbers entered the service. There were appointed al- 
 together about 7,500. The regular officers formed only 
 one-seventh of the whole service ; but in general they filled 
 the most important positions. The additions to the line of 
 the navy were composed of a great variety of material. 
 Some were merchant captains and mates of experience ; 
 others had never been at sea. Those employed on the 
 Mississippi were chiefly steamboat men and pilots. Many 
 of them were capable and gallant men, who, though unused 
 to the handling of guns and the discipline of a military 
 service, conducted themselves honorably and acquitted 
 themselves with credit. As a class, the volunteers were an 
 indispensable addition to the naval force, and rendered 
 valuable service. Without the least reflection upon their 
 good qualities, it may be said that their efficiency would 
 have been increased by a previous military training. But 
 no attempt had ever been made to form a reserve for the 
 navy ; and the administration was fortunate when it secured 
 any nautical experience, although military training might be 
 wholly wanting. 
 
 Great as was the want of officers, the want of trained sea- 
 men was equally great. The complement of the navy had 
 been fixed at 7,600. Of these there were on March 10, 1861, 
 only 207 in all the ports and receiving-ships on the Atlantic 
 coast. It was a striking illustration of the improvidence of 
 naval legislation and administration, that in a country of 
 thirty millions of people only a couple of hundred were at 
 the disposal of the Navy Department. Seamen could not be 
 had either to man the ships that might be commissioned, or 
 to protect the exposed stations at Annapolis and Norfolk. 
 Prompt measures were taken during the first year to in- 
 I.— 1 * 
 
10 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 crease the force ; and later, a great expansion took place. 
 In Inly, 1863, there were 34,000 men in the service. But at 
 all times there was a difficulty in obtaining trained seamen. 
 Large bounties were offered by State and local authorities 
 for enlistment in the army, and transfers between the two 
 services were not authorized by law. When the draft was 
 established, mariners were subjected to it like other citi- 
 zens, without any regard to the service which they would 
 prefer, or for which they might be specially fitted. In as- 
 signing the quotas to each locality, no allowance was made 
 to maritime communities for the seamen they had furnished ; 
 so that they were forced, in self-defence, to send their sea- 
 faring population into the army. In 1864, a law was passed 
 correcting these evils ; but meantime the navy suffered, and 
 vessels were occasionally unable to go to sea for want of 
 men. As the necessities of the service grew more pressing, 
 the number of men in the navy increased. To obtain them, 
 it was necessary to hold out extraordinary inducements ; and 
 in the last months, bounties as high as one thousand dollars 
 were offered and paid for a single seaman. When the war 
 ended, there were 51,500 men in the service. 
 
 Nothing shows more forcibly the dependence of the navy 
 upon the merchant marine for recruiting its ranks in time of 
 war than the enormous additions both of officers and seamen 
 that took place between 1861 and 1865. It is from the mer- 
 chant marine that such reinforcements must always be 
 chiefly drawn. To fill the cadres of the army a well-trained 
 and organized militia stands always ready, at least in many 
 of the States ; but no steps have ever been taken toward es- 
 tablishing a sea-militia, even since its importance has been 
 demonstrated by the war. A trained reserve force is a 
 greater necessity for the navy than for the army, not because 
 the one service is more important than the other, but be- 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 11 
 
 cause its ranks are less easily recruited. It may be said 
 that drill will make any man a soldier, while a special train- 
 ing is required to make an efficient man-of-war’s man. The 
 army is purely a military profession; the navy combines 
 two professions — each an occupation by itself — the military 
 and the nautical. Hence the greater necessity for the navy 
 of a large body of trained officers ; and hence, also, the 
 greater importance of a partially-trained naval reserve. 
 
 In materiel, the navy was by no means in a backward con- 
 dition. The wise policy, begun before the establishment of 
 the Navy Department, of building vessels which should be 
 the best possible specimens of their class, had been steadily 
 adhered to ; and in war-ship construction the United States 
 still held, and continued to hold until 1867, a place very 
 near the highest. When the importance of steam as a mo- 
 tive power had become established, the early side- wheelers 
 were built, — first the Mississippi and Missouri, and later the 
 Powhatan, Susquehanna, and Saranac. The Powhatan and 
 Susquehanna, at the time they were launched, in 1850, were 
 the most efficient naval vessels afloat. Next came the six 
 screw-frigates, which were built in 1855, and were regarded 
 all the world over as the model men-of-war of the period. 
 Of these the largest was the Niagara. The other five, the 
 Roanoke, Colorado, Merrimac, Minnesota, and Wabash, 
 were vessels of a little over three thousand tons, and they 
 carried, for their day, a powerful battery. Again, in 1858, 
 twelve screw-sloops of two classes were built, most of which 
 were admirable vessels, though they were wanting, with a 
 few exceptions, in the important quality of speed. The first 
 class, vessels of about two thousand tons, included the Lan- 
 caster, Hartford, Richmond, Brooklyn, and Pensacola. The 
 second class, of which the Pawnee and Iroquois were the 
 largest, were also serviceable vessels. Finally, in February, 
 
12 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 1861, Congress liad made appropriation for seven new screw- 
 sloops, which were intended to be as efficient as their pre- 
 decessors. 
 
 But these measures, "well-judged though they were, were 
 only a first step in the general conversion of the naval force 
 from sailing vessels into steamers. Of the ninety names 
 borne on the Navy Register in 1861, fifty were those of ves- 
 sels of the older type — ships-of-the-line, frigates, sloops, and 
 brigs. Several of the liners were still on the stocks, never 
 having been completed. The others were notable ships in 
 their day, but their day was past and gone forever. The 
 list of frigates was headed by the Constitution and the 
 United States, built originally in the last century, and ren- 
 dered famous by the victories of 1812. Others had been 
 built within a more recent period, but the type had not been 
 materially altered. The frigates were useful as receiving 
 and practice-ships ; but as far as war-service was concerned, 
 they had only a historic value. But little more could be 
 said of the sloops and brigs ; and the remainder of the sail- 
 ing fleet were store-ships. 
 
 Though swelling the total of ships-of-war to a considerable 
 figure, the sailing vessels added little or nothing to the effi- 
 ciency of the force. This fact explains, in some degree, the 
 inadequacy of the navy at the beginning of the war. A 
 change had -taken place about fifteen years before in the 
 motive power of ships, so radical that all the constructions 
 of an earlier date were completely superseded. In 1840 the 
 navy was stronger for its day than in 1860 ; because in 1840 
 all its ships were ships of the period, while in 1860 only 
 half the fleet could be so regarded. The distance in time 
 that separated the second Macedonian from the Powhatan 
 was not much greater than that between the Powhatan and 
 the Hartford ; yet in the first case the change was a revolu- 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 13 
 
 tion, while in the second it was only a development. A 
 captain that fought the Invincible Armada would have been 
 more at home in the typical war-ship of 1840, than the aver- 
 age captain of 1840 could have been at that time in the ad- 
 vanced types of the Civil War. As a matter of fact, it was no 
 uncommon thing in 1861 to find officers in command of 
 steamers who had never served in steamers before, and who 
 were far more anxious about their boilers than about their 
 enemy. As naval science had advanced more in the last 
 twenty-five years than in the two hundred years preceding, 
 more than half the vessels on the navy list had become sud- 
 denly useless, and the effective force was narrowed down to 
 the forty that had steam as a motive power. 
 
 Another fact which helped to account for the want of 
 preparation in 1861 was the supineness of the Navy De- 
 partment during the last months of Buchanan’s administra- 
 tion. Few wars come on without some note of warning ; 
 and this was no exception. The effective force, small as it 
 was, might easily have been so disposed as to be ready for 
 an emergency, without even exciting comment. The failure 
 to take the necessary measures need not, however, be im- 
 puted to a treacherous sympathy with the insurgents. It 
 was only a part of the general policy of inaction, deliberately 
 adopted by the Government during the winter of 1860-61, 
 which forbade any measures pointing even remotely to co- 
 ercion. The most ordinary preparations were neglected; 
 and if the crippling of the fleet had been intentional, it 
 could not have been more effectual. 
 
 Of the forty steamers included in the general list, five 
 were unserviceable, two of them being still on the stocks, 
 and the others useless except as receiving-ships. Two more 
 were mere tugs, and, together with the Michigan, sta- 
 tioned on the lakes, may be thrown out of the calculation. 
 
14 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Eight others, including the five frigates, were laid up in 
 ordinary. There remained twenty-four steamers, whose dis- 
 position on the 4th of March was as follows : 
 
 Class. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Station. 
 
 One screw-frigate 
 
 Niagara 
 
 Returning from Japan. 
 Coast of Africa. 
 Pacific. 
 
 Home Squadron (Pen- 
 sacola). 
 
 East Indies. 
 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 Home Squadron (re- 
 turning from Vera 
 Cruz). 
 
 Pacific. 
 
 Five screw-sloops (1st class). 
 Three side-wheel steamers . . 
 
 - 
 
 r San Jacinto . . 
 
 Lancaster 
 
 Brooklyn 
 
 Hartford 
 
 ^ Richmond . . . 
 ' Susquehanna . 
 Powhatan .... 
 
 [ Saranac 
 
 
 
 " Mohican 1 
 
 Narragansett . 
 
 Iroquois 
 
 Pawnee 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 Pacific. 
 
 Medi t erran ean. 
 
 Washington. 
 
 Pacific. 
 
 East Indies. 
 
 Eight screw-sloops (2d class). 
 
 
 Wyoming 
 
 Dacotah 
 
 Five screw steamers (3d class) 
 
 
 Pocahontas . . . 
 
 [ Seminole 
 
 'Wyandotte. . . 
 
 Mohawk 
 
 Crusader 
 
 Sumter 
 
 Home Squadron (re- 
 turning from V era 
 Cruz). 
 
 Coast of Brazil. 
 
 Home Squadron (Pen- 
 sacola). 
 
 New York. 
 
 New York. 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 
 
 Mystic 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 Two side-wheel steamers 
 
 
 \ Pulaski 
 
 Brazil. 
 
 
 l Saginaw 
 
 East Indies. 
 
 It will be observed that of the twelve vessels composing 
 the Home Squadron, seven were steamers ; and of these 
 only three, the Pawnee, Mohawk, and Crusader, were in 
 northern ports and at the immediate disposal of the new ad- 
 ministration. The best part of the fleet was scattered all 
 over the world. 
 
 In the matter of ordnance, as in ships, the navy had been 
 making active progress. In the old sailing vessels, the 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 15 
 
 32 -pounder, which was simply a development of the 18s and 
 24s of 1812, and the VUI-inch shell-gun were still the usual 
 guns. Since 1850, the powerful Dahlgren smooth-bore shell- 
 guns had been introduced, and the new steam-frigates and 
 sloops were armed with them. The IX-inch guns of this 
 description were mounted in broadside, and the Xl-inch 
 (with a few X-inch) on pivots. The powers of the Xl-inch 
 had not been fully tested, and the prescribed service-charge 
 was smaller than it was afterward found that the gun would 
 bear. The latest development of the smooth-bore gun was 
 the XV-inch, one of which was generally mounted in each 
 monitor turret. Rifled guns were gradually introduced dur- 
 ing the war. These were chiefly Parrott guns, 20-, 30-, and 
 100-pounders. They were cast-iron guns, strengthened by a 
 wrought-iron band around the breech. Later, 60-pounders 
 and 150-pounders were manufactured. The Parrott gun of 
 the smaller calibres was serviceable, but as a heavy gun it 
 was dangerous, and occasionally burst. Besides the Parrott 
 guns, a few light cast-iron Dahlgren rifles were made ; and 
 in the Western flotilla, when it was transferred to the navy, 
 there were several army rifled 42-j)Ounders, which were so 
 dangerous as to be nearly useless. 
 
 The demands of the new service were many and various. 
 There was the river service, where the navy acted largely in 
 co-operation with the army, in the reduction of fortified 
 points, and in opening and keeping open the lines of com- 
 munication. For this the essential qualification was light 
 draft. It needed small handy vessels, capable of approach- 
 ing the shore, and of passing through shallow and difficult 
 channels. Quite distinct from it was the ocean service, 
 which meant the pursuit and capture of Confederate cruisers, 
 and of vessels engaged in illegal trade. The prime neces- 
 sity here was speed. Lastly, there was the coast service, 
 
16 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 comprising the maintenance of the blockade, and detached 
 operations against fortifications protected by powerful bat- 
 teries. The blockade required vessels that combined both 
 speed and light draft, together with seaworthiness, and a 
 certain degree of force to resist the sudden attacks which 
 were made from time to time, in the hope of raising the 
 blockade, or what was perhaps of equal importance, of in- 
 ducing a belief abroad that such a result had been accom- 
 plished. The attack of fortified harbors, on the other hand, 
 though from the nature of things carried on in connection 
 with the blockade, called for an entirely different type of 
 vessel. Here, force pure and simple, was needed ; force of- 
 fensive and defensive, heavy guns and heavy armor. 
 
 For all these kinds of service, vessels were required, and 
 vessels in great numbers. A small force could accomplish 
 nothing. The operations on the Mississippi and its tribu- 
 taries alone, operations which were second to none in extent 
 and efficiency, and carried on w T holly in the enemy’s country, 
 required a large fleet. For the ocean service, the vessels, to 
 accomplish their object, must be numerous ; while a very 
 few served every purpose of the enemy. It was easy for 
 the half-dozen commerce-destroyers to catch merchantmen, 
 with which every sea was filled, while it was a very difficult 
 matter to catch the half-dozen commerce-destroyers. Sim- 
 ilarly, the blockade service required vessels at every port 
 and inlet ; otherwise it was not even legal, to say nothing of 
 its being ineffective. 
 
 In meeting the wants of the navy, the new administration 
 proceeded with energy. All the ships on foreign stations, 
 except three, were recalled. Measures were taken at once 
 to increase the force by fitting out all the serviceable vessels 
 that were laid up, by building in navy yards, and in private 
 yards on contract, and by purchase in the open market. The 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 17 
 
 difficulties were great, for the force required was enormous ; 
 and there were neither officers, men, ships, nor guns availa- 
 ble, nor authority to procure them. Ship-owners had failed 
 to see that steamers were to supplant sailing-vessels for 
 commercial purposes, and though the merchant marine was 
 still considerable, it had not been modernized. Nor had 
 any systematic plan been adopted, by which a Government 
 inspection might secure the construction of merchant vessels, 
 imperfectly perhaps, yet in some degree adapted for con- 
 version into men of war. Indeed, in the absence of a de- 
 mand, ship-builders were not prepared to supply steamers 
 of any kind to a considerable extent. The number of ma- 
 chine-shops was small — from twenty to thirty at the most — 
 and their plant only equal to the ordinary work of the con- 
 struction and repair of machinery. There were not more than 
 eight of these of any considerable size ; and, in the sudden 
 demand for locomotives and transports for the army and for 
 marine engines for the navy, they were strained to the utmost. 
 
 Five distinct measures were immediately adopted for the 
 increase of the naval force. The first was to buy everything 
 afloat that could be made of service. Purchases were made 
 directly by the Department, or by officers acting under its 
 direction. By the 1st of July, twelve steamers had been 
 bought, and nine were employed under charter. Subse- 
 quently it appeared that the business of purchasing, being 
 a purely mercantile matter, might be suitably placed in the 
 hands of a business man, who should act as the responsible 
 agent of the Department in conducting the transactions. 
 This plan was adopted in July. Each purchase was in- 
 spected by a board of officers, and in this way the Depart- 
 ment was enabled to secure, as far as any such were to be 
 found, suitable vessels at a suitable price. The board of in- 
 spection could not exact a very high degree of excellence or 
 
18 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 fitness, because everything afloat that could in any way be 
 made to answer a purpose was pressed into the service. The 
 vessels were of all sizes and descriptions, from screw-steamers 
 and side-wheelers of two thousand tons to ferry-boats and 
 tugs. Some of the larger steamers were fast vessels and 
 made efficient cruisers. The Connecticut, the Cuvier, the 
 De Soto, and the Santiago de Cuba paid for their cost 
 several times over in the prizes they captured. The ma- 
 jority of the purchased steamers were between one hundred 
 and eight hundred tons. Some of the least promising of 
 these improvised men-of-war did good service against 
 blockade-runners. The steamer Circassian, one of the 
 most valuable prizes made during the war, was captured 
 outside of Havana by a Fulton ferry-boat. Even for fighting 
 purposes, however, the ferry-boats, with their heavy guns, 
 were by no means to be despised. There were purchased 
 altogether up to December, 3861, 79 steamers and 58 sailing 
 vessels, 137 in all. The number of vessels bought during 
 the whole war amounted to 418, of which 313 were steamers. 
 After the war was over, they were rapidly sold, at less than 
 half their cost. 
 
 The second measure adopted by the administration was 
 the construction of sloops-of-war. Seven of these had been 
 authorized by Congress in February, but the Department 
 resolved to build eight, assigning two to each navy yard. 
 Four of these vessels, the Oneida, Kearsarge, Wachusett, 
 and Tuscarora, were reproductions of three of the sloops of 
 1858, which made the work of construction quicker and easier, 
 the designs being already prepared. In the latter part of 
 1861, six additional sloops were built, of the same general 
 class, but larger. All these fourteen sloops, like their models 
 of two years before, were excellent vessels, and several of 
 them are still in the service as second-rates and third-rates. 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 19 
 
 The third measure adopted by the Department, on its own 
 responsibility, without waiting for the action of Congress, 
 was to contract with private parties for the construction of 
 small, heavily armed screw-gunboats. Twenty-three of these 
 were built, of which the Unadilla and Pinola may be regarded 
 as types. They were of five hundred and seven tons each, 
 and mounted from four to seven guns. Some of them, 
 within four months from the date of contract, were afloat, 
 armed, and manned, and took part in the battle of Port 
 Royal. From their rapid construction, they were commonly 
 knowm as the “ninety-day gunboats.” Nine of themw'ere in 
 Farragut’s fleet at the passage of the forts below New Or- 
 leans. They were an important addition to the navy, and 
 were actively employed both in fighting and blockading dur- 
 ing the whole w T ar. 
 
 For service in the rivers and in narrow sounds and chan- 
 nels, still another class of vessels w r as needed. To meet this 
 want, a fourth measure was adopted, by building twelve pad- 
 dle-wheel steamers, three or four hundred tons larger than 
 the gunboats, but still small vessels, and of very light 
 draft. To avoid the necessity of turning, they were pro- 
 vided with a double bow, and a rudder at each end. These 
 were the famous “ double-enders.” The first twelve were 
 the so-called Octorara class. Twenty-seven larger vessels of 
 the same type were afterwards built, composing the Sassacus 
 class. The Wateree, a vessel of the same size and gen- 
 eral design, was built of iron. Finally the Mohongo class, 
 also of iron, consisted of seven double-enders of still larger 
 size, and carrying a heavier armament. The Asliuelot 1 and 
 Monocacy still represent this class in the service. 
 
 The fifth and last measure for the increase of the naval 
 
 1 News of the loss of the Ashuelot is received as this volume is going to press. 
 
20 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 force was tlie construction of ironclads. Congress had 
 passed, at the extra session in August, an appropriation of a 
 million and a half dollars for armored vessels, to be built 
 upon plans approved by a board of officers. The board was 
 composed of three of the ablest captains in the service, 
 Smith, Paulding, and Davis. Out of a large number of 
 plans proposed, three were selected by the board and or- 
 dered by the Department. Upon these plans were built the 
 New Ironsides, the Galena, and the Monitor. 
 
 Most of the measures, as outlined above, refer to the first 
 year of the war ; but these five types of vessels, converted 
 merchantmen, sloops, gunboats, double-enders, and iron- 
 clads, represent the additions to the sea-going navy during 
 the four years. There was also an immense river fleet, com- 
 posed of river-steamboats, rams, ironclads, “ tinclads,” and 
 mortar-boats, a collection of nondescripts, which under the 
 leadership of able commanders, made the naval operations on 
 the Mississippi as brilliant and successful as any in the war. 
 
 In the construction of the new sliips-of-war, no attempt 
 was made to reproduce the fine screw-frigates of 1855, 
 as they failed to show their usefulness, except perhaps at 
 Port Royal and at Fort Fisher. The Colorado could not be 
 got over the bar, when Farragut went up to New Orleans, 
 and the Roanoke and Minnesota were helpless at Hampton 
 Roads. In the latter half of the war, however, the Depart- 
 ment undertook the construction of a class of vessels of con- 
 siderable size, but very different in character. These were 
 large, wooden steamers, with fine lines, excessively long and 
 sharp and narrow, of light draft for their size, in which every 
 quality was sacrificed to speed. In some of these the length 
 was as great as eight times the beam. They were to be sea- 
 going cruisers. Their main purpose was to capture the com- 
 merce-destroyers ; and perhaps, in case of foreign complica- 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 21 
 
 tions, to do a little commerce-destroying themselves. Their 
 armament was heavy ; but armament was not their principal 
 feature. Above all things, they were to be fast ; and in those 
 that were built, the desired result was generally secured. 
 One of them, the Wampanoag or Florida, succeeded in at- 
 taining for a short time the extraordinary speed of seventeen 
 and three-fourths knots an hour. 
 
 The plan which comprehended the construction of these 
 vessels was a scheme of somewhat large dimensions, and 
 was never completed. Of the three principal types, named 
 respectively after the Ammonoosuc, the Java, and the Con- 
 toocook, twenty-five vessels were projected, and most of 
 them were begun ; but few of them were launched, and these 
 only after the close of the war. Under the pressure of urgent 
 necessity, they were built of unseasoned white-oak timber, in- 
 stead of the live-oak which had been hitherto used for ships- 
 of-war ; and such of them as were finished were no sooner 
 in the water ^than they began to decay. Six years after 
 the war was ended, the chief constructor, writing of these 
 vessels, reported that some of them, costing over a million of 
 dollars, had made only one cruise, and then had been found 
 too rotten to be repaired. They served the purpose, how- 
 ever of contributing, with other circumstances, to modify 
 the menacing attitude of foreign powers ; and their serious 
 imperfections were the necessary result of the situation. 
 The Administration was bound to do its utmost to provide 
 for every contingency ; and the failure of preparation during 
 peace, when plans could be matured, and materials accumu- 
 lated at leisure, compelled, when the time of action came, a 
 hurried and lavish expenditure. 
 
 Great as was the task before the United States Govern- 
 ment in preparing for a naval war, it was as nothing to that 
 
22 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 of tlie enemy. The latter had at his disposal a small number 
 of trained officers imbued with the same ideas, and brought 
 up in the same school, as their opponents. Some of these, 
 like Buchanan, Semmes, Brown, Maffitt, and Brooke, were 
 men of extraordinary professional qualities ; but except 
 in its officers, the Confederate Government had nothing 
 in the shape of a navy. It had not a single ship-of-war. 
 It had no abundant fleet of merchant-vessels in its ports 
 from which to draw reserves. It had no seamen, for its 
 people were not given to seafaring pursuits. Its only ship- 
 yards were Norfolk and Pensacola. Norfolk, with its im- 
 mense supplies of ordnance and equipments, was indeed 
 invaluable; but though the three hundred new Dahlgren 
 guns captured in the yard were a permanent acquisition, the 
 yard itself was lost w 7 hen the war was one- fourth over. The 
 South w T as without any large force of skilled mechanics ; and 
 such as it had were early summoned to the army. There 
 were only three rolling-mills in the country, two of w r hich 
 were in Tennessee; and the third, at Atlanta, w 7 as unfitted 
 for heavy work. There were hardly any machine-shops that 
 w r ere prepared to supply the best kind of workmanship ; and 
 in the beginning the only foundry capable of casting heavy 
 guns was the Tredegar Iron Works, w hich under the direc- 
 tion of Commander Brooke, was employed to its fullest 
 capacity. Worst of all, there were no raw materials, except 
 the timber that was standing in the forests. The cost of iron 
 was enormous, and toward the end of the war it w~as hardly 
 to be had at any price. Under these circumstances, no gen- 
 eral plan of naval policy on a large scale could be carried 
 out ; and the conflict on the Southern side became a species 
 of partisan, desultory warfare. 
 
 A Navy Department had been established by an act of 
 the Provisional Congress on February 21. Mallory, who 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 23 
 
 had been Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs in 
 the United States Senate, was appointed Secretary of the 
 Navy. In matters relating to ordnance and armor, the lead- 
 ing spirit at the Department was Commander Brooke, who 
 was afterward Chief of Bureau. As early as the 15th of 
 March an appropriation of one million dollars was made for 
 the construction or purchase of ten steam-gunboats. The 
 Administration made tremendous efforts to create a navy ; 
 but in spite of the greatest perseverance and ingenuity, it 
 found itself checked and hampered at every turn. By dint 
 of using everything it could lay hands on, it got together 
 in the beginning a small and scattered fleet, which had 
 hardly the semblance of a naval force. Six of the revenue- 
 cutters came early into its possession. The steam-battery 
 Fulton was seized at Pensacola, and $25,000 were appro- 
 priated to complete and equip her. The Merrimac was 
 presently raised at Norfolk, and found to have no seri- 
 ous injury. Encouragement was given to private enter- 
 prise, by Davis’s immediate adoption of the plan of issuing 
 letters-of-marque. It was recognized that one of the most 
 vulnerable points on the Union side lay in its commerce ; 
 and it was against commerce alone that the insurgent navy 
 throughout the war was able to sustain the offensive. The 
 Federal Government could not retaliate, because there was 
 no commerce to retaliate upon. The carrying trade of the 
 South was in foreign hands ; and the only way to assail 
 it was by establishing a blockade, which affixed to it an 
 illegal character. Powerless to raise the blockade of their 
 own coast, and much less to establish one at the North, the 
 Confederates confined their aggressions chiefly to merchant 
 vessels ; and having, by the address of their agents, and 
 the negligence of the English authorities, secured a few 
 cruisers well adapted for the purpose, they inflicted injur- 
 
24 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 ies on the American merchant marine from which it nevei 
 recovered. 
 
 But this was warfare for which only a few vessels -were 
 needed. For strictly naval warfare, where ships-of-war 
 measured themselves against each other, the South was 
 never able to accumulate a sufficient force. Old vessels 
 were altered, new vessels were built at different points, and 
 some of them were for a time successful, or at least did not 
 yield without a hard struggle ; but there was no possibility, 
 except perhaps for a time on the Mississippi, of sustained 
 or concerted action. The naval force that opposed Golds- 
 borough in the Sounds was pitifully weak, as was that which 
 Dupont found at Port Royal. Little more could be said of 
 the squadron at New Orleans, though the ironclad Missis- 
 sippi, if accident and mismanagement had not delayed her 
 commission, might have given Farragut’s fleet some an- 
 • noyance. At Mobile the Tennessee, under the gallant Bu- 
 chanan, fought almost single-handed the whole fleet, only 
 to be captured after a heroic defence. At Savannah, the 
 Atlanta was captured almost as soon as she appeared. 
 Charleston was never able to make more than a raid or two 
 on the blockading force. The Albemarle maintained herself 
 for six months in the waters of North Carolina, but she was 
 blockaded in the Roanoke River, and was finally destroyed 
 by the daring of Cushing. Finally the Merrimac, which 
 was lost through our own shortcomings, had a brilliant 
 but brief career in Hampton Roads. 
 
 These isolated attempts comprised, together with the ex- 
 ploits of the cruisers, the sum of the naval operations on the 
 Southern side. Viewed in the light of the difficulties to be 
 met by the Confederate navy, they were little less than phe- 
 nomenal. But as forming a standard of comparison for fu- 
 ture wars, or for the strength of future enemies, they are hardly 
 
THE PREPARATIONS. 
 
 25 
 
 to be considered. To-day we are worse off, for the period 
 in which we live, than we were in 1861, when the feebleness 
 of onr enemy gave ns eight months for preparation ; and if 
 it should ever be our misfortune to be involved in another 
 war, we shall probably have a far more formidable antag- 
 onist to encounter, and one prepared to carry on hostilities 
 from the very outset. 
 
 I.— 2 
 
CHAPTER H. 
 
 THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 The first measure of naval warfare undertaken by the Ad- 
 ministration, and the one which it carried out for four years 
 with the most sustained effort, was one that seemed at the 
 outset in the highest degree impracticable. A navy of 
 thirty-five available modern vessels, while it might be ex- 
 pected to produce substantial results by concentrated at- 
 tacks at isolated points on the seaboard, or in engagements 
 with the enemy’s ships-of-war, counted for almost nothing 
 as an effectual barrier to commerce along 3,000 miles of 
 coast. To undertake such a task, and to proclaim the un- 
 dertaking to the world, in all its magnitude, at a time when 
 the Navy Department had only three steam- vessels at its 
 immediate disposal in home ports, was an enterprise of the 
 greatest boldness and hardihood. For the days of paper 
 blockades were over; and, though the United States were 
 not a party to the Declaration of Paris, its rule in regard to 
 blockade was only the formal expression of a law universally 
 recognized. “ Blockades, to be binding, must be effective — 
 that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to pre- 
 vent access to the coast of the enemy ; ” or, according to the 
 general interpretation given to the treaty, sufficient to create 
 an evident danger in entering or leaving the port. In this 
 sense, the Government understood its responsibilities and 
 prepared to meet them. 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 27 
 
 It was natural, in view of the inadequacy of the force, that 
 foreign governments should look at the measure with sus- 
 picion, and should watch its execution with careful scrutiny. 
 Commercial communities abroad doubted the seriousness of 
 the undertaking, because, in their ignorance of the energy 
 and the resources of the Government, they doubted its feasi- 
 bility. An effective blockade on such a scale was a thing 
 unprecedented, even in the operations of the foremost naval 
 powers of the world. It seemed to be an attempt to revive 
 the cabinet blockades of half a century before, when Eng- 
 land and France laid an embargo upon each other’s coasts, 
 and captured all vessels at sea whose destination was within 
 the proscribed limits ; and when Spain interdicted com- 
 merce with the northern colonies in South America, and as 
 a matter of form, kept a brig cruising in the Caribbean Sea. 
 
 No time was lost in announcing the intentions of the Gov- 
 ernment. On the 19th of April, six days after the fall of Sum- 
 ter, the President issued a proclamation declaring the block- 
 ade of the Southern States from South Carolina to Texas. On 
 the 27th the blockade was extended to Virginia and North 
 Carolina. The terms of the proclamation were as follows : 
 
 “ Now therefore I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States 
 . . . have farther deemed it advisable to set on foot a blockade 
 
 of the ports within the States aforesaid, in pursuance of the laws of 
 the United States and of the Law of Nations in such case provided. 
 For this purpose a competent force will be posted so as to prevent en- 
 trance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. If, therefore, with 
 a view to violate such blockade, a vessel shall approach or shall attempt 
 to leave any of the said ports, she will be duly warned by the com- 
 mander of one of the blockading vessels, who will endorse on her regis- 
 ter the fact and date of such warning, and if the same vessel shall again 
 attempt to enter or leave the blockaded port, she will be captured, and 
 sent to the nearest convenient port for such proceedings against her, 
 and her cargo as prize, as may be deemed advisable. ” 
 
28 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Upon the issue of the proclamation, the Government im- 
 mediately found itself confronted with the question whether 
 the movement at the South should be regarded as rebellion 
 or as war. From the legal point of view the acts of the 
 insurgents could be looked upon in no other light than 
 as armed insurrection, “ levying war against the United 
 States,” and under the constitutional definition, the actors 
 were guilty of treason. But the extent of the movement, 
 its well-defined area, and, above all, its complete govern- 
 mental organization, made it impossible to put the legal 
 theory into practice ; and almost from the beginning hos- 
 tilities were carried on precisely as in a regular war. The 
 Government, however, in its dealings with foreign powers 
 always asserted stoutly that the movement was purely an 
 insurrection, and that those in arms against it were rebels, 
 and not belligerents. 
 
 This position, though it involved occasional inconsist- 
 encies, was maintained with considerable success, except 
 in relation to the status of prisoners, and in those cases 
 where the operations of the w r ar affected foreign interests. 
 The question first arose in reference to the blockade. 
 Blockade, in the ordinary sense, is purely an act of war. 
 It means the closing of an enemy’s ports, and the capture 
 of all vessels, neutral or hostile, attempting to enter with 
 knowledge of the blockade. It enables a belligerent to 
 seize vessels on the high seas bound for a blockaded port. 
 It stands on the same footing as the right of search, which 
 is exclusively a war right ; and like the right of search, it is 
 a benefit to the belligerent, and a hardship to the neutral. 
 
 Even after the President’s proclamation, which was to all 
 intents a belligerent declaration, and after the blockade had 
 been set on foot, the Government still held to its theory 
 that the parties to the contest were not belligerents, and that 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 29 
 
 rebellion was not in any sense war. In bis report of July 4, 
 1861, at the special session of Congress, the Secretary of the 
 Navy referred to the blockade in these terms : 
 
 “In carrying into effect these principles, and in suppressing the at- 
 tempts to evade and resist them, and in order to maintain the Consti- 
 tution and execute the laws, it became necessary to interdict commerce 
 at those ports where duties could not be collected, the laws maintained 
 and executed, and where the officers of the Government were not toler- 
 ated or permitted to exercise their functions. In performing this do- 
 mestic municipal duty, x the property and interests of foreigners became 
 to some extent involved in our home questions, and with a view to 
 extending to them every comity that the circumstances would justify, 
 the rules of blockade were adopted, and, as far as practicable, made 
 applicable to the cases that occurred under this embargo or non-inter- 
 course of the insurgent States. The commanders of the squadron 
 were directed to permit the vessels of foreigners to depart within fif- 
 teen days, as in cases of actual effective blockade, and then vessels 
 were nob to be seized unless they attempted, after having been once 
 warned off, to enter an interdicted port in disregard of such warning. ” 
 
 In referring to the blockade in these words, the Navy De- 
 partment clearly had in mind a measure of internal admin- 
 istration ; and this domestic application of a belligerent right 
 was excused on the ground of a desire to extend every possi- 
 ble comity to foreigners. But in putting forward this plea, 
 the Secretary failed to see that the application of the rules 
 of blockade to a domestic embargo, so far from extending 
 comity to foreigners, abridged their rights, and imposed on 
 them liabilities and penalties which no domestic embargo of 
 itself could produce. It was not the foreign trader, but the 
 belligerent cruiser that gained by the adoption of the rules 
 of blockade. A government has the right to close its own 
 ports, and to impose heavy penalties upon all who attempt 
 
 1 The italics are not in the original. 
 
30 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 to enter ; but it cannot by virtue of any such measure search 
 and seize foreign vessels on the high seas, even though 
 bound for the embargoed port. To do this it must establish 
 a blockade. In other words, it must wage war, and the two 
 parties in the contest must become belligerents. 
 
 Although it may have been the intention of the Executive 
 in July to regard the blockade as a domestic embargo, it 
 soon gave up the idea in practice. Neutral vessels were 
 searched and captured at sea. Prizes were sent in for adju- 
 dication, and condemned for breach of blockade and for 
 carrying contraband, “in pursuance of the laws of the United 
 States and the Law of Nations in such case provided,” and 
 not in pursuance of any law imposing civil forfeitures or 
 penalties for violation of a domestic embargo. The forms of 
 examination and procedure were those of belligerent prize- 
 courts; and the decisions expressly recognized a state of 
 war, and could be founded on no other hypothesis. 
 
 Under these circumstances, the complaint against the 
 British Government of having done an unfriendly act in 
 recognizing the rebels as belligerents, had no very serious 
 foundation. The Queen’s proclamation of neutrality, pub- 
 lished on May 13, was a statement that hostilities existed 
 between the Government of the United States and “ certain 
 States styling themselves the Confederate States of Amer- 
 ica,” and a command to British subjects to observe a strict 
 neutrality between the contending parties. Its form and 
 contents were those commonly found in the declarations of 
 neutrals at the outbreak of war. The annoyance it gave to 
 the Government and the elation it caused at the South were 
 due to the fact that it appeared somewhat early in the strug- 
 gle, and that it was the first recognition from abroad of the 
 strength and organization of the insurgent Government. As 
 a matter of law, Great Britain had the right to declare her- 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 31 
 
 self neutral, especially after the blockade was proclaimed, as 
 blockade is a purely belligerent act. Her offence, reduced 
 to its exact proportions, consisted in taking the ground of 
 a neutral before the magnitude and force of the insurrec- 
 tion were such as to justify it. But the hopes raised at 
 the South by the proclamation led to the prevalent belief 
 throughout the Union that it was dictated by unfriendly 
 motives ; while the undisguised sympathy for the Southern 
 cause shown by the upper classes in England tended to 
 strengthen the impression and to aggravate the wound. 
 
 The inception of the blockade was somewhat irregular. 
 Ordinarily a blockade may begin in one of two ways ; either 
 by a public announcement coupled with the presence of a 
 force before the blockaded port ; or by stationing the force 
 without an announcement. The first is a blockade by noti- 
 fication ; the second is a blockade in fact. As breach of 
 blockade only becomes an offence when accompanied by 
 knowledge, actual or constructive, of the existence of the 
 blockade, it is a question of some importance when the 
 blockade begins and how knowledge of it is to be ac- 
 quired. In a blockade by notification, knowledge is held 
 to have been acquired when sufficient time has elapsed 
 for the notice to have been generally received ; and after 
 this time a neutral vessel, by sailing for the blockaded 
 port, has committed an offence and incurred a penalty. 
 With a blockade that is purely de facto , on the other hand, 
 knowledge must be obtained on the station, and neutrals 
 have a right to sail for the port and to be warned off on 
 their arrival. 
 
 Whether a blockade is initiated as a blockade by notifica- 
 tion or as a blockade de facto , the indispensable condition 
 of its establishment is the presence of a force at the block- 
 aded port. Actual notice of the fact can never precede the 
 
32 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 existence of the fact. The President’s two proclamations 
 did not therefore constitute actual notice, because at the 
 date of their issue there was not even a pretence that the 
 blockade existed. Nor do they appear to have been so in- 
 tended. The idea was rather to publish a manifesto declar- 
 ing in a general way the intentions of the Government, and 
 then to carry them out as promptly as circumstances would 
 permit. 
 
 The blockade therefore began as a blockade de facto , not 
 as a blockade by notification. During the summer of 1861 
 vessels were stationed at different points, one after another, 
 by which the blockade at those points was separately estab- 
 lished. Notices, of a more or less informal character, were 
 given in some cases by the commanding officer of the block- 
 ading force ; but no general practice was observed. When 
 Captain Poor, in the Brooklyn, took his station off the Mis- 
 sissippi, he merely informed the officer commanding the 
 forts that New Orleans was blockaded. Pendergrast, the 
 commanding officer at Hampton Roads, issued a formal 
 document on April 30, calling attention to the President’s 
 proclamation in relation to Virginia and North Carolina, 
 and giving notice that he had a sufficient force there for 
 the purpose of carrying out the proclamation. He added 
 that vessels coming from a distance, and ignorant of the 
 proclamation, would be warned off. But Pendergrast’s 
 announcement, though intended as a notification, was 
 marked by the same defects as the proclamation. The ac- 
 tual blockade and the notice of it must always be commen- 
 surate. At this time, there were several vessels in Hamp- 
 ton Roads, but absolutely no force on the coast of North 
 Carolina ; and the declaration was open to the charge of 
 stating what was not an existing fact. 
 
 The importance of these early formalities arises from the 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 33 
 
 fact that the liability of neutral vessels depends on the ac- 
 tual existence of the blockade, and upon their knowledge 
 of it. Until the establishment of the blockade is known, 
 actually or constructively, all vessels have a right to be 
 warned off. When the fact has become notorious, the privi- 
 lege of warning ceases. In the statement about warning, 
 therefore, the President’s proclamation said either too much 
 or too little. If it was intended, as the language might 
 seem to imply, that during the continuance of the block- 
 ade — which, as it turned out, was the same thing as dur- 
 ing the continuance of the war — all neutral vessels might 
 approach the coast and receive individual warning, and that 
 only after such warning would they be liable to capture, it 
 conceded far more than usage required. If it meant simply 
 that the warning would be given at each point for such time 
 after the force was posted as would enable neutrals gen- 
 erally to become aware of the fact, it conveyed its mean- 
 ing imperfectly. In practice, the second interpretation w T as 
 adopted, in spite of the remonstrances of neutrals ; and the 
 warnings given in the early days of the blockade were grad- 
 ually discontinued, the concessions of the proclamation to 
 the contrary notwithstanding. The time when warning- 
 should cease does not appear to have been fixed ; and in 
 one instance at least, on the coast of Texas, it was given as 
 late as July, 1862. The fact pf warning was commonly en- 
 dorsed on the neutral’s register. In some cases the warn- 
 ings had the same fault as Pendergrast’s proclamation, in 
 being a little too comprehensive, and including ports where 
 an adequate force had not yet been stationed. The board- 
 ing officers of the Niagara, when off Charleston, in May, 
 warned vessels off the whole Southern coast, as being in a 
 state of blockade, though no ship-of-war had as yet appeared 
 off Savannah ; and the Government paid a round sum to 
 I. — 2* 
 
34 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 their owners in damages for the loss of a market, which was 
 caused by the official warning. 
 
 The concession of warning to neutrals at the port, if it 
 had continued through the war, would have rendered the 
 blockade to a great extent inoperative. Vessels would have 
 been able to approach the coast without risk of capture, and 
 to have lain about the neighborhood until a good oppor- 
 tunity offered for running past the squadron. In other 
 words, the first risk of the blockade-runner would have been 
 a risk of warning, instead of a risk of capture; and the 
 chances in his favor would have been materially increased. 
 The courts, as well as the cruisers, disregarded the procla- 
 mation as soon as the blockade was fairly established, and 
 held, in accordance with English and American precedents, 
 that warning was unnecessary where actual knowledge could 
 be proved. 
 
 It is probable that when the blockade was proclaimed it 
 was thought that the measure could be adequately carried 
 out by stationing a small squadron at the principal com- 
 mercial ports, supplemented by a force of vessels cruising 
 up and down the coast. The number of points to be covered 
 would thus be reduced to four or five on the Atlantic and as 
 many more on the Gulf. Had this expectation been real- 
 ized, the blockade would have been by no means the stupen- 
 dous undertaking that it seemed to observers abroad. Act- 
 ing upon such a belief, the Government entered upon its 
 task with confidence and proceeded with despatch. The 
 Niagara, wffiich had returned from Japan on April 24, was 
 sent to cruise off Charleston. The Brooklyn and Pow- 
 hatan moved westward along the Gulf. Before the 1st of 
 May, seven steamers of considerable size had been chartered 
 in New York and Philadelphia. One of these, the Keystone 
 State, chartered by Lieutenant Woodhull, and intended es- 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 35 
 
 pecially for use at Norfolk, was at her station in Hampton 
 Roads in forty-eiglit hours after Woodhull had received his 
 orders in Washington to secure a vessel. The screw-steamer 
 South Carolina, of eleven hundred and sixty -five tons, pur- 
 chased in Boston on May 3, arrived off Pensacola on June 
 4 ; and the Massachusetts, a similar vessel in all respects, 
 and bought at the same time, was equally prompt in reach- 
 ing Key West. 
 
 Notwithstanding these efforts, the blockade can hardly be 
 said to have been in existence until six weeks after it was 
 declared, and then only at the principal points. When the 
 Niagara arrived off Charleston on the lltli of May, she re- 
 mained only four days ; and except for the fact that the Har- 
 riet Lane was off the bar on the 19th, there was no blockade 
 whatever at that point for a fortnight afterward. The Brit- 
 ish Government called attention to this fact, and suggested 
 that a new blockade required a new notification, with the 
 usual allowance of time for the departure of vessels; bub 
 the State Department did not regard the blockade as having 
 been interrupted. Savannah was blockaded on the 28tli of 
 May. In the Gulf, Mobile and New Orleans received notice 
 on the 26th from the Powhatan and the Brooklyn ; and a 
 month later the South Carolina was at Galveston. At the 
 principal points, therefore, there was no blockade at all 
 during the first month, and after that time the chain of in- 
 vestment was far from being complete. Indeed it could 
 hardly be called a chain at all, when so many links w^ere 
 wanting. Even Wilmington, which later became the most 
 important point on the coast in the operations of the block- 
 ade-runners, was still open, and the intermediate points 
 w’ere not under any effective observation. 
 
 As liability for breach of blockade begins with the mere 
 act of sailing for the blockaded port, the distance of this 
 
36 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 port from the point of departure becomes an important con- 
 sideration to the blockade-runner. The longer the distance 
 to be traversed the greater the risk ; and some method of 
 breaking the voyage must be devised, so that as much of it 
 as possible may be technically innocent. The principal 
 trade of the South during the war was with England ; and 
 it became an object to evade liability during the long trans- 
 atlantic passage. For this purpose, all the available neutral 
 ports in the neighborhood of the coast were made entrepots 
 for covering the illegal traffic. 
 
 There were four principal points which served as inter- 
 mediaries for the neutral trade with the South ; Bermuda, 
 Nassau, Havana, and Matamoras. Of these Nassau was the 
 most prominent. Situated on the island of New Providence 
 in the Bahamas, it is only about one hundred and eighty 
 miles in a straight line from the coast of Florida. Florida, 
 however, was not the objective point of the leading blockade- 
 runners. It had neither suitable harbors nor connections 
 with the interior. The chief seats of commerce on the 
 Eastern coast were Savannah, Charleston, and Wilmington. 
 The run to these points from Nassau was from five hundred 
 to six hundred miles, or three days, allowing for the usual 
 delays of the passage. For such trips, small quantities of 
 coal were needed, which gave great room for stowage of 
 cargo. There was no great depth of water at Nassau, which 
 was an advantage to the blockade-runners ; and the cruisers 
 generally took their station off Abaco Light, fifty miles 
 away. New Providence was surrounded by numbers of 
 small islands, over whose waters, within a league of the 
 shore, the sovereignty of a great power threw a protection 
 as complete and as effective as that of guns and fortifica- 
 tions. A vessel bound to Nassau from one of the blockaded 
 ports must have been hard-pressed indeed if she could not 
 
The Blockaded Coast. 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 37 
 
 find a refuge. The navigation among the islands was dan- 
 gerous and difficult, the channels were intricate, and reefs 
 and shoals abounded ; but skilful pilots were always at the 
 command of the blockade-runners. 
 
 Nassau was a place of no special importance before the 
 war. Its inhabitants lived chiefly by fishing and wrecking. 
 But with the demands of the moment, it suddenly became a 
 commercial emporium. Its harbor was crowded with ship- 
 ping. Its wharves were covered with cotton-bales awaiting 
 transportation to Europe, and with merchandise ready to be 
 shipped for the blockaded country. Confederate agents 
 were established here, and took charge of the interests of 
 their Government in connection with the contraband trade. 
 Money quickly earned was freely spent, and the war, at least 
 while it lasted, enriched the community. 
 
 Bermuda shared, though in a less degree, the profits of 
 the blockade-running traffic. Its connection was closest 
 with Wilmington, which was six hundred and seventy-four 
 miles distant, and which was the favorite port of the block- 
 ade-runners, especially in the last year of the war. In the 
 Gulf, Havana had a similar importance. The run to the 
 coast of Florida was only a little over one hundred miles. 
 But Key West was inconveniently near, the Gulf blockade 
 was strict, and after New Orleans was captured, the trade 
 offered no such inducements as that on the Atlantic coast. 
 Nevertheless it is stated by Admiral Bailey, on the authority 
 of intercepted correspondence of the enemy, that between 
 April 1 and July 6, 1863, fifty vessels left Havana to run the 
 blockade. 
 
 The situation of Matamoras was somewhat peculiar. It 
 was the only town of any importance on the single foreign 
 frontier of the Confederacy. Situated opposite the Texan 
 town of Brownsville, on the Bio Grande, about forty miles 
 
38 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 from its mouth, and in neutral territory, it offered peculiar 
 advantages for contraband trade. The Rio Grande could 
 not be blockaded. Cargoes shipped for Matamoras were 
 transferred to lighters at the mouth of the river. On their 
 arrival at Matamoras they were readily transported to the 
 insurgent territory. Accordingly, in 1862, the place became 
 the seat of a flourishing trade. The sudden growth of the 
 city was a notorious fact, as was also the cause that led to it. 
 Yet the Government was unable to put a stop to the traffic, 
 unless evidence could be brought to show that the cargoes 
 were really destined for the enemy. Several vessels bound 
 for Matamoras were captured and sent in, but in most of the 
 cases the prize court decreed restitution, on the ground that 
 a neutral port could not be blockaded, and therefore there 
 could be no breach of blockade in sailing for it. Even in 
 the case of the Peterhoff, which was captured near St. 
 Thomas under suspicious circumstances, and whose papers 
 showed Matamoras as her destination, only the contraband 
 part of the cargo was condemned. 
 
 When the advantage of a neutral destination was fully un- 
 derstood, it became the practice for all the blockade-runners 
 out of European ports to clear for one or the other of these 
 points, and upon their arrival to wait for a favorable oppor- 
 tunity to run over to their real destination. Nobody could 
 be deceived by this pretence of an innocent voyage ; and the 
 courts, looking only at the final destination, condemned the 
 vessels when there was evidence of an ultimate intention to 
 break the blockade. This decision rested upon an old prin- 
 ciple of the English prize-courts, known as the doctrine of 
 continuous voyages, according to which the mere touching 
 at an intermediate port of a vessel engaged in an illegal 
 voyage could not break the continuity of the voyage or 
 remove the taint of illegality. Hence, if a vessel cleared 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 39 
 
 from Liverpool with the intention of merely touching at 
 Nassau, and then proceeding to Charleston, and if this inten- 
 tion could be proved from the papers, the character of the 
 cargo, and the examination of persons on board, the two 
 voyages were held to be one, and condemnation followed. 
 
 In order to meet the new difficulty, a new device was 
 adopted. Cargoes were sent out to Nassau, and were there 
 transshipped, sometimes directly, from vessel to vessel, in the 
 harbor, sometimes after being landed on the wharf ; and 
 thence were transported in a new conveyance to the block- 
 aded port. Return cargoes were transshipped in the same 
 way. This had a double advantage. It made the continuity 
 of the transaction much more difficult of proof, and it 
 enabled the capitalists engaged in the trade to employ two 
 different classes of vessels, for the service for which each was 
 specially adapted. For the long voyages across the Atlantic 
 heavy freighters could be used, of great capacity and stoutly 
 built ; and the light, swift, hardly visible steamers, with low 
 hulls, and twin-screws or feathering paddles, the typical 
 blockade-runners, could be employed exclusively for the 
 three days’ run on the other side of Nassau or Bermuda. 
 But here again the courts stepped in, and held that though 
 a transshipment was made, even after landing the cargo and 
 going through a form of sale, the two voyages were parts of 
 one and the same transaction, and the cargo from the outset 
 was liable to condemnation, if the original intention had 
 been to forward the goods to a blockaded port. Nor did 
 the decisions stop here. As all the property, both ship and 
 cargo, is confiscated upon proof of breach of blockade, it 
 was held that the ships carrying on this traffic to neutral 
 ports were confiscable, provided the ultimate destination of 
 the cargo to a blockaded port was known to the owner. In 
 the words of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 44 The 
 
40 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 sliips are planks of the same bridge, all of the same kind, 
 and necessary for the convenient passage of persons and 
 property from one end to the other.” 
 
 The adoption of this rule by the highest courts in the 
 United States raised a loud outcry on the part of those in- 
 teres ed in the traffic, and was severely criticised by publi- 
 cists abroad, especially by those who favored, in general, the 
 continental view of the laws of war. The United States 
 were accused of sacrificing the rights of neutrals, which they 
 had hitherto upheld, to the interests of belligerents, and of 
 disregarding great principles for the sake of a momentary 
 advantage. In truth, however, the principle adopted by the 
 court was not a new one, though a novel application was 
 made of it to meet a novel combination of circumstances. 
 It had formerly been applied to cases where neutrals, en- 
 gaged in illegal trade between two ports of a belligerent, 
 had endeavored to screen the illegality of the voyage by the 
 interposition of a neutral port, with or without the landing 
 of goods and the employment of a new conveyance. In 
 these cases Lord Stowell held that the continuity of the 
 voyage was not broken, unless the cargo was really imported 
 into the common stock of the neutral country. That the 
 principle had not been applied to blockades was due to the 
 fact that circumstances had never called for it, as the prac- 
 tice of breaking a blockade had never before been carried 
 out on such a scale, with such perfect appliances, and by 
 the use of such ingenious devices. The really difficult ques- 
 tion before the court was as to the sufficiency of the evi- 
 dence in each case. It was to be expected that every arti- 
 fice in the nature of simulated papers, pretended ownership, 
 false destination, and fictitious transfers would be adopted 
 to escape liability ; and it was the business of the court to 
 penetrate all these disguises, and to ascertain the real char- 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 41 
 
 acter of each transaction. It is probable that in no case 
 was injustice done in brushing aside and disregarding the 
 various ceremonies, more or less elaborate and artificial, 
 that were performed over blockade-running cargoes at Nas- 
 sau and Bermuda ; and it must often have happened that 
 the ingenuity of shippers was rewarded by a decree of resti- 
 tution for the want of technical evidence, when there was 
 no moral doubt as to the vessel’s guilt. 
 
 As a last resort, the blockade-running merchants adopted 
 an expedient so original and so bold that it may almost be 
 said to have merited success. As cargoes from Liverpool to 
 Nassau ran a risk of capture, the voyage was broken again, 
 this time not by a neutral destination, but by one in the 
 country of the very belligerent whom the trade was to injure. 
 Goods were shipped to New York by the regular steamship 
 lines, to be carried thence to Nassau, and so to find their 
 way to the blockaded territory. It w T as supposed that the 
 United States would not interfere with commerce between 
 its own ports and those of a neutral. This expectation, 
 however, was not well-founded. The Government of the 
 United States, although federal in its organization, w T as not 
 so impotent in regard to the regulation of trade as was that 
 of Great Britain in enforcing the neutrality of its subjects ; 
 and if action could not betaken through the Courts, it could 
 be taken through the custom-houses. As soon as it was dis- 
 covered at New York that the trade with Nassau and Ber- 
 muda was assuming large proportions, instructions were 
 issued to collectors of customs in the United States to re- 
 fuse clearances to vessels which, whatever their ostensible 
 destination, were believed to be intended for Southern 
 ports, or whose cargoes were in imminent danger of fall- 
 ing into the hands of the enemy ; and if there was merely 
 ground for apprehension that cargoes were destined for 
 
42 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 tlie enemy’s use, the owners were required to give ample 
 security. 
 
 The instructions were perfectly general in character, nam- 
 ing no particular port or country. The agents of the block- 
 ade-runners, however, styling themselves merchants of Nas- 
 sau, adopted a tone of righteous indignation, and actually 
 had the effrontery to complain of this “ unjust discrimina- 
 tion ” against what they ingenuously called the trade of the 
 Bahamas. As if, indeed, the Bahamas had had any trade, 
 or Nassau any merchants, before the days of blockade-run- 
 ning! They succeeded, however, in persuading Earl Rus- 
 sell to take up the diplomatic cudgels in their behalf ; but 
 from the long correspondence that followed, the English 
 Government, being clearly in the wrong, derived little satis- 
 faction, and a stop was put to the traffic. 
 
 The character of the blockade changed materially as the 
 war went on. At first the prevailing idea seems to have 
 been that its object was to put a stop to legitimate trade, 
 and that this object was secured by the official declaration. 
 The squadrons seem to have been employed rather to com- 
 ply with the requirements of international law, and to make 
 the prohibition binding upon neutrals, than as being them- 
 selves the agency by which the prohibition was to be en- 
 forced, and without which it was only so much waste paper. 
 This idea had some foundation in view of the fact that from 
 the beginning, though the blockading force was then incon- 
 siderable, the regular course of trade at the Southern ports 
 was actually interrupted, neutrals for a time respecting the 
 proclamation, or being satisfied to receive their warning 
 and to go elsewhere. In place of the regular commerce, 
 however, a contraband trade grew up, little by little, which, 
 beginning with any materials that came to hand, and carried 
 on chiefly by people along the coast, gradually grew to con- 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 43 
 
 siderable proportions. Then, and then only, was the true 
 character of the blockade recognized, and measures were 
 taken, by increasing the force and by perfecting its organ- 
 ization, to make the watch so close as really to prevent egress 
 and ingress. But by this time the capital embarked in the 
 business was so large as to secure the construction of ves- 
 sels built especially for the purpose, beautifully adapted to 
 the work, and far more difficult to capture. Therefore, while 
 the efforts of the blockaders were redoubled, the difficulties 
 before them w T ere vastly increased. The old traditional 
 idea of a blockade, maintained by a few large vessels mov- 
 ing up and down before a port, at a distance, gave place to 
 the entirely novel practice of anchoring a large number of 
 small and handy steamers in an exposed position close to 
 the bar at the entrance of the blockaded harbors ; and the 
 boldness with which, after the first six months, men kept 
 their vessels close in with the shore and manfully rode out 
 the gales at their anchors — a thing which seafaring men, as 
 a rule, had regarded as impossible, and which would have 
 appalled the stoutest captains of former times — showed as 
 clearly as the actual engagements the real stuff of which the 
 navy was made. 
 
 As to the legal efficiency of the blockade after the first 
 six months, there can be no question ; and by the end of the 
 second year its stringency w T as such that only specially- 
 adapted vessels could safely attempt to run it. If proof of 
 its efficiency was needed, it could be found in the increased 
 price of cotton and in the scarcity of manufactured goods 
 at the South. In the last year it became as nearly perfect 
 as such an operation can be made. Taking its latest devel- 
 opment as a type, it is probable that no blockade has ever 
 been maintained more effectually by any State ; and it is 
 certain that no State ever had such a blockade to maintain. 
 
44 the blockade and the cruisers. 
 
 Apart from its enormous extent, it had four characteristics 
 which mark it as wholly unprecedented: in the peculiar 
 formation of the shore, which gave almost a double coast- 
 line throughout, penetrated by numerous inlets, giving ac- 
 cess to a complicated network of channels ; in the vicinity of 
 neutral ports friendly to the blockade-runners ; in the cot- 
 ton-monopoly of the South, which made the blockade a 
 source of irritation to neutrals ; and finally, but the most 
 important consideration of all, in the introduction of block- 
 ade-running vessels propelled by steam. 
 
 The success of this undertaking, so unprecedented both 
 in its magnitude and difficulty, can best be judged by the 
 results. The number of prizes brought in during the war 
 was 1,149, of which 210 were steamers. There were also 
 355 vessels burned, sunk, driven on shore, or otherwise de- 
 stroyed, of which 85 were steamers ; making a total of 1,504 
 vessels of all classes. The value of these vessels and their 
 cargoes, according to a low estimate, was thirty- one millions 
 of dollars. In the War of 1812, which has always, and 
 justly, been regarded as a successful naval war, the num- 
 ber of captures was 1,719. But the War of 1812 was waged 
 against a commercial nation, and the number of vessels 
 open to capture was therefore far greater. Of the prop- 
 erty afloat, destroyed or captured during the Civil War, the 
 larger part suffered in consequence of the blockade. More- 
 over, in the earlier war, out of the whole number of captures, 
 1,428 were made by privateers, which were fitted out chiefly 
 as a commercial adventure. In the Civil War the work 
 was done wholly by the navy ; and it was done in the face 
 of obstacles of which naval warfare before that time had 
 presented no example or conception. 
 
 As a military measure, the blockade was of vital impor- 
 tance in the operations of the war ; and it has been com- 
 
THE BLOCKADE. 
 
 45 
 
 monly said that without it hostilities would have been pro- 
 tracted much longer, and would have been far more bitter 
 and bloody than they were. Its peculiar importance lay in 
 the isolation of the Southern States and in their dependence 
 upon the outside world for the necessaries of life. The 
 only neutral frontier was along the Rio Grande ; and the 
 country, for many miles on both sides of the boundary* 
 offered few facilities for trade or transportation. All sup- 
 plies must come from the seaboard; and the purely ag- 
 ricultural character of Southern industry made supplies 
 from abroad a necessity. Had the position of the two op- 
 ponents been reversed, and an efficient blockade main- 
 tained against the Northern ports, it would have told with 
 far less severity than at the South. 
 
 Besides the exclusion of manufactured goods, and espe- 
 cially of munitions of war, which was one of the prime ob- 
 jects of the blockade, its second and equally important 
 object was to prevent the exportation of cotton, with which 
 at this time the Southern States supplied the world. The 
 amount of floating capital at the South was never large ; 
 land and slaves were the favorite forms of investment ; 
 and the sale of cotton was therefore the main source of in- 
 come. When exportation was cut off, the Government was 
 deprived of its revenues for the war, and the people of the 
 very means of existence. It was the common impression 
 at the South that the rest of the world, and especially Eng- 
 land, had too great an interest in the cotton supply to tol- 
 erate a prohibition on exportation ; and it was believed, 
 or at least hoped, that the blockade would prove a fatal 
 measure for its originators, by the injury it would work 
 abroad. The injury was not over-estimated ; and it doubt- 
 less had its effect upon the sympathies of the interested 
 foreign state. Lancashire, the great centre of the cotton 
 
46 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 manufacture, was compelled to close its mills ; and the 
 distress that resulted among the operatives may be esti- 
 mated by the fact that, two years after the war had begun, 
 no less than ten millions of dollars had been disbursed by 
 the Relief Committees. But the British Government, what- 
 ever may have been its disposition, had at no time a plausible 
 pretext for intervention ; and the blockade continued to be 
 enforced with increased rigor. 
 
 As the war went on, the naval forces, securing the co- 
 operation of small bodies of troops, gradually obtained 
 a foothold at various points and converted the blockade into 
 a military occupation. These points then became the head- 
 quarters of the different squadrons — ports for rendezvous, 
 refitment, and supply, for the “repairs and coal” that were 
 forever drawing away the blockaders from their stations at 
 critical moments. By the spring of 1862 all the squadrons 
 were well provided in this respect, though some of the cen- 
 tres of occupation were occasionally recovered by the enemy. 
 Especially on the coast of Texas, blockade and occupation 
 alternated at the different Passes throughout the war, partly 
 in consequence of the want of troops to hold the occupied 
 points. Curiously enough, too, these centres of occupation 
 became in a small way centres of blockade-running— Nassaus 
 and Bermudas on a diminutive scale. Norfolk, Beaufort 
 in North Carolina, Hilton Head with its sutler’s shops, Pen- 
 sacola, and New Orleans each carried on a trade, prosperous 
 as far as it went, with the surrounding coast. At New 
 Orleans, the blockade of Lake Ponchartrain was kept up 
 long after the city was taken, not to prevent access to the 
 port, but to capture the illicit traders that cleared from it ; 
 and Farragut was obliged to remonstrate sharply with the 
 Collector for the readiness with which papers covering the 
 trade were issued by the custom-house. 
 
CHAPTER m. 
 
 THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 The blockade began, both in name and in fact, at Hampton 
 Roads, and here it continued to be maintained with the high- 
 est efficiency. The only attempt to raise it was that made 
 by the Merrimac in March, 1862 ; and after this attempt was 
 defeated, the blockading squadron remained in undisturbed 
 possession until the close of the war. The safe and commo- 
 dious anchorage in the Roads, its nearness to Washington, 
 and the protection afforded by Fortress Monroe made it a 
 convenient naval rendezvous ; and for this reason it seems to 
 have been adopted as the station for the flag-ship of the 
 North Atlantic squadron. Its importance as a blockading 
 station, especially in the early part of the war, was due to 
 the fact that it commanded the entrance to the James and 
 Elizabeth Rivers, upon one of which lay the Confederate 
 capital, and upon the other their principal naval depot. 
 The events of the first year, however, which took place in 
 and about the Roads, had little to do with the outside block- 
 ade, and properly form an episode by themselves, which has 
 its beginning and end in the loss and the recovery of Nor- 
 folk. 
 
 The loss of the Norfolk Yard at the outbreak of the war 
 has been already alluded to. This Yard had always been 
 extensively used as a depot for arms and munitions of all 
 kinds ; and in the spring of 1861 it contained a very large 
 
48 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 supply. The ordinary work was going on actively ; and there 
 was nothing to be seen on the spot to indicate that a crisis 
 was at hand. The vessels at the Yard comprised an old sliip- 
 of-the-line, the Pennsylvania, which was used as a receiving 
 ship ; five large sailing-vessels, laid up in ordinary ; the sail- 
 ing-sloops Germantown and Plymouth ; and the brig Dolphin. 
 The last three were ready for sea. The steam-frigate Merri- 
 mac, whose importance was greater than that of all the others 
 combined, was undergoing repairs in her machinery. 
 
 The Navy Yard was situated on the left bank of Elizabeth 
 River, nearly opposite the town of Norfolk, and nine 
 miles above Sewall’s Point, where the narrow channel that 
 forms a continuation of the river enters the Roads. There 
 were only a few seamen and marines to hold it, the commu- 
 nity outside was unfriendly, and the employees were only 
 waiting for the action of the State to range themselves 
 against the Government. The majority of the officers were 
 Southern men, and were in sympathy with the Southern 
 cause. Late in March, the Cumberland, the flagship of the 
 Home Squadron, came in from the Gulf and was sent to 
 Norfolk. She had a crew of 300 men, and a heavy battery, 
 and the towns on both sides of the river were at her mercy, 
 if she chose to attack them. As a sailing sloop-of-war, she 
 could not be of material assistance in bringing off the threat- 
 ened vessels ; but she held the key to the position. 
 
 The State convention of Virginia had been in session since 
 the middle of February, but nothing had yet been done which 
 indicated its final action. The secret session, at which the 
 ultimate question was to be decided, began on the 16th of 
 April. Up to the critical moment the idea had prevailed in 
 Washington that any action tending to show a want of con- 
 fidence in public sentiment in Virginia would crystallize the 
 opposition to the Union, and drive the State into secession. 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 49 
 
 This idea, had found expression in the instructions issued to 
 the Gommandant of the Yard, Commodore McCauley, who 
 was repeatedly warned to take no stejos that would give rise 
 to suspicion of hostile intention. On the lOth of April, as 
 affairs grew more threatening, the Commandant was ordered 
 to put the shipping and public property in a condition to be 
 moved out of danger ; but at the same time he was cautioned 
 not to give needless alarm. Two days later, orders were 
 given for the Merrimac to be prepared with the utmost de- 
 spatch to proceed to Philadelphia ; and as it w T as stated that 
 the necessary repairs to the engine w T ould take four weeks, 
 the Engineer-in-Chief of the Navy was sent down in person 
 to forward matters. He was the bearer of a letter from the 
 Secretary of the Navy to Gommodore McCauley, which con- 
 tained these words : 
 
 44 The Department desires to have the Merrimac removed from the 
 Norfolk to the Philadelphia Navy Yard with the utmost despatch. The 
 Engine er-in- Chief, Mr. B. F. Isherwood, has been ordered to report to 
 you for the purpose of expediting the duty, and you will have his sug- 
 gestions for that end carried promptly into effect.’” 
 
 On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 17th, it was reported 
 by Isherwood, the Engineer-in-Chief, that the Merrimac was 
 ready for steam ; and fires were started the next morning at 
 daybreak. Everything was in readiness to proceed to sea, 
 and officers and men were detailed for the vessels that were 
 to go out. But the Commodore, still influenced by the de- 
 sire to allay suspicion, and by the assertions of some of his 
 officers that if the Merrimac were removed Virginia would 
 certainly go out of the Union, could not bring himself to 
 take decided action, notwithstanding the explicit instructions 
 of the Department ; and at two in the afternoon, he ordered 
 the fires to be hauled. Meantime the enemy were taking 
 I. — 3 
 
Hampton Reads. 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 51 
 
 advantage of every hour of delay. Troops were thrown into 
 Norfolk in considerable numbers, and batteries were erected 
 opposite the Yard. Light-ships had already been sunk in the 
 narrow channel off Sewall’s Point, and other obstructions 
 were put in position on the subsequent night. McCauley 
 sent a message to the Commanding General, Taliaferro, to 
 the effect that if he continued to throw up works in a threat- 
 ening position, the Commodore would regard it as an act of 
 war, and fire upon them. In reply, General Taliaferro dis- 
 claimed any knowledge of the existence of the batteries ; and 
 McCauley was obliged to rest satisfied with this answer. 
 Lieutenant Selfridge of the Cumberland volunteered to take 
 the Dolphin down to Craney Island, and prevent any further 
 obstructing of the river ; but the Commodore, though at first 
 consenting, finally refused to give him permission. 
 
 On Friday, the 19th, Commodore McCauley resolved to 
 destroy the principal vessels. It is hard to say why he ar- 
 rived at this conclusion, the Merrimac’s engine having been 
 reported ready and her fires lighted the day before. The 
 time for heeding the sensitiveness of the population was now 
 past ; and, in this respect, it made little difference whether 
 the other ships were sunk and the Cumberland went out 
 alone, or whether they all left the place together. Nothing, 
 however, was done during the day. On Friday night the 
 guns in the parks were spiked — an injury which could 
 be repaired in a few hours. At the same time, a quan- 
 tity of ordnance stores was put on board the Cumberland. 
 On the next day, the Southern officers on duty at the Yard 
 resigned or deserted ; the destruction or removal of the prop- 
 erty was continued ; and finally, the four ships were scuttled. 
 
 Already on the 18th, Commodore Hiram Paulding had been 
 directed by the Department to proceed to Norfolk with the 
 Pawnee, then lying at Washington, and take command of the 
 
 a OF ILL Lib. 
 
52 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 vessels, using force, if necessary, to prevent them from fall- 
 ing into the hands of the enemy. He was also ordered to 
 destroy what he could not bring off before abandoning the 
 Yard. At the same time, officers were sent to New York and 
 Philadelphia to charter steamers, and to proceed with all de- 
 spatch to Hampton Roads. 
 
 The Pawnee left Washington on Friday, and arrived at 
 Fortress Monroe on the afternoon of Saturday. Here she 
 took on board Captain Wright of the Engineers, and a regi- 
 ment of Massachusetts volunteers. At this very moment, 
 the work of disabling the vessels at the Navy Yard had begun. 
 Two hours later, at eight o’clock in the evening, the Pawnee 
 came in sight of Norfolk. The Cumberland was lying off 
 the Yard, and went to quarters as the strange vessel ap- 
 proached. A fresh wind, blowing down the stream, pre- 
 vented her from making out the Pawnee’s answer to her 
 hail, but the latter could hear the voice of the officer com- 
 manding the Cumberland’s pivot gun, asking if he should 
 fire. On board the Pennsylvania, which w T as lying below 
 the Cumberland, Lieutenant Allen, seeing the imminence of 
 the danger, with extraordinary presence of mind, called out 
 to the commanding officer, asking him to cheer the approach- 
 ing vessel. In an instant it was done ; and the Pawnee w r as 
 saved from what seemed an inevitable catastrophe. 
 
 It had been Paulding’s intention to make a disposition of 
 the vessels at various points between Norfolk and the mouth 
 of the river in such a way as to command the channel. He 
 would have been able to hold this position until the ar- 
 rival of the newly-chartered steamers, wiien he could have 
 brought off all the ships in safety. But the action w’hich 
 had been taken only two hours before at the Yard forestalled 
 his plan; and though the Pawnee and Cumberland were a 
 really formidable force, which, with the infantry regiment, 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 53 
 
 could have held the enemy in check until either reinforce- 
 ments arrived or the property was removed — or, at least, 
 until the work of destruction was completed — Paulding de- 
 cided to burn the principal buildings, and abandon the Yard. 
 For this puipose parties were hurriedly organized ; one 
 under Commander Alden to prepare the storehouses and 
 workshops ; another under Commander Sands for the ship- 
 houses ; a third to distribute combustibles among the sink- 
 ing vessels ; and a fourth, under Commander John Bodgers, 
 assisted by Captain Wright, to blow up the dry-dock. An at- 
 tempt was made to disable the guns that had been spiked, by 
 knocking off the trunnions ; but this was unsuccessful. 
 
 Shortly before two in the morning, the reports came from 
 the various parties that all was ready. A little delay was 
 occasioned at this point by the Commandant of the Yard. 
 The veteran Commodore, with obstinate gallantry, refused 
 to leave his post. Finally Alden was sent to bring him off. 
 All the officers and men were withdrawn except eight, who 
 were divided among the three firing parties. The Pawnee 
 left the wharf, took the Cumberland in tow, and started 
 down the river. Two boats were left behind, one for the 
 firing parties on shore, the other for that which was to de- 
 stroy the ships. At 4.20 a rocket was fired as a signal, and 
 in a few minutes ship-houses, shops, and vessels were in a 
 blaze. 
 
 The people on shore were brought safely off, except 
 Bodgers and his party, who had far to go, and who were cut 
 off from the wharf by the burning buildings. They passed 
 out into the town, and obtained a boat ; but the river was 
 now lighted by the conflagration, and they had not gone far 
 before they were obliged to surrender. 
 
 Though a few shops and houses were burnt, the work was 
 done so hurriedly that the best part of the valuable material 
 
54 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 at the Yard fell into the hands of the enemy. The dry-dock 
 was not destroyed, as the fuse failed to ignite the powder ; 
 but whether from accident or from the work of other hands 
 has never been discovered. The magazine, with great num- 
 bers of loaded shells, and one hundred and fifty tons of pow- 
 der, had already been seized. Two thousand guns of all des- 
 criptions were left practically uninjured, three hundred of 
 them being new Dahlgren guns of various calibres. Besides 
 the guns, machinery, steel plates, castings, construction ma- 
 terials, and ordnance and equipment stores in vast quantities 
 came into the possession of the Confederates ; and severe as 
 the loss of so much material would have been by itself to 
 the Federal Government, it was rendered tenfold greater 
 by supplying the necessities of the enemy. 
 
 The latter immediately set about utilizing their new ac- 
 quisition. The captured Dahlgren guns were distributed 
 throughout the country, and many were the occasions when 
 the Government had cause to regret the irreparable disaster 
 which had supplied the enemy so cheaply with a priceless 
 armament of first-class modern ordnance. The Germantown 
 and Plymouth were raised and restored, but the Confeder- 
 ates had neither time nor money to waste in equipping them 
 for sea. The Merrimac was also raised, and though her 
 upper works were destroyed, her hull and boilers, and the 
 heavy and costly parts of her engine were but little injured. 
 A board of officers, of which Lieutenant John M. Brooke wa« 
 the principal member, prepared a design for converting her 
 into an ironclad, by constructing upon her hull an armored 
 casemate with inclined sides and submerged eaves. The 
 plates were made under Brooke’s superintendence at the 
 Tredegar foundry, and it was hoped that the vessel would 
 be invulnerable, even against the powerful broadsides of the 
 United States fleet. 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 55 
 
 While the Confederates were thus preparing their ironclad, 
 the Federal Government was at work upon the construction 
 of a suitable antagonist. The war, for the moment, was 
 being carried on, not at Hampton Roads, but at Norfolk and 
 Brooklyn, and the victory was to depend not only upon the 
 bravery of the officers, but upon the speed of the mechanics. 
 It was a race of constructors ; and in spite of the difficulties 
 at the South, and the comparative facilities at the command 
 of the Department at Washington, the Confederates were 
 the winners. The secret of their success lay in promptness 
 of preparation. On the 10th of June Brooke was ordered 
 at Richmond to prepare the designs and specifications of an 
 ironclad vessel, and on the 23d an engineer and a constructor 
 were associated with him in the work. The board reported 
 without delay, and work on the Merrimac was begun at once. 
 On the other hand, nothing was done at Washington until 
 the meeting of Congress. The extra session began July 5, 
 and the appropriation was made August 3. The ironclad 
 board was convened on the 8th of the same month. Its re- 
 port was made September 16 ; and the contract for the Moni- 
 tor was not completed until October 4. To this delay may be 
 directly traced the action of the 8th of March, and the de- 
 struction of the Congress and the Cumberland. 
 
 The hull of the Monitor was built at the Continental Iron 
 Works, at Greenpoint, Brooklyn, from Ericsson’s plans and 
 under his supervision. The vessel was begun in the latter 
 part of October. The mechanics worked in three gangs, each 
 for the space of eight hours, so that the work, when finally 
 undertaken, went on without interruption night and day. 
 The construction of the vessel was pushed forward so rapidly 
 that on the 30th of January, 1862, not quite four months after 
 the signing of the contract, the Monitor was launched. 
 
 The new structure consisted of a small iron hull, upon 
 
56 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 wliicli rested a large raft, surmounted by a revolving turret. 
 The hull was one hundred and twenty-four feet long, and 
 thirty-four feet wide at the upper edge. The raft projected 
 at the bow and stern, its total length being fifty feet greater 
 than that of the hull. Its overhang amidships was three feet 
 eight inches wide, gradually increasing towards the bow and 
 stern. The raft was five feet deep, and was protected by a 
 side armor of five one-incli iron plates backed by oak. The 
 deck was covered with two half-inch plates, over timber laid 
 on heavy wooden beams. The turret was armored with eight 
 one-inch plates, and its roof was protected by railroad iron. 
 In it were two Xl-inch Dahlgren guns. The pilot-house was 
 placed on deck, in front of the turret, and was built of square 
 iron bars or logs, notched together, with a bolt through the 
 corners. On the top of the pilot-house was an iron plate, an 
 inch and a half thick, set in a ledge without fastenings. 
 
 The Department selected Lieutenant John L. Worden for 
 the command of the Monitor. He was ordered on January 13, 
 while the vessel was still on the stocks. Lieutenant S. Dana 
 Greene volunteered to go in her, and at Worden’s request 
 was ordered as executive officer. Two acting-masters, Stod- 
 der and Webber, also joined her. There were four engineer 
 officers, of whom the senior was First Assistant-Engineer 
 Isaac Newton. Chief-Engineer A. C. Stimers made the pas- 
 sage in the vessel, as the Government inspector, to report 
 upon her machinery. The crew were volunteers, selected by 
 Worden from the receiving-ship North Carolina and the fri- 
 gate Sabine ; and “a better one,” to quote Worden’s state- 
 ment, “no naval commander ever had the honor to com- 
 mand.” 
 
 The first cruise of the Monitor was a novel experiment and, 
 as the event showed, full of hazard. Had she been intended 
 merely as a floating battery to protect the harbor in which 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 57 
 
 she was built, the service would have called for no extraordi- 
 nary sacrifice. But she was to go to sea ; and many expe- 
 rienced officers, both in the navy and in the merchant service, 
 doubted seriously her ability to keep afloat in any but the 
 calmest weather, and regarded the enterprise as desperate — 
 an opinion which the Monitor’s subsequent career fully jus- 
 tified. If she sank, she would sink quickly ; and there was 
 small chance that any of the devoted men penned up in her 
 submerged hull would escape. All this was well understood 
 by her officers and men ; and with a courage and self-devotion 
 of no common order, they voluntarily accepted the conditions, 
 and prepared to meet the danger. 
 
 The general plan of the Monitor, as originally invented by 
 Ericsson, was little less than an inspiration of genius. But 
 the first vessel of the type was by no means perfect in its de- 
 tails, and many improvements were made in those subse- 
 quently built. The defects, for grave defects they were, had 
 a marked influence upon both her sea-going and her fighting 
 qualities, and put her at a great disadvantage as compared 
 with her successors. Her armored deck or raft was attached 
 to the hull by a single set of rivets, which were unequal to 
 the strain caused by a heavy sea striking the projecting bow 
 from underneath. Her smoke-pipes and blower-pipes pro- 
 jected only a few feet above the deck, and could hardly fail 
 to ship large quantities of water in a heavy sea. In action, 
 her weakest point was the pilot-house. Its rude structure, 
 that of an iron log hut, was ill-calculated to resist the blow of 
 a heavy projectile. Its roof was detached, merely resting by 
 its weight on the walls. Its position on the deck forward of 
 the turret was disadvantageous, as it precluded end-on fire 
 when the vessel was approaching an enemy, and reduced the 
 circular sweep of the guns by nearly eight points. But the 
 worst feature of the arrangement was the separation of the 
 I.— 3 * 
 
58 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 captain who was manoeuvring the ship from the lieutenant 
 w 7 ho was working the turret and firing the guns. Each was 
 completely cut ofi‘ from the other, except by a speaking-tube, 
 which opened in the floor of the movable turret, and through 
 which the sound would only pass when the turret was in its 
 normal position. The experience of the first Monitor led to 
 the simple device of putting the pilot-house over the turret, a 
 change that w T as suggested by Newton, the engineer of the ves- 
 sel. Finally the machinery for turning the turret, a wheel 
 and rod connected by gearing with the turret-engine, w 7 as so 
 defective that the turret was equally slow in starting, and, 
 once started, in coming to a stop ; and there was hardly time 
 to point the guns before the muzzles had swept by tlieir 
 target. But considering the time in which she was built, 
 the wonder is not that she was imperfect, but that she was in 
 anywise ready ; and it was w T ell for the country that she did 
 not wait another day to complete her preparations. 
 
 The first trial of the Monitor was made February 19, on 
 the day that she was delivered at the Navy Yard. She was 
 put in commission on the 25tli, when a second trial took 
 place ; but her steering gear was not in working order, and 
 she did not go out of the East River. At a third trial, a week 
 later, she steamed down to Sandy Hook, and tried her guns. 
 The mechanics were still at work upon her ; indeed, the ves- 
 sel was hardly completed when she left New York, though 
 the workmen were busy during the night before she sailed. 
 Finally, at 11 o’clock on the morning of Thursday, March G, 
 she started down the harbor ; and in the afternoon she was 
 fairly at sea on her way to the Chesapeake. 
 
 The passage down was difficult and dangerous. The Mon- 
 itor was in tow of the Seth Low, a small tug, and was accom- 
 panied by two unseaworthy gunboats, the Currituck and 
 Sachem. The ten days between the commission of the Mon- 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 59 
 
 itor and her departure had given the crew little time for 
 practice in the management of the novel craft, with its com- 
 plicated mechanism. The wind was moderate during Thurs- 
 day night and Friday morning ; but about noon, off the 
 Delaware, it freshened to a strong breeze from the northwest, 
 and caused a rough sea, which broke over the vessel’s deck, 
 forcing the water in floods through the hawse-pipes and 
 under the turret. In the afternoon the sea increased, and 
 breaking over the smoke-pipe and blower-pipe, caused the 
 blower-bands to slip and break. This stopped the draft in 
 the furnace, and filled the engine-room and fire-room with 
 gas. Newton, with the other engineers and the firemen, 
 strove in vain against the gas, trying to repair the injury, and 
 they were only rescued as they lay unconscious on the floor 
 of the engine-room. As the engines were now useless either 
 for propulsion or pumping, the water gained rapidly. The 
 hand-pump was used and the men set to bailing, but with 
 little effect, as the water could only be carried off over the 
 wall of the turret. At last the tug was headed for the shore. 
 After five hours’ steaming, the vessels came into smoother 
 water ; the engine-room was cleared of gas, the blower-bands 
 were repaired, and the engine once more moved slowly. 
 
 So matters continued until shortly after midnight, when 
 the Monitor, in crossing a shoal, suddenly ran into a heavy 
 head-sea. The water came up through the anchor-well, 
 forced the air through the hawse-pipe, and flowed in a 
 stream over the ward-room table to the berth-deck. Efforts 
 were made to close the hawse-pipe, and the rush of water 
 was partly checked. But the sea now broke violently over 
 the deck, and again entered the blower-pipes. Another 
 disaster seemed imminent. The head wind prevented Wor- 
 den from hailing the tug, and in the hurry of preparation 
 no arrangement had been made for signalling at night. 
 
60 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Every sea that dashed the spray over the blowers was anx- 
 iously watched ; and every few minutes word came from the 
 engine-room that the engine could not go much longer un- 
 less the water was kept out. About this time the wheel- 
 ropes jumped off the steering wheel, owing to the pitching 
 of the ship, and became jammed. The vessel was now unman- 
 ageable and began to sheer about wildly ; but the tow-rope 
 held, and half an hour’s work repaired the injury. After 
 five critical hours, daylight broke, and the tug was ordered 
 to go nearer the shore. By eight o’clock the danger was 
 over. At four in the afternoon of the 8th of March the 
 Monitor passed Cape Henry. Immediately afterward the 
 hawser parted, but the vessel was now in smooth water. 
 
 In the absence of Flag-Officer Goldsborough, tlie Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the North Atlantic blockading squad- 
 ron, who was engaged at this time in the expedition against 
 Boanoke Island, the senior officer present in Hampton 
 Boads was Captain John Marston of the Boanoke. The 
 force consisted of the Boanoke and the Minnesota, lying 
 near Fortress Monroe, and two sailing-vessels, the Congress 
 and the Cumberland, at anchor off Newport News. All were 
 admirable vessels of their class. The Congress was a fifty- 
 gun frigate, and though rebuilt, or rather built anew, in 
 1841, represented the type of 1812. The Cumberland was a 
 sloop-of-war of twenty-four guns. The Boanoke and the 
 Minnesota were screw-frigates of forty guns. These vessels 
 have been already referred to. They were the pride of the 
 navy, and before the war had been regarded as the highest 
 and most perfect type of the men-of-war of the period. Yet 
 it required but the experience of a single afternoon in 
 Hampton Boads, in the month of March, 1862, to show that 
 all of them were antiquated, displaced, superseded, and that 
 a new era had opened in naval warfare. 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 61 
 
 The Merrimac, which had been a sister ship of the Minne- 
 sota and Roanoke, was now completed and in commission at 
 Norfolk, under her new name of the Virginia. She was to 
 all intents a new vessel. Her masts had been removed, and 
 her casemate, which sloped at an angle of forty-five degrees, 
 and resembled the roof of a house, had been armored with 
 two layers of wrought-iron plates, each two-and-a-half inches 
 thick, with a seven-inch wooden backing. She was armed 
 with six IX-inch Dahlgren guns and two 32-pounder Brooke 
 rifles in broadside, and Vll-incli Brooke rifles on pivots in 
 the bow and stern ; and a cast-iron ram projected eighteen 
 inches from her bow. 
 
 The Congress and Cumberland had been lying off Newport 
 News for several months. Their ostensible duty was to 
 blockade the James River ; but it is not very clear how a 
 sailing-vessel at anchor could be of any use for this purpose. 
 Most of the old sailing-vessels of the navy had by this time 
 been relegated to their proper place as school-ships, store- 
 ships, and receiving-ships, or had been sent to foreign sta- 
 tions where their only duty was to display the flag. Nothing 
 shows more clearly the persistence of old traditions than the 
 presence of these helpless vessels in so dangerous a neigh- 
 borhood. Although the ships themselves were of no value 
 for modern warfare, their armament could ill be spared ; and 
 they carried between them over eight hundred officers and 
 men, whose lives were exposed to a fruitless sacrifice. 1 
 
 Commander William Smith, who had commanded the 
 Congress for six months, had been detached early in March. 
 He turned over the command to his executive, Lieutenant 
 Joseph B. Smith, but remained on board while waiting for 
 his steamer, and during the engagement of the 8tli he 
 
 1 Captain Fox, in his testimony before the Select Committee, says that the sail- 
 ing-vessels were left in Hampton Roads at the request of the military authorities. 
 
62 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 served as a volunteer. Radford, the commander of the 
 Cumberland, was attending a court of inquiry on board the 
 Roanoke when the Merrimac came out, and the command 
 of the sloop devolved on Lieutenant Morris. When the 
 Merrimac was reported, Radford landed, and rode to New- 
 port News ; but he only arrived in time to see the end of 
 the action. Both ships were therefore fought by their first 
 lieutenants; but they could not have been defended with 
 more resolution and gallantry, and no skill would have 
 availed to alter the final result. 
 
 So many rumors about the Merrimac had been current in 
 the fleet, without any visible results, that the prevalent feel- 
 ing in regard to her was one of skepticism. It was known 
 that extensive alterations had been made in the vessel, but it 
 was not supposed that her powers of resistance would render 
 her shot-proof under the fire of such broadsides as the two 
 vessels could bring against her. Moreover, her sister ships, 
 the Roanoke and Minnesota, lay below near the fort. A 
 careful lookout was kept up, however ; the ships were 
 anchored with springs on their cables, and half the watch 
 slept at quarters. 
 
 On the 6th of March, the frigate St. Lawrence came in, a 
 vessel in all respects similar to the Congress. But so far 
 from increasing the force to bo opposed to the Merrimac, she 
 only added another to the Hst of probable victims. 
 
 On Saturday, the 8tli, a little before one o’clock in the 
 afternoon, while the Monitor was still outside the Capes, the 
 Merrimac finally came out from Norfolk. She was under the 
 command of Franklin Buchanan, whoso ability and energy 
 had won him a high place in the esteem of his brother- 
 officers in the navy before the war. She was accompanied 
 by two gunboats, the Beaufort and Raleigh, of one gun 
 each. Turning directly into the channel by which she could 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 63 
 
 reach Newport News, the Merrimac approached the two 
 vessels at anchor. The latter had been cleared for action, 
 the Cumberland when the enemy was sighted, and the Con- 
 gress after he had entered the James River channel. They 
 would have been no better off if they had got under w T ay ; 
 the wind was light, and their tug, the Zouave, was not pow- 
 erful enough to tow them off. Soon after tw T o o’clock the 
 Merrimac opened fire with grape from her bow gun. Pass- 
 ing along the starboard side of the Congress, whose shot re- 
 bounded from her iron side like pebbles, she steered directly 
 for the Cumberland. The latter received her with a dis- 
 charge of shot which entered the port, knocked off the muz- 
 zles of two guns, and killed or -wounded nineteen men, but 
 did not stop her progress. Approaching steadily, bows on, 
 she raked the sloop with her pivot gun, and keeping her way, 
 struck her full under the starboard fore-channels, delivering 
 her fire at the same time. The force of the blow drove the 
 Merrimac 1 s ram so far into the planking that it was wrenched 
 off, as she w T ithdrew T ; and a hole w T as opened in the side of 
 the Cumberland, into which the water rushed in a full stream. 
 
 The bow of the Cumberland immediately began to settle, 
 and her fate w r as decided. Nevertheless she continued to 
 fight with the persistence and energy of desperation. The 
 gun’s crews kicked off their shoes, and stripped to the w T aist. 
 Tanks of cartridges were hoisted on the gun-deck and 
 opened, and round after round wus fired at the ironclad. 
 Never did a crew fight a ship with more spirit and hardi- 
 hood than these brave fellows of the Cumberland while the 
 vessel w~as going down. Nor was it a mere idle display of 
 gallantry, this holding on till the last ; for in these days, 
 in naval battles, the game is not over until the last gun is 
 fired, and a chance shot may recover the day for a seemingly 
 beaten combatant. 
 
64 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 For three-quarters of an hour, from the time when the 
 Cumberland was struck until she sank, the enemy’s fire 
 was concentrated upon her with terrible effect. A shell 
 passing through the hatch burst in the sick-bay, killing 
 four of the wounded. On the berth-deck, the wounded men 
 were lifted upon racks and mess-chests, to keep them from 
 drowning; and as the water rose, those who fell on the 
 upper decks were carried amidships and left there. The 
 Merrimac hailed and demanded a surrender; but Morris 
 returned a refusal. Already, the boats had been lowered 
 and made fast in a line on the shore side. At half-past 
 three, the forward magazine was drowned, and five minutes 
 later the order was given to the men to leave quarters and 
 save themselves. The water had now risen to the gun-deck ; 
 a last shot was fired as the ship heeled over to port, and 
 officers and crew jumped for their lives into the water. A 
 moment more, and the Cumberland, with her ensign still 
 flying at the peak, sank to her tops. 
 
 While the Merrimac was occupied with the Cumberland, 
 three steamers, the Patrick Henry, Jamestown, and Teazer, 
 which had been lying at the mouth of the James River, ran 
 past the batteries at Newport News, and joining the other 
 gunboats, opened a brisk fire upon the Congress, which told 
 severely upon her crew. Seeing the fate of the Cumberland, 
 Smith sought to escape the enemy’s ram by running ashore. 
 He set the jib and topsails, and with the assistance of the 
 tug, ran up on the flats, hoping in this way to delay the bat- 
 tle until the other fiigates should arrive ; but his movement 
 was only escaping destruction in one form to meet it in 
 another. No sooner was the Congress hard and fast than the 
 Mammae, taking a position astern of her, at a distance of 
 one hundred and fifty yards, raked her fore and aft with 
 shells ; and the smaller steamers joined in the attack with 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 65 
 
 spirit and effect. The Congress conld only reply with her 
 two stern gn ns, and these were soon disabled. 
 
 The unequal contest lasted for an hour. The old frigate 
 could do nothing. Her decks were covered with the dead and 
 dying ; her commander was killed, and fire had broken out 
 in different parts of the ship. The affair had ceased to be a 
 fight ; it was simply a wholesale slaughter. As the Minnesota 
 had run aground, there was no prospect of relief ; and Lieu- 
 tenant Pendergrast, upon whom the command had fallen, to 
 prevent the useless carnage, hoisted a white flag. 
 
 The Beaufort and Raleigh were sent alongside the Congress 
 to receive possession and to remove the prisoners ; but a 
 sharp fire of artillery and small arms from the shore drove 
 them off. The Teazer was then ordered to set fire to the 
 Congress, but she also w r as beaten back. The Merrimac 
 thereupon renewed her fire, using incendiary shot, and the 
 people of the Congress, who had remained passive while the 
 contest was going on over and around them, manned their 
 boats and escaped to the shore. The ship, left to herself, 
 continued to burn slowly, and at one o’clock the next morn- 
 ing she blew up. 
 
 While these battles were in progress, the two screw-frigates, 
 which formed the only effective force on the ground, made 
 an effort to get into action, but not with any great success. 
 The Minnesota, under Captain Van Brunt, was the first to 
 move, getting under way soon after the enemy w r as sighted, 
 at a signal from the Roanoke. As she passed Sewall’s Point, 
 the batteries opened fire on % her, but did not stop her prog- 
 ress. After steaming five miles she grounded. She was then 
 a mile and a half from the scene of action. When the aban- 
 donment of the Congress left the Merrimac free to engage a 
 new antagonist, she turned her attention to the stranded 
 frigate. Fortunately for the latter, the Merrimac drew 7 too 
 
66 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 much water to approach within less than a mile of her posi- 
 tion ; and her fire at this distance was ineffective. The 
 Patrick Henry and Jamestown, taking their position on the 
 bow and stern of the Minnesota, did her more injury with 
 their rifled guns than did their powerful consort. The 
 Minnesota’s fire had no effect upon the Merrimac, but she 
 succeeded in beating back the gunboats ; and during two or 
 three hours of conflict, neither side gained or lost. 
 
 The Roanoke, which was disabled by a broken shaft , 1 * * * * * got 
 under way soon after the Minnesota, and with the assistance 
 of a couple of tugs, moved slowly in the direction of New- 
 port News. She went far enough to see the Cumberland 
 sink and the Congress surrender. Soon after the second 
 event, she grounded; but the tugs managed to tow her 
 head around and to get her afloat. Sending the tugs to as- 
 sist the Minnesota, the Roanoke now withdrew and dropped 
 down to her anchorage. 
 
 As the Roanoke was on her way back, the St. Lawrence 
 passed her, making her way laboriously to the scene of action 
 in tow of a gunboat. Captain Purviance, with a gallantry 
 that deserved a better instrument, w T as endeavoring to bring 
 his fine old fifty-gun frigate to battle with the ironclad. 
 Fortunately for him and for his ship, he also w 7 ent aground, 
 
 1 Captain Fox, in his testimony before the Select Committee on March 10, 1862, 
 
 says : “ The shaft of the Roanoke was broken about the 5th of November, and it 
 
 was believed that it could be repaired in about two months. That was the report 
 
 made to us. But upon inquiry, it was found that every forge in the country 
 
 capable of doing the work was employed. There being a large number of con- 
 tracts out for steamers, every one of which must have a shaft, every available 
 forge in the country was running to the utmost of its capacity. Finally, we 
 found one establishment that agreed to forge the shaft, but refused to turn and 
 
 finish it, which, of itself, is as important and difficult a matter as the forging. 
 
 The Government had no adequate means to turn such an enormous piece of forg- 
 ing. They undertook it, however, with such means as they had at the New Yoik 
 Navy Yard, and it is now about finished, although it broke every piece of machin- 
 ery they had which was put upon it, and special machinery had to be made for it.” 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 67 
 
 while still at some distance from the enemy, against whom 
 he discharged a series of futile broadsides. Night was now 
 approaching ; and the St. Lawrence slowly returned to her 
 place in the roads below. 
 
 At seven o’clock the Merrimac ceased firing, and with- 
 drew to Sewall’s Point. She had done a good day’s work. 
 She had sunk one of her opponents, and burnt another. 
 Only daylight was needed to capture or exterminate the rest. 
 She saw her prey within her grasp ; and by all human calcu- 
 lation the whole force must fall into her hands on the next 
 day. The conflict had left her without any material injury ; 
 and she returned to her anchorage fully satisfied with the 
 work of the day, and the prospects for the morrow. 
 
 But an event had already occurred which put a new aspect 
 upon affairs in Hampton Boads. At four in the afternoon 
 the Monitor had passed Cape Henry. Her officers had heard 
 the heavy firing in the direction of Fortress Monroe, and the 
 ship was shipped of her sea-rig and prepared for action. A 
 pilot-boat, spoken on the way up, gave word of the disastrous 
 engagement that had just ended ; and presently the light of 
 the burning Congress confirmed the news. At nine o’clock 
 the Monitor had anchored near the Boanoke, and Worden 
 went on board to report. 
 
 In order to carry out the project of opening the Potomac 
 Biver, explicit orders had been given to Captain Marston to 
 send the Monitor directly to Washington. Similar orders had 
 been sent to Worden, but they only reached New York two 
 hours after he had sailed. The state of affairs was such, how- 
 ever, that Marston and Worden were more than justified in 
 disregarding the orders. No sane man would have done other- 
 wise. Worden accordingly proceeded to the assistance of the 
 Minnesota, which was still aground off Newport News. Act- 
 ing-Master Samuel Howard volunteered to act as pilot. Be- 
 
68 the blockade and the cruisers. 
 
 fore midnight the Monitor had joined the Minnesota; but 
 the frigate failed to get afloat at high water, and the Monitor 
 remained by her during the rest of the night. 
 
 At daylight on the morning of Sunday, March 9, the 
 Merrimac was discovered with her attendant gunboats under 
 the batteries at Sewall’s Point. The Minnesota lay still in 
 the same position, apparently helpless. The diminutive iron 
 battery beside her was hardly noticed ; and at half -past seven 
 the Merrimac was under way, confident of repeating, on a 
 larger scale, the victory of the day before. Buchanan had 
 been disabled by a wound, and she was now commanded by 
 Lieutenant Catesby Jones. She steamed down leisurely 
 toward the Kip Baps, turned into the Minnesota’s channel, 
 and opened fire while still a mile away. She succeeded in 
 putting a shot under the Minnesota’s counter, near the water 
 line, but did no further injury. The Monitor’s anchor was 
 up, her men at quarters, her guns loaded, and everything 
 ready for action. She immediately got under way, to en- 
 gage as far as possible from the Minnesota, and, to Van 
 Brunt’s surprise and relief, headed directly for the Mem- 
 mac’s starboard bow, covering the frigate. Worden reserved 
 his fire until he was close upon the enemy; then, altering 
 his course, he gave orders to commence firing, and, stopping 
 the engine, passed slowly by. The Merrimac returned the 
 fire, but with little effect ; the turret was a small target, and 
 the projectiles passed over the low deck. Shell, grape, 
 canister, and musket balls, flew about in every direction, but 
 did no injury. Acting-Master Stodder carelessly leaned for 
 a moment against the turret, and a shot striking the outer 
 wall, produced a concussion that disabled him. As the tur- 
 ret was struck the shot glanced off from its curved side ; and 
 though, from the imperfections of the machinery, it was regu- 
 lated with difficulty, it continued to revolve as freely as ever. 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 69 
 
 After passing the Merrimac, Worden turned, and, crossing 
 her stern, attempted to disable her screw, which he missed 
 by a few feet. Returning, he passed up along her port side, 
 firing deliberately. The vessels were so close that several 
 times they nearly came in contact. Presently they separated, 
 and the Merrimac attacked the Minnesota. In shifting her 
 position, she grounded, but got off soon after. The frigate 
 received her as she approached with a discharge from her 
 full broadside and X-inch pivot ; of which Van Brunt ob- 
 served, somewhat extravagantly, that “it would have blown 
 out of water any timber-built ship in the world.” But the 
 days of timber-built ships were numbered, and nothing proved 
 it more clearly than Van Brunt’s ineffectual broadside. The 
 Merrimac replied with a shell from her rifled bow-gun, which 
 entered the berth-deck amidships, tore four rooms into one, 
 and set the ship on fire. The flames were soon extinguished. 
 A second shell exploded the boiler of the tugboat Dragon. 
 Van Brunt concentrated his broadside upon the ironclad, and 
 fifty solid shot struck her side with no more effect than the 
 pelting of liail-stones. By the time she had fired her third 
 shell, the Monitor had interposed again ; and the Merrimac, 
 running down at full speed, attempted to repeat her success- 
 ful attack on the Cumberland. Worden saw the movement, 
 and suddenly {jutting his helm hard-a-port, he gave his ves- 
 sel a broad sheer, receiving the blow of the ram on his star- 
 board quarter, whence it glanced off without doing any 
 injury. 
 
 During the engagement, Worden’ had taken his place in 
 the pilot-house, from the lookout-holes of which he was able 
 to see the course of the action and to direct the working of 
 the ship and of the guns. Greene had charge of the turret 
 and handled the battery. These two men fought the ship. 
 Acting-Master Stodder was at first stationed at the wheel that 
 
70 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 started the revolving-gear, and when he was disabled, Chief- 
 Engineer Stimers volunteered to take his place, and did the 
 best that could be done in the exhausting work of turning 
 the refractory turret. The powder division on the berth- 
 deck was in charge of Acting-Master Webber. The pay- 
 master and captain’s clerk, also stationed on the berth-deck, 
 passed the orders from the pilot-house. The men had gone 
 into the engagement worn out, having had no rest for forty- 
 eight hours, and little to eat. But they were picked men, 
 and during the short time that Worden had been with them 
 he had won, in an extraordinary degree, their confidence and 
 regard. Accordingly they did their work with unflinching 
 courage and resolution. 
 
 The situation in the turret was a difficult one. Shut up in 
 a revolving iron cask, on a moving platform, and cut off from 
 the captain except through slow and imperfect communica- 
 tion by passing the word, when minutes and even seconds 
 were important, Greene fought under heavy disadvantages. 
 The direction of the bow and stern and of the starboard and 
 port beam were marked on the stationary flooring, but the 
 marks were soon obliterated, and after one or two revolutions 
 it was impossible to guess at the direction of the ship or the 
 position of the enemy. The only openings through which 
 anything could be seen were the gunports ; and these were 
 closed except at the moment of firing, as an entering shot 
 would have disabled the guns. Curiously enough, neither 
 of the port-stoppers was struck, though the edges of the 
 ports and the turret wall between them were jagged and 
 dented by the Memmac’s shot. At last the difficulties be- 
 came so great, the revolutions so confusing, and the mechan- 
 ism governing the movements of the turret so little under 
 control, that it was left stationary, and the ship was fought 
 and the guns pointed by the helm. 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 71 
 
 After fighting for two hours, the Monitor hauled off to 
 hoist shot into the turret. At half -past eleven, the engage- 
 ment was renewed. The enemy now concentrated his fire on 
 the pilot-house, which was the weakest part of the vessel. At 
 a moment when Worden was looking through one of the 
 openings, a shell struck the wall at the opening, and ex- 
 ploded. The explosion fractured one of the iron logs of the 
 frame, and lifted half-way off the iron hatch that rested in- 
 securely on the top. Worden’s eyes were filled with powder 
 and slivers of iron, and he was blinded and stunned. Blind 
 as he was, he could see the stream of light from the roof, 
 and unable to determine the extent of the injury, he had the 
 presence of mind to give orders to put the helm to starboard 
 and sheer off. With the captain disabled and the quarter- 
 master dazed by the shock, it was some minutes before word 
 was passed to the turret of the disaster in the pilot-house. 
 When Greene came out and passed forward he found the 
 captain at the foot of the ladder, stunned and helpless, his 
 face black and streaming with blood. Leaving him to the 
 surgeon, Greene mounted to the pilot-house, while S timers 
 replaced him in the turret ; and the vessel, which during 
 these moments of unavoidable delay had been without a cap- 
 tain, and steaming no one knew whither, once more faced 
 the enemy. 
 
 Seeing the Monitor draw off, Van Brunt, under the suppo- 
 sition that his protector was disabled and had left him, pre- 
 pared for the worst, and made ready to destroy his ship. 
 But, at this point, the Merrimac withdrew to Norfolk. As 
 she moved off, Greene fired at her twice, or at most three 
 times. He then returned to the Minnesota, and remained by 
 her until she got afloat. To have followed the Merrimac 
 under the batteries of Sewall’s Point would have been run- 
 ning a greater risk than the circumstances would warrant, 
 
72 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 considering the important interests at Hampton Roads, of 
 which the Monitor afforded the sole protection. 
 
 It appears that the movements of the Monitor, at the time 
 when there was no captain to direct her, led others besides 
 Van Brunt to suppose that she had given up the fight ; and 
 the assertion has since been confidently made that she was 
 beaten and driven off by the enemy. The statement is not 
 borne out by the facts, as the Monitor only w T ent off a short 
 distance into shoal water, and presently renewed the combat. 
 But assuming for the moment that the Merrimac was left in 
 possession of the field, why did she not continue her opera- 
 tions ? The retreat of the Monitor would have left matters 
 in precisely the situation in which the Merrimac supposed 
 them to be when she came out in the morning. It is to be 
 presumed that her object then was to destroy the Minnesota. 
 The Monitor prevented her for four hours from doing this ; 
 now, however, if the Monitor had retreated, why did she not 
 attack the frigate ? 
 
 Instead of continuing the fight, the Merrimac steamed to 
 Norfolk. Jones gives as his reason for returning that he be- 
 lieved the Minnesota to be entirely disabled. What ground 
 he had for forming such a belief does not appear. It has also 
 been suggested that his pilots led him to suppose that delay 
 would prevent him from crossing the bar. But what need 
 had he to cross ? The bar was a mile above Sewall’s Point ; 
 he had anchored safely the night before under the battery, 
 and after destroying the Minnesota — supposing that the 
 Monitor had disappeared — he could do the same again, and 
 go up to Norfolk at his leisure. If, however, his injuries 
 w’ere so great that he was compelled to lose no time in re- 
 turning to Norfolk, it would seem that instead of his haring 
 defeated the Monitor, the Monitor had defeated him. In 
 truth, the claim that the Merrimac was victorious is singu- 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 73 
 
 larly bold, in view of the fact that half an hour after the last 
 shot was fired the Minnesota was lying aground in the very 
 spot she had occupied in the morning, the Monitor w~as lying 
 alongside her, neither of them being materially injured, 
 and the supposed victor was steaming as fast as possible to 
 Elizabeth River, in order to cross the bar before the ebb- 
 tide. 
 
 Though both the ironclads were severely pounded in the 
 engagement, neither had developed fully its offensive strength, 
 and all things considered they got off rather easily. The 
 only serious casualty on either side was the injury received 
 by Worden. The Merrimac leaked somewhat from the colli- 
 sion of her unarmed stem with the Monitor’s overhang, and 
 the plates of her armor were broken where they were struck, 
 but the wooden backing was not penetrated. The roof of 
 the Monitor’s pilot-house was partly displaced, and one of its 
 beams was cracked ; but otherwise the vessel was left intact. 
 She was struck twenty-one times ; eight times on the side- 
 armor, twice on the pilot-house, seven times on the turret, 
 and four times on deck. The deepest indentations on the 
 sides were four inches, on the turret two inches, and on the 
 deck one inch. Had the Monitor’s guns been depressed to 
 strike the enemy at the water line, where there was only one 
 inch of armor, or had the latter concentrated his fire on the 
 pilot-house of the Monitor, which was her weakest point, the 
 result might have been more decisive. So with the ord- 
 nance. The service charge for the Xl-inch guns was fif- 
 teen pounds, and the Bureau had enjoined upon Worden to 
 limit himself to this, though it was found later that thirty 
 pounds could be safely used ; and on the other hand, owing 
 to the great demand among the Confederates for juojectiles 
 at other points, and* to the supposition that she would have 
 only wooden vessels to encounter, the Merrimac was not sup- 
 I. — 4 
 
74 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 plied with solid shot, which would have been far more effec- 
 tive against armor than shells. 
 
 No single event of the naval war produced more momen- 
 tous results than the victory of the Monitor. The first day’s 
 battle in Hampton Roads had shown that the enemy pos- 
 sessed an engine of destruction w T hose offensive powers were 
 a new revelation in maritime warfare. There was nothing at 
 hand to offer even a show of effective resistance. On that 
 memorable Saturday night dismay and consternation per- 
 vaded the fleet ; the Merrimac had the frigates at her mercy, 
 and the waters of Hampton Roads under her control. To all 
 appearances the confidence of the country in its navy was on 
 the point of being rudely shaken by the sudden destruction 
 of a large force of its most powerful ships. The blockade 
 was about to be raised at the point where it had seemed to 
 be most firmly established. A roadstead whose occupation 
 was of the highest strategic importance was about to pass 
 into the hands of the enemy ; and the proposed plan of an 
 invasion of the Peninsula would be rendered impracticable if 
 the army’s base and communications were threatened by the 
 Merrimac. It was even feared that the ironclad would issue 
 from the Chesapeake and levy contributions on Northern 
 ports; and though it was afterward known that she could 
 not have gone to sea with safety, the fact that she was at 
 large and that her egress was unchecked w^ould have pro- 
 duced incalculable mischief both at home rnd abroad. 
 
 But the renown of the Monitor and of the gallant officer 
 who commanded her rest no less on the courage and conduct 
 that carried her to victory than on the importance of the ac- 
 tion and the dramatic interest that surrounded it. The expe- 
 dition had started from New York as a forlorn hope. To 
 Worden it was doubly so, for he had left a sick-bed to as* 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 75 
 
 sume the command, and he had been told by his physician 
 that he could hardly hope to come back alive. With a forti- 
 tude beyond all praise he held to his purpose, and carried 
 the experimental craft through her first perilous sea- voyage. 
 After two sleepless days and nights he entered Hampton 
 Roads, only to find that the fleet was demoralized and that 
 the whole weight of the crisis rested upon him. With hardly 
 a moment for rest or for preparation, he took his untried ves- 
 sel boldly into action with an enemy whose powers had just 
 been proved in a successful engagement, and whose enor- 
 mous size caused his little battery to sink into comparative 
 insignificance. The close of the battle found the enemy in 
 retreat, the blockade unbroken, the fleet saved, and the 
 Roads reconquered. For these overwhelming results, and 
 for the skill and heroism that achieved them in the face of 
 extraordinary difficulties, the names of Worden and the Moni- 
 tor will always be linked by the country in affectionate re- 
 membrance. 1 
 
 1 Though not, strictly speaking, within the province of history, it may be worth 
 while to quote here, as it has never before been made public, a touching letter which 
 was sent to Worden by the crew of the Monitor at the time when he was lying in 
 Washington disabled by his wound. As an expression of genuine feeling from 
 rough and untrained men, and as showing the enthusiastic devotion which Wor- 
 den had gained from his crew, its interest is both human and historical. 
 
 To Captain Worden. 
 
 “Hampton Roads. April 24th, 1862. 
 
 “U. S. Monitor. 
 
 “ To our Dear and Honored Captain. 
 
 “Dear Sir : These few lines is from your own crew of the Monitor, with their 
 kindest Love to you their Honored Captain, hoping to God that they will have 
 the pleasure of welcoming you back to us again soon, for we are all ready able and 
 willing to meet Death or any thing else, only give us back our Captain again. 
 Dear Captain, we have got your Pilot-house fixed and all ready for you when you 
 get well again ; and we all sincerely hope that soon we will have the pleasure of 
 welcoming you back to it. . . . We are waiting very patiently to engage our 
 
 Antagonist if we could only get a chance to do so. The last time she came out 
 we all thought we would have the Pleasure of sinking her. But we all got disap- 
 
76 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 After the battles of the 8tli and 9th of March, Buchanan 
 was relieved, in consequence of his wound, by Commodore 
 Tattnall, who assumed command of the 4 4 naval defences of 
 the waters of Virginia ” on the 29th. His fleet was composed 
 of the same vessels that had taken part in the two actions. 
 The Merrimac came out of dry-dock on the 4th of April. 
 She had been thoroughly repaired, and was in as good con- 
 dition as before the engagement. Another layer of iron had 
 been partially put on, a new ram had been adjusted, and she 
 was furnished with solid shot. Her only weak points were in 
 her ports, which were without covers ; and in her engines, 
 upon which full dependence could not be placed. 
 
 On the morning of April 11, the Merrimac steamed down 
 the river, and came out into Hampton Boads. Goldsborough 
 had now returned from the Sounds. The Minnesota, with 
 the Monitor and the other vessels of the squadron, was lying 
 at Fortress Monroe, or a little below ; and the Merrimac took 
 her position between SewalFs Point and Newport News, out 
 of range of the guns of the fort. 
 
 Goldsborough, impressed with the importance of keeping 
 the Merrimac in check, in order that she might not interfere 
 with McClellan’s operations, and in accordance with the 
 wishes of the Department, was inclined to take no unneces- 
 sary risk, and to do nothing that would precipitate a conflict. 
 
 pointed, for we did not fire one shot and the Norfolk papers says we are cowards in 
 the Monitor— and all we want is a chance to show them where it lies with you for 
 our Captain We can teach them who is cowards. But there is a great deal that 
 we would like to write to you but we think you will soon be with us again your- 
 self. But we all join in with our kindest love to you, hoping that God will restore 
 you to us again and hoping that your sufferings is at an end now, and we are all 
 so glad to hear that your eyesight will be spaired to you again. We would wish to 
 write more to you if we have your kind Permission to do so but at present we all 
 conclude by tendering to you our kindest Love and affection, to our Dear and 
 Honored Captain. 
 
 “ Wo remain untill Death your Affectionate Crew 
 
 “The Monitor Boys.” 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 77 
 
 He had no intention of taking the offensive, or of engaging, 
 except under the most favorable circumstances. Additions 
 to his force were expected to arrive shortly, and the situation 
 was considered too critical to leave anything to chance. No 
 action therefore took place, the vessels of the squadron hav- 
 ing steam up, but remaining in their position near the fort. 
 
 A large number of transports, store-ships, and chartered 
 vessels were lying at this time in or about the Roads. Golds- 
 borough had cautioned them about the danger of lying near 
 Hampton, and most of them had withdrawn below the fort. 
 On the 11th, however, two brigs and a schooner, employed 
 by the Quartermaster’s Department, were still lying between 
 Newport News and Hampton Bar. By Tattnall’s direction 
 the Jamestown and Raleigh steamed across, captured the ves- 
 sels, and brought them over to Sewall’s Point, in full sight of 
 the fleet. Humiliating as the incident was, it was not of suffi- 
 cient importance to change Goldsborougli’s plan, supposing 
 that his plan was right. In the occurrences of this day, the 
 Department commended Goldsborough’s action, and it left 
 to his discretion the conduct of subsequent operations. 
 
 Matters remained in this position for nearly a month, the 
 squadron having been increased during this time by the ad- 
 dition of the new ironclad Galena, the Vanderbilt, and other 
 vessels. In May it became apparent to the Confederates 
 that the progress of military operations would compel the 
 abandonment of Norfolk, and consultations were held by 
 the military and naval authorities as to the disposition of 
 the Merrimac. Early on the morning of May 8, the United 
 States steamers Galena, Aroostook, and Port Royal were sent 
 up the James River. The Merrimac was at Norfolk, and a 
 demonstration was made by the rest of the squadron against 
 the battery at Sewall’s Point. Presently the Merrimac came 
 down the river. It was not Goldsborough’s intention to 
 
78 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 make a serious attack on tlie fort, his object being merely tc 
 ascertain the strength of the works and the possibility of ef- 
 fecting a landing of the troops. 
 
 The Monitor had orders to fall back into fair channel way, 
 and only engage the Merrimac seriously in such a position 
 that the Minnesota and the other vessels could run her down, 
 if an opportunity presented itself. According to Goldsbor- 
 ough, “the Merrimac came out, but was even more cautious 
 than ever. The Monitor was kept well in advance, and so 
 that the Merrimac could have engaged her without difficulty 
 had she been so disposed ; but she declined to do it, and 
 soon returned and anchored under Sewall’s Point.” 1 
 
 On the 10 th, Tattnall learned that the fort at Sewall’s 
 Point had been abandoned, and that the United States troops, 
 having landed at Ocean View, were rapidly advancing on Nor- 
 folk. By the evening Norfolk had surrendered, and he re- 
 solved to withdraw to the James River. The pilots informed 
 him that they could take the ship up with a draft of eighteen 
 feet. The Merrimac drew twenty-two feet, and preparations 
 Were made to lighten her. After working half the night, and 
 stripping the ship so that she was unfit for action, the pilots, 
 apparently not wishing to go out, declared that it would be 
 impossible to take her up as far as Jamestown Flats, the 
 point to which McClellan’s army was supposed to have occu- 
 pied the river. Tattnall thereupon concluded to destroy his 
 
 1 It is impossible to reconcile the statements of the two opposing commanders, 
 in regard to the events of this day. Tattnall says: “ We passed the battery and 
 stood direotiy for the enemy for the purpose of engaging him, and I thought au 
 action certain, particularly as the Minnesota and Vanderbilt, which were an- 
 chored beiow Fortress Monroe, got under way and stood up to that point, appar- 
 ently with the intention of joining their squadron in the roads. Before, how- 
 ever, we got within gunshot, the enemy ceased firing and retired with all speed 
 under the protection of the guns of the Fortress, followed by the Virginia, until 
 the shells from the Rip Raps passed over her. The Virginia was then placed at 
 her moorings near Sewall’s Point.” 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 79 
 
 ship ; and, setting her on fire, he landed his officers and men 
 and escaped by way of Suffolk. At five o’clock on the morn- 
 ing of the 11th the Merrimac blew up. 
 
 Possession of Norfolk being now resumed, active opera- 
 tions came to an end, and the blockading station at Hampton 
 Roads ceased to be the scene of conflict. The Monitor, after 
 remaining all summer in the James River, was sent to Wash- 
 ington for repairs in September, and two months later re- 
 turned to Hampton Roads. 
 
 The career of the Monitor was now nearly over. On the 
 afternoon of the 29 th of December, she set out for Beaufort, 
 N. C., in tow of the Rhode Island. Admiral Lee had left the 
 time of departure at the discretion of Bankhead, the com- 
 mander of the Monitor ; and the latter chose a clear pleasant 
 day, when a light wind was blowing from the southwest, and 
 everything promised fair weather. The passage to Beaufort 
 was about as long as that from New York to Hampton Roads. 
 The Monitor was accompanied by the Passaic, which was in 
 tow of the State of Georgia. All went well until the morning 
 < >f the second day, when the ships began to feel a swell from 
 the southward. Gradually the wind freshened, and the sea 
 broke over the pilot-house of the Monitor. The weather was 
 threatening all day, with occasional squalls of wind and rain : 
 but the bilge-pumps were kept at work, and the ironclads 
 remained free from water. 
 
 As evening came on, and Hatteras was passed, matters be- 
 gan to grow worse. The wind increased and hauled to the 
 southward, causing a heavy sea. As the Monitor rose to the 
 swell, the projecting armor of her bow received the shock of 
 the advancing wave full on its flat under-surface, coming 
 down with a clap like thunder. The sea rose fast, submerg- 
 ing the pilot-house, and forcing its way into the turret and 
 
80 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 blower-pipes. Trenchard, who commanded the Ehode Island, 
 stopped his vessel, to see if the Monitor would not ride more 
 easily or make less water; but the inert mass of iron only fell 
 off and rolled heavily in the trough of the sea. Again the 
 Ehode Island started, with the Monitor yawing and plunging 
 behind her. The strain on her forward overhang had loosened 
 the plates under her bow, and she began to leak ; and though 
 all the pumps were working, the water gained on them fast. 
 At ten o’clock it became evident that no efforts would avail 
 to save the ship ; and Bankhead made the signal of distress, 
 cut the hawser, and ranged up under the lee of the Ehode 
 Island. Boats were lowered, and the dangerous work began 
 of removing the crew of the sinking ironclad, over whose 
 deck the seas were no w breaking in quick succession. As the 
 vessels touched, ropes were thrown over the Ehode Island’s 
 quarter ; but the crew could not or would not seize them. 
 The Ehode Island’s cutter took off a boat-load of men suc- 
 cessfully, but the launch was stove by the working of the 
 Monitor; and Trenchard, finding that his ow T n vessel was 
 imperilled by the sharp bow and sides of her companion, was 
 obliged to move away. 
 
 It was now nearly midnight ; the ship was sinking fast, the 
 rising water had put out the fires, engines and pumps had 
 stopped, and again the Monitor fell off into the trough of the 
 sea, where she rolled sluggishly. Seeing this, Bankhead let 
 go the anchor, which brought her head to wind. The greater 
 part of the crew had now been rescued ; but a few had been 
 w T aslied overboard, and twenty or so still remained on board, 
 waiting for the boats to return. During these trying mo- 
 ments Bankhead set a bailing party at work, not in the hope 
 of reducing the water, but to give occupation to his men. 
 Slowly and cautiously the last boat approached, keeping off 
 with her oars from the side of the ironclad, and while Bank- 
 
THE CHESAPEAKE. 
 
 81 
 
 head held the painter she took off the remnant of the crew, — 
 all but a few poor fellows who, dazed and terrified, could not 
 be made to leave the turret. Last of all Bankhead jumped 
 in, and the boat pulled toward the Bhode Island, and was 
 got safely on board. A few moments more, and the Monitor 
 slowly settled and disappeared. 
 
 I.— 4 * 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 The first step in the establishment of the Atlantic block- 
 ade was the proclamation issued by Commodore Pendergrast, 
 still in command of the Home Squadron at Hampton Roads. 
 The only effective blockade then existing was maintained by 
 the Cumberland, and such other vessels as had been hastily 
 collected, in the neighborhood of Fortress Monroe. In car- 
 rying out the plan, it was decided to put the whole force 
 on the Atlantic coast under one command, and Commodore 
 Stringham was accordingly appointed flag-officer commanding 
 the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The Minnesota, which 
 had been laid up in ordinary at Boston, was assigned to him 
 as flagship, and on the 13th of May he arrived at Hampton 
 Roads, and entered upon his command. 
 
 The instructions sent to Stringham on May 1 will serve 
 to show exactly the views of the Department in its first 
 efforts to establish the blockade. They were as follows : 
 
 “ The President, by Proclamation of April 19, 1861, ordered a block- 
 ade of the ports within the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, 
 Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas ; and by a supplemental 
 Proclamation of the 27th of April, 1801, he extends th3 blockade so as 
 to include the ports of Virginia and North Carolina. In pursuance of 
 the laws of the United States, and of the Law of Nations, in such cases 
 provided, it becomes necessary that a competent force be posted so as 
 to prevent the entrance and exit of vessels from the ports aforesaid. 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS: 
 
 83 
 
 “With this view you will establish and enforce a blockade at each 
 and all of the ports in the States enumerated east of Key West, and a 
 sufficient disposable force will be placed under the command of yourself 
 that you may carry these orders into effect. On you will devolve the 
 duty of blockading all the ports east of Key West. You will duly 
 notify neutrals of the declaration of blockade, and give to it all the pub- 
 licity in your power. The blockade must be strict and absolute and 
 only public armed vessels of foreign powers should be permitted to 
 enter the ports which are placed in a state of blockade. To neutral or 
 foreign vessels, that are already in the ports, you will allow a reasonable 
 number of days to leave them. The country relies upon your command, 
 with the squadron of the Gulf, to make this blockade effectual, so as to 
 close all of the ports of the States above named, protect our commerce 
 from the depredations of privateers, and contribute, by your activity and 
 vigilance, to the speedy suppression of the insurrectionary movements 
 and the adjustment of the present unhappy difficulties. It will not be 
 improper to state to you that a lawful maritime blockade requires the 
 actual presence of an adequate force stationed at the entrance of the 
 port, sufficiently near to prevent communication. . . . You will 
 
 permit no neutral or foreign vessel proceeding toward the entrance of 
 a blockaded port to be captured or detained if she shall not have pre- 
 viously received from one of the blockading squadron a special notifica- 
 tion of the existence of the blockade. 
 
 “ This notification must be inserted in writing on the muster-roll of 
 the neutral vessel, by the cruiser which meets her ; and it should con- 
 tain the announcement, together with statements of the day and the 
 latitude in which it was made. 
 
 “The United States have at all times maintained these principles on 
 the subject of blockade, and you will take care not to attempt the appli- 
 cation of penalties for a breach of blockade except in cases where your 
 right is justified by these rules.” 
 
 The following additional instructions were issued May 4 : 
 
 “The Department would in every instance allow at least fifteen days 
 for vessels to depart with or without cargo after the blockade is set with 
 a sufficient force. Notice should be given, by such extended publicity 
 a3 you can command, at each and every port as soon as the blockade 
 is established. 
 
84 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 “Commodore Pendergrast will inform you of the condition of affairs 
 and orders received. He will also assist with the Cumberland in en- 
 forcing the blockade for the present. 
 
 “ I need not enjoin vigilance and promptness to prevent privateering 
 and depredations. 
 
 “ There are several vessels in the waters of the Chesapeake to aid you, 
 and others which are being equipped will soon arrive out and report. 
 The names, officers, crews, and armaments of these vessels are not yet 
 reported in full to the Department, in consequence of the haste and 
 activity necessary to get them afloat at the earliest moment. 
 
 “ Some of the vessels can, it is believed, aid in blockading the Mis- 
 sissippi and Mobile. But much must be committed to your judgment 
 and discretion. 
 
 “Commodore Mervine will shortly proceed to the Gulf with the 
 [steamer] Mississippi, and other vessels will be speedily despatched to 
 reinforce the blockading squadron, and close Galveston and other ports.” 
 
 No time was therefore lost in making a beginning. But 
 for the first three months it was only a beginning ; and at 
 some points it cannot be said to have gone so far as that. 
 The Niagara, under Captain McKean, had arrived at Boston, 
 April 24, and was sent to New York for necessary repairs. 
 These were hurriedly completed and she proceeded to 
 Charleston to set on foot the blockade at that point. She 
 arrived at her post on May 11. After lying off the bar four 
 days, and warning several vessels “off the whole Southern 
 coast, ” for which, as already mentioned, the Government 
 afterward paid heavy damages, she was directed to proceed 
 to sea to intercept certain shiploads of arms and munitions 
 of war, which were known to be on their way from Europe to 
 New Orleans or Mobile. The Niagara touched at Havana, and 
 later joined the Gulf blockade. The Harriet Lane was off 
 Charleston on the 19tli, and cruised for some days near that 
 part of the coast ;* but the blockade in reality was raised, for 
 the port remained open until May 28, when the Minnesota 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 85 
 
 arrived. On the same day the blockade of Savannah was es- 
 tablished by the Union, a steamer which had been chartered 
 at Philadelphia five days after the President’s first proclama- 
 tion was issued. At the beginning of July, the Atlantic 
 Squadron comprised twenty-two vessels, but most of them 
 were stationed in Hampton Roads or were cruising at a dis- 
 tance from the coast. 
 
 The line of operations of the Atlantic Blockading Squad- 
 ron began originally at Washington, and extending down the 
 Potomac River and the Chesapeake, passed out to sea 
 between the Capes, following the coast to Key West. The 
 boundary was afterward fixed at Cape Canaveral. 
 
 Upon this line there were three principal points of block- 
 ade, Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah. They became 
 centres of blockade in the beginning, because of their com- 
 mercial importance ; and the first two remained so until the 
 end, because they offered peculiar advantages to blockade- 
 runners, and were capable of defence almost to the last 
 against attacks by sea. 
 
 The different stretches of coast that lay between and out- 
 side the blockade centres had peculiar features of their own. 
 Between Washington and Hampton Roads lay the military 
 frontier. The blockade in the Potomac River was therefore 
 largely devoted to the restriction of communication between 
 the two shores, and to keeping open the water-approaches of 
 the capital ; and the work of the Potomac flotilla was of a 
 kind by itself. Below the Potomac lay the mouths of the 
 Virginia rivers, near the upper waters of which were the 
 great battlefields of the war ; and the naval operations car- 
 ried on in this neighborhood were always subsidiary to the 
 movements of the army. 
 
 The Potomac flotilla was organized in*May, 1861, under the 
 command of Commander James H. Ward, and formed at first 
 
86 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 a part of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron. On May 31 
 Ward attacked the Confederate batteries at Acquia Creek, in 
 the steamer Freeborn, assisted by the other vessels of the 
 flotilla, the Anacostia and Besolute. The shore batteries 
 were silenced, and the enemy retreated to their works on the 
 heights. This was the first naval engagement of the war. 
 On the next day, the Pawnee, under Commander Kowan, 
 was sent down from Washington, and the attack was re- 
 newed, the Pawnee joining in the bombardment with her 
 heavy battery. 
 
 On June 27, Ward made a landing at Matthias Point with 
 a small party of men. He was accompanied by Lieutenant 
 Chaplin of the Pawnee. His object seems to have been to 
 clear away the woods on the point, which afforded shelter 
 to the enemy ; but he underestimated the force opposed to 
 him, and he had hardly landed, when a body of troops, 
 numbering four or five hundred, came over the brow of the 
 hill to attack him. Ordering the men to lie off in their 
 boats, Ward returned to the Freeborn, and opened fire on 
 the advancing column. Chaplin landed his handful of men 
 a second time, and threw up a breastwork ; but about this 
 time Ward was killed while sighting his bow-gun, and the 
 fire from the vessel ceased. In consequence of this acci- 
 dent, signal was made to Chaplin to return ; but the enemy 
 had now advanced within two hundred yards, and opened 
 a galling fire upon the party. Chaplin collected his men 
 and sent them to the boats, waiting himself until the last. 
 When he came to the beach, only one man remained with 
 him, and the boat had drifted out. But Chaplin, who was 
 a man of uncommon character, was unwilling to bring it 
 back under the enemy’s fire ; and as the man who was with 
 him could not swim, Chaplin took him on his shoulders, 
 musket and all, and swam out with him to the boat. 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 87 
 
 After Ward’s death, Commander Craven succeeded to the 
 command of the flotilla. Occasional brushes with the enemy 
 took place, schooners were cut out or burned, and the river 
 was kept open until the end of October, when the heavy bat- 
 teries thrown up on the Virginia shore made it impassable. 
 
 Early in 1862 the Confederates withdrew from their posi- 
 tions along the river. The work of the flotilla in the Po- 
 tomac during the remainder of the war, under its succes- 
 sive commanders, Wyman, Harwood, and Parker, was chiefly 
 confined to the suppression of the small attempts at illicit 
 traffic which are always found along a frontier of belligerent 
 operations. In the other Virginian rivers the flotilla at the 
 same time took part in active operations, in connection with 
 the movements of the army and the protection of transports 
 and supplies. 
 
 Outside the Chesapeake the real blockade service began. 
 A little to the south of the Capes is found the double coast 
 which extends as *ar as Wilmington. The peculiar conforma- 
 tion of the coast consists of a long narrow belt of sand, jut- 
 ting out in three prominent headlands, Cape Hatteras, Cape 
 Lookout, and Cape Fear. The sand-belt is broken at inter- 
 vals by shallow inlets. Within it lie the two Sounds, exten- 
 sive sheets of water, upon whose tributary rivers are a number 
 of more or less important towns. Below Wilmington the 
 coast sweeps in, describing a long curve, at the southern ex- 
 tremity of which, in a deep recess, lies Georgetown. At this 
 point the shore begins to assume the insular character which 
 is so well defined below Charleston. From here to Fernan- 
 dina it forms a series of low swampy islands, separated by 
 narrow rivers and arms of the sea, making an intricate 
 network of water-courses. At intervals the groups of isl- 
 ands are broken by large estuaries at the mouths of rivers. 
 There are five of these between Charleston and Savannah — 
 
88 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Stono Inlet, North Edisto, South Edisto, St. Helena, and 
 Port Royal. Below Tybee Roads, the entrance to Savannah, 
 the same formation continues, with six important sounds— * 
 Wassaw, Ossabaw, St. Catherine, Sapelo, Doboy, and Alta- 
 maha. Brunswick is the only town of importance in this 
 region, with an entrance at St. Simon’s Sound. From St. 
 Simon’s the line of islands and sounds continues, including 
 Sb. Andrew’s, Cumberland Sound at Fernandina, St. John’s, 
 and St. Augustine. Below this point, the coast of Florida con- 
 sists of narrow reaches of sand enclosing long lagoons, only 
 broken by small and infrequent passes. In the whole extent 
 of the South Atlantic Squadron there were twenty or more of 
 these small inlets, in each of which it was necessary to keep 
 a vessel, if the blockade was to be rigidly maintained. 
 
 During the summer of 1861 great efforts were made by the 
 Confederates to show that the blockade was inefficient. It 
 was commonly spoken of in their newspapers as “the paper 
 blockade,” and steps were taken by foreign governments, 
 and especially by that of Great Britain, to ascertain its true 
 character. The Gladiator, an English cruiser, commanded 
 by Captain Hickley, whose name is an all-sufficient guarantee 
 of the accuracy of his reports, made two cruises of observa- 
 tion off the Atlantic coast, at the beginning and at the end 
 of July. On his first cruise, after a careful search, he could 
 find nothing in the shape of a blockader between Cape Henry 
 and Cape Fear. The force in Hampton Roads was composed 
 of the Minnesota, Roanoke, and Susquehanna, the sailing- 
 frigate Santee, the Cumberland, and the steamers Anacostia, 
 Dawn, Daylight, and Quaker City, On his second cruise, 
 the eastern entrance of Wilmington was still open, as were 
 the inlets to the northward ; but four vessels, the frigate 
 Roanoke, the small steamer Albatross, and two sailing-ves- 
 sels, the St. Lawrence and the Savannah, were cruising off 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 89 
 
 the coast. Hickley did not round Cape Fear on his second 
 cruise ; had he done so, he would have found one vessel off 
 the mouth of Cape Fear River. This was the steamer Day- 
 light, which arrived on the 20 th of July, and immediately 
 notified the commanding officer of Fort Caswell of the estab- 
 lishment of the blockade. 
 
 Notwithstanding the very inadequate force on the station, 
 the vessels of the squadron acted upon the assumption of 
 the existence of an efficient blockade. On July 16, the Brit- 
 ish brig Herald, two days out from Beaufort, was captured 
 by the St. Lawrence, on the edge of the Gulf Stream, two 
 hundred miles from land. The Department ordered the re- 
 lease of the Herald, but she was detained by the court, and 
 finally condemned. Three days earlier, Pendergrast, then 
 in command of a projected “West India Squadron,” was 
 lying at Charleston, and published anew his proclamation of 
 April 30, announcing an efficient blockade of Virginia and 
 North Carolina, and repeating the warning that he had a 
 sufficient naval force “ here ” (that is, at Charleston) for the 
 purpose of carrying out the proclamation. Proclamations, 
 however, even though they may be of questionable validity, 
 are not entirely without effect. Hickley reported that trade 
 on the coast of North Carolina was stagnant ; and, as has 
 been already said, regular commerce was for the time being 
 actually stopped by the original proclamation of the Presi- 
 dent. In the months of June, July, and August forty-two 
 vessels entered and cleared at Wilmington, but nearly all 
 were small coasters. The arrivals at Charleston, from June 
 1 to December 1, numbered one hundred and fifty vessels 
 of the same description. Most of these entered at some of 
 the numerous side channels to be found in the network of 
 inlets in the neighborhood of the port. Indeed, vessels made 
 the inshore passage from Charleston to Fernandina without 
 
90 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 interruption as late as the end of July, 1861, and perhaps later. 
 The Wabash and Yandalia were at this time off Charleston, 
 and the Jamestown and Flag off Savannah. These vessels, 
 though hardly fitted for the work, nevertheless made the 
 blockade legally efficient at the main entrances of these two 
 ports. But the intermediate points, on the coast of South 
 Carolina and Georgia, and the whole inland passage, as far 
 south as Fernandina, were entirely without a blockade of any 
 kind. 
 
 The increase of the blockading forces, and the gradual 
 extension of the blockade, led to a division of the duties of 
 the station. The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, in- 
 cluding the coast of Virginia and North Carolina, was as- 
 signed to Flag-Officer Goldsborough, who assumed com- 
 mand on September 23. Flag-Officer Dupont was appointed 
 to the South Atlantic Squadron, from the northern boun- 
 dary of South Carolina to Cape Florida, and hoisted his flag 
 in the Wabash on October 29. Goldsborough remained in 
 command just a year. He was relieved September 5, 1862, 
 by Acting Bear- Admiral Lee, who retained the squadron for 
 two years. The later blockade of Wilmington was brought to 
 a remarkable state of efficiency, through the untiring efforts 
 and zeal of the officers of the squadron. In the last year of 
 the war, when the expedition against Fort Fisher was decided 
 on, the command of the North Atlantic Station was offered 
 to Farragut, and, upon his declining it, Porter was appointed. 
 Porter entered upon his duties October 12, 1864, and Lee was 
 transferred to the Mississippi. 
 
 The first step in the conversion of the blockade of the 
 North Atlantic coast into a military occupation was the cap- 
 ture of the forts at Hatteras Inlet, by Stringliam, with a 
 small body of troops under General Butler, August 29, 1861. 
 This was followed^ in February, 1862, by the expedition of 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 91 
 
 Goldsborough and Burnside against Roanoke Island, and 
 the active operations conducted subsequently by Rowan in 
 the Sounds. The most important points in the interior 
 waters of North Carolina were then occupied, and the small 
 commerce in the Sounds came to an end. After a while 
 Beaufort became the centre of . occupation, though the head- 
 quarters of the squadron and the station of the flagship con- 
 tinued for a long time to be at Hampton Roads. 
 
 On the 20fch of July the steamer Daylight took her station 
 off the mouth of Cape Fear River. With this diminutive 
 force began the famous blockade of Wilmington — the port 
 which later in the war became the scene of the most bril- 
 liant successes of the blockade-runners and the most strenu- 
 ous efforts of the blockaders. The town is situated on Cape 
 Fear River, about twenty-eight miles from its mouth. There 
 are two entrances to the river, one from the eastward, called 
 New Inlet, the other from the southward at the river mouth. 
 The entrances are not more than six miles apart in a straight 
 line ; but between the two lies Smith’s Island, a long strip of 
 sand and shoal, with the headland of Cape Fear projecting 
 far out at the southern extremity. Continuing the line of 
 Cape Fear, the dangerous Frying Pan Shoals extend out ten 
 miles farther, making the distance by water between the 
 two entrances little short of forty miles. 
 
 Each of the channels was protected by strong works, and 
 each required a separate blockading force. Smithville, a 
 small town on the Cape Fear River about equidistant from 
 the two entrances, was the point of departure of the blockade- 
 runners. Dropping down from Wilmington to this place, they 
 could here await their opportunity and take their choice be- 
 tween the main channel and New Inlet, whichever seemed at 
 the moment most favorable. Neither presented any serious 
 difficulties to the navigator, though vessels entering from 
 
92 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 the south were occasionally caught on “ the Lump,” a round 
 shoal in the channel. To the north of New Inlet, on Federal 
 
 Entrances to Cape Fear River. 
 
 Point, was Fort Fisher. Fort Caswell overlooked, in the 
 same way, the mouth of the river. Each of the blockading 
 squadrons, obliged to keep out of range of the forts, was 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 93 
 
 stationed in a semicircle, ten miles or more in length, with 
 its extremities near the shore. The forts kept a sharp look- 
 out, and if a stray blockader ventured in too far, he was 
 quickly apprised of it by a shell, and made to keep his dis 
 tance. The blockade-runners, sighting the land toward even- 
 ing, would wait outside until it was dark, and then, mak- 
 ing a dash at full speed through the fleet, would be under 
 the guns of the fort in a twinkling, and safe from capture. 
 Such a port, so protected, it was almost impossible to close, 
 and fast vessels could slip in past the most vigilant force. 
 Accordingly it was at Wilmington that blockade-running 
 maintained itself longest and most actively, after it had 
 nearly ceased elsewhere. In 1863-64, it was at its height ; 
 but toward the end of the latter year it began gradually 
 to decline. Even after the first attack on Fort Fisher, a 
 few vessels succeeded in passing in and out with impunity ; 
 and the practice only came to an end when the fort suc- 
 cumbed. 
 
 The improvement in the efficiency of the Wilmington block- 
 ade was partly due to the increase in the number of vessels, 
 and partly to a better understanding of the exigencies of the 
 service. In August, 1862, one of the blockade-running cap- 
 tains reports that the vessels of the inshore squadron carried 
 lights at their peaks all night ; and the same captain states a 
 year later that a j)ortion of the fleet remained at anchor dur- 
 ing the night. On the other hand, Admiral Lee, describing 
 the blockade of the same port in October, 1864, says that the 
 smaller vessels were kept as near the bar and batteries as the 
 state of the weather, the light, and their draft would allow. 
 These were pressed in by a line of larger vessels, and these 
 again by the divisional officer, moving along the line. Ves- 
 sels of the outer line which discovered blockade-runners 
 were allowed to chase, but those on the inner line were re- 
 
94 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 quired to keep tlieir station. All the vessels were kept 
 under way all night. In the summer of 1864, the headquar- 
 ters of the squadron were removed from Hampton Roads to 
 Beaufort. In the fall the blockading force at the two en- 
 trances numbered fifty steamers, some of them the fastest 
 in the service. Nowhere was the work of the blockade more 
 arduous and difficult than at Wilmington. The squadron 
 captured or destroyed sixty-five steam blockade-runners dur- 
 ing the war ; and yet they continued to effect an entrance. 
 The result only shows that the absolute locking-up of a well- 
 fortified port, whose trade offers powerful inducements to 
 commercial enterprise, is an actual impossibility. 
 
 It was during his service on this station, while in command 
 of the Monticello, that Cushing performed two of those dare- 
 devil exploits which gave him a name and a fame apart in the 
 history of the war. The first of these took place in Febru- 
 ary, 1864, while the Monticello was blockading the mouth of 
 Cape Fear River. On the night of the 28th, Cushing fitted 
 out two boats, and taking with him Acting-Ensign Jones, 
 Acting-Master’s Mate Howarth, and twenty men, he pro- 
 ceeded past the fort and up the river to Smith ville. His 
 object was to land at the town, capture the commanding 
 officer, and board any vessels he might find in the harbor. 
 It was an enterprise hardly worth the risk, for the danger 
 was great, and the capture of a dozen commanding officers at 
 such posts as Smithville would not compensate for the loss 
 of one Cushing. Still, Cushing’s coolness and audacity 
 would counterbalance almost any risk, and he had no idea of 
 being lost on this occasion. 
 
 The party reached the town, and landed in front of the ho- 
 tel. Concealing his men under the bank, Cushing proceeded 
 to capture some negroes, from whom he obtained the infor- 
 mation he wanted ; then, taking with him the two officers 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 95 
 
 and a seaman, he walked to General Herbert’s headquar- 
 ters. On the opposite side of the street were the barracks, 
 in which the garrison was quartered, numbering about 1,000 
 men. Unfortunately, the General was out, having gone to 
 Wilmington. Cushing entered the house with his party 
 and captured an engineer officer. The Adjutant-General was 
 also in the house, but went off in haste to the woods, and 
 neglected to call out the garrison. Cushing returned quietly 
 with his prisoner to the boat, passing within a few yards of 
 the sentry on the wharf. A few minutes after he had em- 
 barked the alarm was given, and signal was made to Fort 
 Caswell that boats were in the harbor; but the party had 
 passed the fort before it could open tire. 
 
 The second expedition was made in the following June. 
 Cushing had received permission from Admiral Lee to at- 
 tempt the destruction of the Confederate ram Raleigh, sup- 
 posed to be lying in the river. On the night of the 23d of 
 June, he left his ship, the Monticello, in the first cutter, 
 with Jones and Howarth, the same officers that had accom- 
 panied him on his previous expedition, and fifteen men. 
 Pulling up the river, the party passed the forts and the town 
 of Smithville. Meantime the moon had come out, and when 
 about fifteen miles from the mouth of the river, they were 
 discovered by sentries on the bank. Making a feint of going 
 back, Cushing doubled as soon as he reached the shadow of 
 the opposite bank, and continued on his course. Toward 
 morning, when within seven miles of Wilmington, he landed 
 and hid the boat in a swamp. The boat’s crew remained all 
 day in concealment, watching the river. At night, as they 
 were preparing to move, two boats were captured, containing 
 a fishing party returning to Wilmington, who were pressed 
 into service as guides. 
 
 Duiing the remainder of the second night, Cushing was 
 
96 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 occupied in making a thorough examination of the obstruc- 
 tions three miles below the town. At daybreak he moved 
 up one of the creeks, until he found a road. Leaving a few 
 of his men with the boat, he landed, and followed the road 
 until he came upon the main road between Wilmington and 
 Fort Fisher. Presently, by lying in wait, he captured a 
 mounted courier with the mail from the fort, which contained 
 much valuable information. The courier from the town 
 came along two hours later, but, catching sight of a blue- 
 jacket, made off with all speed. Cushing galloped after him 
 on the captured horse, but the second courier was better 
 mounted than the first, and made his escape. 
 
 Cushing had now been away from the boat for some hours, 
 and his men had had nothing to eat. He therefore set 
 about in a characteristic way to obtain provisions. After 
 capturing other prisoners, he learned that a store was to be 
 found two miles off ; and mounting Howarth on the captured 
 horse with the courier’s coat and hat, he sent him to market. 
 Howarth, who was a man of easy manner and a fine assur- 
 ance, engaged freely in conversation with the people whom 
 he met on the road, and passed without suspicion. Presently 
 he returned with a supply of provisions. After dinner, the 
 party amused themselves by cutting the telegraph wires, and 
 at dark they rejoined the boat. 
 
 The third and last night in the river had now begun, and 
 Cushing prepared to return. Embarking with the prisoners, 
 he went to examine the condition of the Raleigh. She was 
 found to have been destroyed, and was now a total wreck. 
 Proceeding down the liver, Cushing set his prisoners adrift 
 in boats, without oars or sails, so that they might not report 
 his presence too early. The moon had now lisen, and as he 
 readied the mouth of the river, he was discovered by a 
 guard-boat. Just as he was preparing to attack her, three 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 97 
 
 others came out from the shadow, and at the same instant 
 five more appeared from the other side. The cutter was 
 nearly surrounded, and Cushing, turning in the only direc- 
 tion left open, found a schooner filled with troops ahead of 
 him. It seemed now that the game was up ; but Cushing’s 
 never-failing pluck stood by him. He made a dash in the 
 direction of the western bar, and the enemy endeavored to 
 intercept him ; but as the side of his boat that was toward 
 them was in shadow, they lost sight of him for a time. Tak- 
 ing advantage of a favorable moment, Cushing turned sud- 
 denly and headed at full speed for New Inlet. His coolness 
 communicated itself to the men; the strokes of the oars 
 kept perfect time, and the boat, after a vigorous pull, shot 
 ahead into the breakers. Here the enemy did not venture 
 to follow ; and the cutter was brought back after her three 
 days’ absence, without any casualty whatever. 
 
 Only one serious attempt was made by the Confederates to 
 raise the blockade and put an end to the occupation of the 
 Sounds of North Carolina. This took place in 1864, when the 
 ram Albemarle made her appearance at Plymouth. This ves- 
 sel was built at Edward’s Ferry, on the Roanoke River. At- 
 tention had been called to her formidable character as early 
 as June, 1863, by Lieutenant-Commander Flusser, command- 
 ing the naval forces at Plymouth, an officer whose bravery and 
 ability had won recognition both in and out of the service. 
 His vessels could not reach the Ferry, on account of the shal- 
 lowness of the water and the batteries that lined the bluffs ; 
 and urgent representations had been made to the Admiral in 
 command, to the Department, and finally to the Secretary of 
 War, at Flusser’s instance. But no action had been taken, 
 and the work of construction went on without interruption. 
 
 By April, 1864, the ram was completed, and preparations 
 were made for a combined movement against the Federal 
 I.— 5 
 
98 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 forces at Plymouth. On the 17th and 18th, vigorous attacks 
 were made upon the forts by the Confederates, supported by 
 artillery. At this time, the force under Flusser consisted of 
 the Miami, one of the smaller double-enders, the Southfield, 
 and two tugs used as picket-boats. The Miami and South- 
 field carried a rifled 100-pounder, and five or six IX-inch 
 guns each ; and during the action on shore, by throwing 
 shells at the enemy, they helped to repel the assaults on the 
 forts. On the evening of the second day, the two vessels 
 were lashed together, in expectation of the ram’s approach, 
 the Miami, Flusser’ s vessel, being on the starboard side. 
 
 At midnight, the picket-boat announced that the Albemarle 
 was descending the river. She came down slowly, under 
 cover of the trees on the river bank, and as she approached 
 the vessels, she ran out obliquely. Passing the Miami’s bow, 
 she made straight for the Southfield. Her ports were closed, 
 she did not fire a shot ; but she struck the Southfield fairly 
 on the starboard bow, forcing her ram into the fireroom. As 
 the ram was drawn out, the Southfield filled and sank. 
 
 Meantime both vessels had opened fire on the assailant 
 with their heavy guns. The guns had been left loaded with 
 shell since the afternoon firing, although the Albemarle was 
 expected ; and as the projectiles struck the ram’s iron side, 
 they burst into fragments which rebounded over the Miami’s 
 deck. Three or four of the pieces struck Flusser, who wa3 
 instantly killed. Half a dozen others were wounded; but 
 the ram received no injury. The hawsers that lashed the 
 vessels parted, and the crew of the sinking steamer jumped 
 to the Miami. The latter then retreated, and with the two 
 tugs, dropped down to the mouth of the river. The Albe- 
 marle followed for a short distance, and shots were ex- 
 changed, but without effect on either side. Next day Ply- 
 mouth surrendered. 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 99 
 
 It now became a matter of importance to reinforce the 
 blockading vessels in the Sounds, as the ram might at any 
 moment come out of the river and repossess all the waters of 
 North Carolina. Three of the larger double-enders, the Sas- 
 sacus, Mattabesett, and Wyalusing, were sent down, and the 
 force was placed under the command of Captain Melancton 
 Smith. 1 The squadron was posted off the month of the Roa- 
 noke, and careful preparations were made for the expected 
 attack. 
 
 On the 5th of May the Albemarle came down, accompanied 
 by a steamer carrying troops, and a captured army-transport 
 loaded with provisions and coal, prepared for an extended 
 cruise in the Sounds. The squadron got under way, and 
 met her about ten miles from the mouth of the river. At a 
 little before five in the afternoon she opened the engagement, 
 by firing two shots at the Mattabesett, the leading vessel. 
 The latter, followed by the Sassacus and Wyalusing, passed 
 up alongside the Albemarle, delivering their broadsides at a 
 distance of one hundred and fifty yards. Turning, they 
 came back on the opposite side, and the smaller vessels took 
 their place. The ram was thus placed between two fires. 
 The Sassacus, which had drawn off a little from the line, now 
 turned, and, gathering headway, struck the enemy fairly 
 with her stem, just abaft the beam. Though the double- 
 enders were not adapted for ramming, it had been decided 
 to try this, as well as every other expedient, in the hope of 
 inflicting some injury. The ram careened a little, but did 
 not sink ; and as the Sassacus remained alongside, the Albe- 
 marle’s port opened, and a 100-pound Brooke rifle-shot 
 was discharged through one of the boilers of the double- 
 
 1 Each of these vessels carried the following: armament: two 100-pound Par- 
 rotts, four IX-inch guns, four 2-4-pounders, two 12-pound howitzers. The Sa» 
 sacus had two 20-pounders in addition. 
 
100 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 ender. The escaping steam filled the vessel, scalding many 
 of the crew, and she drifted off, firing until out of range. 
 The other vessels continued the action until dark, but with- 
 out disabling the enemy. At night, the ram returned to the 
 river, her armor somewhat battered, but her machinery ap- 
 parently intact. Though not destroyed, she had been 
 severely hammered ; the store-vessel she had brought with 
 her was captured ; and her projected conquest of the Sounds 
 came to naught. The next time she ventured down the 
 river, a shell from the Whitehead caused her to turn back ; 
 and she seemed to have no inclination for a second conflict. 
 
 An effort w T as now made to destroy the ram by placing tor- 
 pedoes in the river, but without success. One of these 
 attempts was planned and carried out by enlisted men, and 
 deserves to be noticed, if only as showing the pluck and de- 
 votion of the seamen of the navy during the war. The men 
 who took part in the expedition were John W. Loyd, cox- 
 swain, Allen Crawford and John Lavertv, firemen, and 
 Charles Baldwin and Benjamin Loyd, coalheavers. All 
 were volunteers from the Wyalusing. On the afternoon of 
 the 25th of May, the party ascended the Middle River, a 
 small branch of the Roanoke, in a boat, taking with them 
 two torpedoes. These were carried on a stretcher across the 
 swamps to the main river. Loyd, the coxswain, and Bald- 
 win swam the river with a line, and hauled the torpedoes to 
 the Plymouth side, above the town. They were then con- 
 nected by a bridle, and floated down the river, guided by 
 Baldwin. It was his intention to place them across the bow 
 of the Albemarle, and Crawford, from the swamps on the 
 opposite side, was to explode them at a signal. All went 
 well until the torpedoes were within a few yards of the ram, 
 when the line fouled a schooner. At the same moment, 
 Baldwin was discovered by a sentry, and shots were fired, 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 101 
 
 followed by a volley of musketry. As success was no longer 
 possible, the line was cut, and the five men made their 
 escape, reaching the vessel with difficulty, some of them 
 after several days of wandering in the swamps. 
 
 The Department now determined to take energetic meas- 
 ures to destroy the Albemarle, and selected Cushing, whose 
 latest performances at Wilmington had made him famous, to 
 carry out its design. Two steam-launches or iDicket-boats 
 were fitted out at New York under the direction of Admiral 
 Gregory, and rigged with spar-torpedoes designed by Chief- 
 Engineer Wood. Both the launches were to be used in the 
 expedition, but one of them was lost in crossing Chesapeake 
 Bay, on the way down from New York. Cushing was not the 
 man to be deterred by an accident, and he proceeded to carry 
 out his purpose with the remaining boat. 
 
 Late in October* Cushing appeared with his launch in 
 Albemarle Sound. The senior officer at this time was Com- 
 mander Macomb, whose vessel, the Shamrock, was lying with 
 the rest of the division in the Sound, some miles from the 
 Roanoke. One or two of the small steamers were stationed 
 as a picket at the mouth of the river, and midway betwoc n 
 them and the squadron lay one of the double-enders, as an 
 outpost. After a day or two spent in preparations, during 
 which several additional officers and men joined the laanch, 
 she was taken up the Sound by the Otsego. Remaining 
 alongside until everything was ready, she started up the 
 river, on the night of the 26tli of October ; but after proceed- 
 ing a short distance she grounded, and the time lost in get- 
 ting her off made it too late to carry out the purpose of the 
 expedition. So the party returned to the Otsego. 
 
 The Albemarle at this time was lying at the wharf at Ply- 
 mouth, on the right bank of the river, eight miles from its 
 mouth. The stream averaged two hundred yards in width, 
 
102 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 and was lined on both sides by Confederate pickets. A mile 
 below the town was the wreck of the Southfield, surrounded 
 by schooners. It was known that the enemy kept a careful 
 watch at this point, and that a gun was in position to com- 
 mand the bend of the river. 
 
 The launch started for the second time at midnight on the 
 27th. The party consisted of Cushing ; three Acting-Master’s 
 Mates, Howarth, Gay, and Woodman ; Paymaster Swan ; two 
 engineer officers, Steever and Stotesbury ; and eight men. 
 The Shamrock’s second cutter, with two officers and eleven 
 men, was taken in tow, ready to cast off and to board the 
 Southfield if the party was discovered in passing. The tor- 
 pedo was placed at the end of a spar, at the starboard bow of 
 the launch. The bow was decked over and carried a 12- 
 pound howitzer. The engines were covered with tarpaulins, 
 to shut off the light and sound, and at l8w speed the noise 
 of the machinery could scarcely be heard. 
 
 The night w^as dark and stormy, with now and then a heavy 
 fall of rain. Most of the officers stood or sat in the forward 
 part of the launch. Cushing, Howarth, and Woodman stood 
 abaft the deck. Cushing was on the right, holding the tor- 
 pedo lines ; Howarth, his companion in the enterprises at 
 Wilmington, was next him ; and Woodman, who knew the 
 river well, was on the left by the wheel. On the deck by 
 the howitzer stood Gay ; and Swan was on the light behind 
 Cushing. The engineers and the firemen were at their post 
 by the engine, and the rest were stationed on the bow, near 
 the wheel, and in the stern. The last were to clear the tiller 
 ropes, in case they should foul. 
 
 Running cautiously under the trees on the right bank, the 
 launch proceeded on her way up the enemy’s river. It was 
 Cushing’s intention, if he could get ashore unobserved, to 
 land below the ram, board her from tlio wharf, and bring 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 103 
 
 her down the river. To carry out this plan, it was necessary 
 that the attack should be a surprise ; but, failing in this, he 
 was prepared to attack with the torpedo. In either case, he 
 meant to give the enemy as little warning as he could. After 
 the first mile or two, perfect silence was maintained, and the 
 little craft sped noiselessly on its course. Arriving at the 
 Southfield, it passed her within twenty yards, but the guards 
 either were asleep or failed to notice the tv 7 o boats as they 
 moved along in the darkness. Rounding the bend of the 
 river, the launch came to an open reach upon wiiich lay 
 the tow T n of Plymouth. Here a fire had been kindled on 
 the bank, w 7 hich reflected a faint light over the w T ater from 
 the houses. 
 
 Creeping along silently and stealthily, the launch ap- 
 proached the landing below the wharf. Just then a dog 
 barked, and a sentry, aroused, discovered the boat and hailed 
 her. Receiving no answer, he hailed again and fired. Up 
 to this moment not a word had been uttered. But in an in- 
 stant the situation was changed. The time for surprises was 
 past ; and Cushing, giving up without a second thought his 
 cherished project, at once threw off all concealment, and in a 
 loud voice called out, “ Ahead fast!” In the same breath 
 he ordered the cutter to cast loose, capture the Southfield’s 
 pickets, and go down the river. Pushing on tw 7 o hundred 
 yards further, he saw for the first time the dim outlines of 
 the Albemarle, on the port bow, and close aboard. The 
 light of the fire showed a line of logs in the water, within 
 which, at a distance of thirty feet, lay the vessel. The 
 launch w 7 as too near the logs to rise over them at the sharp 
 angle her course w T as then making, and Cushing saw that he 
 must sheer off and turn before he could strike them fairly 
 and with sufficient headway. 
 
 The alarm on board the Albemarle had now become gen- 
 
104 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 eral ; rattles were sprung, the bell was rung violently ; and 
 a shower of rifle-bullets was poured in upon the launch. 
 Swan received a slight wound, and Cushing had three bullets 
 in his clothing, but no one was disabled. Passing close to 
 the enemy, the launch took a wide sweep out to the middle 
 of the river ; then turning, it headed at full speed for the 
 ram. As he approached, Cushing, with the rollicking 
 bravado and audacity that marked all his doings, shouted at 
 the top of his voice, “ Leave the ram ! We are going to blow 
 you up ! ” with more exclamations of the same kind, in which 
 the others joined. To Cushing, who went into action with 
 the zest of a schoolboy at football, and the nerve and well- 
 balanced judgment of a veteran, the whole affair was half 
 sport, even while the bullets were flying around him, and 
 while he could hear the snapping of the primers, as the guns 
 of the ram were brought to bear. Luckily they missed fire. 
 As he came near, Cashing ordered the howitzer to be trained 
 and fired ; and he directed every movement himself, which 
 was promptly carried out by those in the bow. He says of 
 this incident in his report : “ The enemy’s fire was very 
 
 severe, but a dose of canister, at short range, served to mod- 
 erate their zeal and disturb their aim.” 
 
 In a moment the launch struck the boom of logs, abreast 
 of the ram’s quarter port, and pressed over them. As it ap- 
 proached the side of the ram, the torpedo-spar was lowered ; 
 and going ahead slowly until the torpedo was well under 
 the Albemarle’s bottom, Cushing detached it with a vigor- 
 ous pull. Waiting until he could feel the torpedo rising 
 slowly and touching the vessel, he pulled the trigger-line and 
 exploded it. At the same second, as it seemed to those in 
 the boat, the Albemarle’s gun was fired, while the launch 
 was within a dozen feet of the muzzle. To Cashing it seemed 
 that the shot went crashing through his boat, though in fact 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 105 
 
 she was not touched. A column of water, thrown up by the 
 explosion of the torpedo, fell in the launch, and the latter, 
 being entangled in the logs, could not be extricated. 
 
 When he saw that he could not bring the boat off, Cush- 
 ing, after refusing to surrender, ordered the crew to save them- 
 selves, and taking off his coat and shoes, jumped into the 
 river. Others followed his example ; but all returned except 
 three, Woodman, and two of the crew, Higgins and Houghton. 
 Houghton made his escape, but the other two were drowned. 
 Cushing swam to the middle of the stream. Half a mile be- 
 low he met Woodman in the water, completely exhausted. 
 Cushing helped him to go on for a little distance, but he was 
 by this time too weak to get his companion ashore. Reaching 
 the bank with difficulty, he waited till daylight, when he 
 crawled out of the water and stole into the swamp, not far 
 from the fort. On his way he fell in with a negro, whom he 
 sent to gain information as to the result of the night’s work. 
 As soon as he learned that the Albemarle was sunk, he moved 
 on until he came to a creek, where he captured a skiff, and 
 in this lie made his way the next night to the picket-boat at 
 the mouth of the river. 
 
 The rest of the party, unable either to resist or to escape, 
 surrendered, and were taken ashore by a boat from the Albe- 
 marle. The ram heeled over and sank at her moorings and 
 so remained until Plymouth was finally recaptured. 
 
 The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron had but two 
 commanders, Dupont and Dahlgren. The transfer was made 
 July 6, 1863. Dupont’s command opened with the victory 
 of Port Royal, which gave the squadron the best and most 
 commodious harbor on the Atlantic coast. After the first 
 success, the activity of Admiral Dupont, seconded by the 
 ability and energy of his captains — a body of officers remark- 
 
106 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Entrances to Charleston Harbor. 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 107 
 
 able for their high professional qualities — secured the control 
 of the vast network of lagoons and inlets extending on the 
 one hand to Charleston, and on the other to Fernandina. The 
 blockade was made thoroughly efficient in the sounds ; and 
 the capture of Fort Pulaski in the following summer, in 
 which a detachment from the fleet assisted, made the Savan- 
 nah River nearly inaccessible to the blockade-runners. Port 
 Royal then became the centre of occupation, and the head- 
 quarters of the fleet. 
 
 The principal centre of blockade in the South Atlantic was 
 Charleston. An attempt was made early in the war to close 
 the entrance by placing obstructions in the channel. A 
 number of vessels, most of them old whalers, were bought 
 for the purpose by the Navy Department at a cost of $1G0,- 
 000. They were loaded with stone and sunk in rows on the 
 bar, under the direction of Captain Davis. The plan proved 
 a failure, not through any want of skill in carrying it out, 
 but from the operation of natural causes. The vessels soon 
 buried themselves in the sand, or were gradually moved out 
 of position by the action of the water, and blockade-runners 
 passed in as freely as if no obstructions existed. The ex- 
 periment was tried at other points with the same result, 
 and the attempt was finally given up. 
 
 The bar at Charleston extends several miles out to sea, 
 and the main ship channel, running nearly north and south, 
 follows the trend of Morris Island at a distance of a mile 
 from the shore. During the first half of the war the bat- 
 teries on Morris Island kept the fleet outside the bar, and 
 the blockade was maintained at a great disadvantage. More- 
 over, several inlets to the north and south afforded access 
 to Charleston for vessels of light draft. These were only 
 closed after Dupont had taken command. In the summer 
 and fall of 18G3 the army, supported by the ironclads, grad- 
 
108 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 ually drove the Confederates out of tlieir works on the 
 Island, and the monitors took their station inside, somewhat 
 to the southward of Cumming’s Point. Blockade-runners 
 were then driven to the use of the Beach channel, at the 
 northern side of the harbor. This channel skirted the shore 
 of Sullivan’s Island, and opened into the harbor through a 
 narrow passage close to Fort Moultrie. Its outer end lay 
 abreast of Breach Inlet, near which was Fort Marshall ; and 
 from this point to Fort Beauregard, and thence to Fort 
 Moultrie, heavy batteries lined the beach. It became usual 
 to send a vessel at night to this entrance, which, weighing 
 early, got away from the Breach Inlet batteries before day- 
 break. Occasionally it happened that blockade-runners, 
 which had come in during the night, would be seen in the 
 morning hard and fast aground at the inner entrance. No 
 attempt could be made to seize them, lying as they did 
 directly under the guns of Moultrie ; but they could be de- 
 stroyed by the fire of the monitors, and a collection of 
 wrecks was gradually accumulated at this point. 
 
 Toward the close of the war the blockade of Charleston, 
 like that of Wilmington, increased in stringency. Dahlgren 
 describes it as being perfectly close, until a few very fast 
 steamers of trifling draft were built in England expressly 
 for the purpose of evading it, and these did not pass with 
 impunity. So keen did the watch afterward become that a 
 vessel on the way out, whose presence was only known by 
 seeing her two masts cut off the light; on Sumter, was cap- 
 tured by the observer’s signalling the cruisers outside. But 
 even then the port could not be absolutely closed. The 
 ‘ 4 very fast steamers of trifling draft” were so difficult to 
 catch that up to the last moment they were occasionally 
 going in and out ; and three or four of them were at the 
 wharves of Charleston when the city was taken. 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 109 
 
 The Savannah River was easily blockaded after the capture 
 of Fort Pulaski. Ifcs channel, narrow and difficult at the 
 best, was well-nigh impassable when stripped of buoys and 
 lights ; and the fort, lying opposite the narrowest point, pre- 
 vented access in the daytime. The principal side entrance 
 to the city of Savannah, through Wassaw Sound, was effectu- 
 ally closed when the Sounds were occupied after the battle 
 of Port Royal. 
 
 The Confederates were not at any time sufficiently strong 
 to raise the blockade on the South Atlantic coast. The raids 
 that were made with this object — sudden dashes into the 
 midst of the blockading fleet — though well organized and 
 conducted, failed to accomplish any more important result 
 than disabling one or two vessels, and increasing the watch- 
 fulness of the blockaders. 
 
 One of the boldest of these attempts was made in the 
 winter of 1863, off Charleston. On the morning of January 
 31, before daylight, two ironclad rams, the Chicora and 
 the Palmetto State, came out of the harbor, crossed the 
 bar, and, under cover of a thick haze, approached the ves- 
 sels stationed outside. It happened that at this time two of 
 the largest vessels of the blockading fleet, the Powhatan and 
 Canandaigua, had been sent to Port Royal for coal and 
 repairs. Of those that remained, numbering ten or more 
 steamers, the Housatonic was the only war- vessel of consider- 
 able size. The others were chiefly purchased vessels and 
 gunboats. It was one of the many disadvantages of the ex- 
 posed station outside the bar that it necessitated the distri- 
 bution of the ships over a wide area, and at this time they 
 were spread out in a line five or six miles in length. 
 
 The Mercedita was the first vessel attacked. It could not 
 be said that she was off her guard, for, only an hour before, 
 she had slipped her cable and overhauled a troop-sliip, which 
 
110 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 was running for the channel by mistake. She had returned 
 to her anchorage, when one of the rams suddenly appeared 
 out of the mist, close aboard. The ram lay so low in the 
 water, just under the starboard quarter, that the Mercedita’s 
 guns could not be trained upon her ; and before the steamer 
 could move away, a rifle- shell from the ram, passing through 
 her condenser and steam-drum, and exploding on the port 
 side, for a time disabled her. Stellwagen, the commander 
 of the Mercedita, in response to a demand from the ram, 
 surrendered, and sent Abbot, his first lieutenant, on board, 
 who gave his parole for the officers and crew. 
 
 The ram now abandoned the Mercedita, and joined her 
 consort, which had already engaged Commander Leroy in 
 the Keystone State. Leroy had discovered his assailant in 
 time to get under way and exchange shots. The enemy, un- 
 injured by his fire, succeeded in exploding a shell in his 
 fore-hold, and Leroy kept off until the flames w T ere extin- 
 guished. Returning, he attempted, under a full head of 
 steam, to run down his antagonist ; but the latter had now 
 been joined by her companion, and the Keystone State was 
 received with a fire that effectually checked her. Two shells 
 burst on her quarter-deck ; others struck the sides, near or 
 below the water-line ; and finally one passed through the port 
 steam-drum and lodged in the starboard. Her engines were 
 now useless, her motive power was gone, the water began to 
 pour in through the shot-holes, and the fore-liold was again 
 on fire. Thereupon she lowered her colors; but as the 
 enemy continued his fire, and did not take possession, they 
 were again hoisted and the engagement renewed. 
 
 By this time, nearly the whole squadron was under way ; 
 and, at the critical moment, three of the small steamers 
 came up, and the rams retreated after a protracted but desul- 
 tory conflict. As they went off, shots were exchanged with 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 the squadron, but little damage was done on either side, and 
 the rams gained a safe refuge under the guns of Fort Sum- 
 ter. The attack had been judiciously planned and boldly 
 executed, as far as it went ; though it might have been more 
 successful if it had been maintained persistently after the 
 first onset. Among the vessels of the blockading squadron 
 there was a want of systematic co-operation. The first shot 
 was fired at five o’clock ; and the rams had not retreated out 
 of range until half -past seven. During this period of two 
 hours and a half, the brunt of the battle was borne by the 
 Mercedita and the Keystone State. The other vessels sup- 
 posed that a number of blockade-runners had come in to- 
 gether, and no arrangement seems to have been made for 
 prompt communication and support. The Memphis came in 
 for a share of the attack, but after passing one of the rams 
 and discovering its strength in an exchange of shots, she 
 steamed out of range to the eastward. The Augusta was 
 also engaged, but as she did not get under way until half- 
 past six, her part in the action was not important. In fact, 
 neither of these vessels was any more fitted than a ship of 
 pasteboard to cope with the ironclads ; and their light bat- 
 teries made no impression on the enemy. The Quaker City 
 w T as more actively engaged, but with little more effect than 
 to divert the attention of the rams, and prevent the Keystone 
 State from being blown out of the water. The Housatonic, 
 lying at some distance from the scene of conflict, had got 
 under way shortly after the Augusta, and during the last 
 hour of the engagement, she did much firing, but little ex- 
 ecution, further than to knock away the pilot-house and flag- 
 staff of one of the retreating assailants. 
 
 After the engagement was over, a question arose as to 
 what was the status of the Mercedita. When Abbot 
 went on board the ram, he gave his parole, as already men- 
 
112 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 tioned, in the name of the captain, for the officers and crew. 
 The agreement was verbal, and Abbot’s report stated that he 
 had given his word that the officers and crew would not 
 ‘ ‘ take up arms against the Confederate States unless regu- 
 larly exchanged.” It does not appear that Abbot had au- 
 thority to make this engagement, but no steps were taken by 
 the captain to repudiate it. Possibly there was no oppor- 
 tunity to take any steps. In his report, Stellwagen simply 
 says : “ He proceeded aboard, and according to their demand, 
 gave his parole on behalf of himself and all the officers and 
 crew.” In regard to this proceeding, it may be remarked 
 that it is a well recognized principle that prisoners cannot be 
 forced to give their parole ; and it is manifestly improper to 
 give a parole voluntarily, during the progress of an engage- 
 ment. It enables the assailant to neutralize portions of the 
 force in detail, without being diverted from his operations 
 by the necessity of guarding prisoners ; and it precludes re- 
 capture, or rather, it takes away any advantage that may be 
 derived from recapture. 
 
 At six o’clock, according to Stellwagen’s account, which 
 was one hour after the engagement began, and an hour and a 
 half before it was over, the injuries to the Mercedita were 
 partially repaired, and she “got things in order to start, a 
 little steam on; hove [up] anchor.” It is not clear whether 
 she then went off, but it is at least certain that she changed 
 her position. After the battle she proceeded without assist- 
 ance to Port Royal. This removal of the Mercedita was 
 afterward the foundation of a charge made by the Confeder- 
 ates that the officers of the vessel had violated their parole, 
 by taking the Mercedita out of their hands. The proceeding 
 was, in fact, a questionable one, as it is merely quibbling to 
 draw a distinction between “ taking up arms,” and navigat- 
 ing a ship-of-war out of reach of an enemy. It can only be 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 113 
 
 excused on the supposition that the enemy were unable to 
 take possession owing to the presence of a superior force; 
 and it shows forcibly the predicament in which an officer 
 may place himself by giving a parole which virtually places 
 his ship hors de combat during the progress of an action. 
 
 In consequence of the attack of the rams, the authorities 
 of Charleston seized the opportunity to declare that the 
 blockade was raised. A proclamation was published the 
 same afternoon, signed by Beauregard and Ingraham, the 
 Commanding General and Senior Naval Officer, declaring 
 that the naval forces attacked the blockading squadron, and 
 “ sunk, dispersed, or drove off or out of sight, the entire 
 blockading fleet.” The proclamation was accompanied in 
 the newspapers by the statement that two vessels were sunk, 
 four burnt, and the rest driven away ; and the assertion was 
 said to be sustained by the testimony of several of the 
 foreign consuls, who had gone out in the afternoon in a tug, 
 and had seen nothing of the blockaders. It was also as- 
 serted that the consuls had held a meeting in the evening, 
 and had come unanimously to the oiunion that the blockade 
 was legally raised. 
 
 The asseverations of the Charleston newspapers were ex- 
 tensively quoted abroad, and grossly exaggerated as they 
 were, raised a serious doubt as to the continued efficiency 
 of the blockade. It is an established rule that the absence 
 of a blockading fleet, caused by stress of weather, if the 
 blockade is immediately resumed, constitutes only a tempo- 
 ary interruption ; but the dispersion of a squadron by a hos- 
 tile attack puts a stop to the blockade in toto, and a renewal 
 of the operation requires a new proclamation, or rather, re- 
 . quires knowledge of the re-establishment of the blockade 
 as a ground for condemnation. If the assertion that the 
 blockade was raised had been true, every blockade-runner in 
 
114 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Nassau would have been able to make directly for Charles- 
 ton, and if captured without having received warning would 
 have escaped condemnation on the ground of want of knowl- 
 edge. As a matter of fact, the report so industriously 
 spread was essentially false, though it had enough color of 
 truth to give it a ready acceptance, in the absence of proof 
 to the contrary, especially when backed by official testi- 
 mony. Out of ten vessels on the station, two had been dis- 
 abled by the attack, and had proceeded to Port Royal. Two 
 other vessels were sent the same morning to Port Royal, the 
 Augusta, with despatches for the Admiral, and the Memphis 
 to tow the Keystone State. Both were sent back immedi- 
 ately by Dupont. In the afternoon, firing was heard in 
 Stono Inlet, and the Flag was sent thither. Of the other 
 five vessels, the Stettin, Ottawa, and Unadilla were not en- 
 gaged at all, and neither they, nor the Housatonic and 
 Quaker City left the usual line of blockade during the day. 
 If the consuls did not see these five vessels, whose logs show 
 that they were in plain sight all day, and several times in 
 communication, it was because they did not look at them. 
 The report, however, had served its purpose, and it was 
 commonly believed that the blockade of Charleston was 
 raised, although a written declaration of five captains of 
 the squadron was published, containing a complete refu- 
 tation. 
 
 The attack had a good effect in showing the necessity 
 of strengthening the force before Charleston, which had 
 hitherto only been adequate to cope with blockade-runners. 
 The Powhatan w r as sent to Charleston the same evening, and 
 the New Ironsides and Canandaigua joined a day or two later. 
 The blockade was thereafter continued with redoubled vigi- 
 lance, and with a new sense of the necessity of perfect co- 
 operation. 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 115 
 
 The disposition of the vessels of the South Atlantic 
 Squadron, as given by Admiral Dupont on February 15, 1863, 
 shows what a radical change had taken place under his com- 
 mand in the character and efficiency of the blockade. The 
 arrangement of the squadron was as follows : 
 
 At Georgetown, the double-enders Sebago and Conemaugh. 
 
 Off Bull’s Bay, the steamer Lodona. 
 
 Off Charleston, the New Ironsides ; the side-wheel steamer 
 Powhatan ; sloops-of-war Canandaigua and Housatonic ; 
 steamers Flag, Quaker City, James Adger, Augusta, Huron, 
 and Memphis ; schooners G. W. Blunt and America. 
 
 In Stono Inlet, the steamers Pawnee, Unadilla, and Com- 
 modore McDonough. 
 
 In North Edisto, the steamer South Carolina. 
 
 In St. Helena, the bark Kingfisher. 
 
 In Wassaw, the monitor Passaic, and steamer Marblehead. 
 
 In Ossabaw, the monitor Montauk, gunboats Seneca and 
 Wissahickon, and steamer Dawn. 
 
 Guarding St. Catherine’s, Sapelo, Doboy, and St. Simon’s 
 Sounds, the steamers Paul Jones, Potomska, and Madgie ; 
 barks Braziliera and Fernandina ; and mortar-schooner Nor- 
 folk Packet. 
 
 In St. Andrew’s, the bark Midnight. 
 
 At Fernandina, the steamer Mohawk. 
 
 In St. John’s River, the steamers Nonsuch and Uncas. 
 
 At Port Royal, the headquarters of the station, were the 
 frigate Wabash, the flagship, the store ship Vermont, five 
 tugs, and two despatch-vessels ; and temporarily in port, 
 undergoing repairs or taking in provisions, the monitors 
 Weehawken and Patapsco, and the steamers Keystone State, 
 Stettin, Wamsutta, and Ottawa. The experience of eighteen 
 months had wrought a change indeed in the methods of the 
 coast blockade, since there were on a single station more 
 
. 116 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 vessels than the navy had had in commission at the out- 
 break of the war. 
 
 The next attempt of the Confederates to raise the blockade 
 on the South Atlantic station resulted disastrously to its 
 projectors. This was the brief cruise of the Atlanta, formerly 
 the Fingal, in Wassaw’ Sound, in June, 1863. 
 j The Fingal was an iron steamer of English origin, which 
 had run the blockade of Savannah in November, 1861. She 
 had been taken by the Confederate Government, re-named 
 the Atlanta, and altered and strengthened for service as a 
 man-of-war. In making the alterations, she had been cut 
 down so as to leave the deck about two feet above the water 
 when loaded. From this deck rose a casemate, with a flat 
 roof and inclined sides. "Within the casemate were four 
 Brooke rifles, two Yl-^-inch in the midship ports, and two 
 Vll-inch on pivots at the bow and stern, so contrived that 
 they could be fired either laterally or fore-and-aft. The 
 armor protecting this powerful battery was four inches thick, 
 made of English railroad iron, rolled into two-inch plates. 
 The deck was of enormous strength, and its edges projected 
 six feet from the side of the vessel, the projection being 
 filled in and protected with a heavy covering of wood and 
 iron. The Atlanta’s bow ended in a ram, over which pro- 
 jected a torpedo spar. She was in every way one of the 
 most powerful vessels which the Confederates had got afloat ; 
 and great things were expected of her. 
 
 Intimations had reached Admiral Dupont that the Atlanta 
 and other ironclads at Savannah were on the point of leaving 
 Wilmington River and entering Wassaw Sound for the pur- 
 pose of raising the blockade at that place, and in the inlets to 
 the southward. It was to be another raid on the blockaders, 
 like that of the 31st of January ; but the vessel to be em- 
 ployed was much more powerful. Dupont, however, was 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 117 
 
 careful to be well informed, and the experience of the pre- 
 vious winter had not been lost. The double-ender Cim- 
 merone was at this time maintaining the blockade alone, and 
 two monitors were despatched to Wassaw, the Weehawken, 
 under Captain John Rodgers, and the Nahant, under Com- 
 mander Downes. The Weehawken had already won an 
 enviable fame, and was known throughout the squadron as a 
 vessel that was always ready for any service and always han- 
 dled with masterly skill. 
 
 Early on the morning of the 17th of June, the ironclad 
 was discovered coming down the river. She was accom- 
 panied* by two steamers, filled with spectators who had come 
 out in the confident expectation of witnessing the speedy de- 
 struction of the Federal fleet. It was to be a spectacle, a 
 party of pleasure, like that which tempted the people of Bos- 
 ton, just fifty years before, to sail down the harbor, on the 
 day when Lawrence went out to encounter the Shannon ; and 
 like that memorable excursion, it was doomed to end in dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 As soon as the Atlanta came in sight, Rodgers beat to 
 quarters and cleared the ship for action. Ten minutes later 
 he slipped his cable, and steamed slowly around the point at 
 the entrance of the river. The Nahant, having no pilot, 
 followed in his wake. Just before five o’clock, the At- 
 lanta, then lying across the channel and awaiting the attack, 
 fired the first shot, which passed astern of the Weehawken. 
 For twenty minutes more, the monitors advanced steadily 
 until within three hundred yards of the enemy. Then the 
 Weehawken opened. 
 
 With the deliberateness which characterized him in the 
 most trying moments, Rodgers delivered the fire of his two 
 heavy guns, the Xl-incli and the XV-inch. He fired five 
 shots, of which four hit the Atlanta. The first, a XV-inch 
 
118 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 cored shot, struck the inclined side of the vessel, in the line of 
 the ports ; and though fired at an angle of fifty degrees with 
 her keel, penetrated the armor, and, ripping out the wooden 
 backing, the two inner layers of which were of brittle Georgia 
 pine, covered the deck with splinters. From the effects of 
 this shot, forty or more men were prostrated, several of 
 whom received ugly wounds from the fragments of wood 
 and iron. The second shot, from the Xl-inch gun, struck 
 the edge of the overhang, and started the plating. The 
 third carried off the roof of the pilot-house, wounded the 
 two pilots, and stunned the men at the wheel. The fourth 
 shattered a port-shutter, driving the fragments in through 
 the port. 
 
 Upon this the Atlanta hauled down her colors, and hoisted 
 a white flag. It was just fifteen minutes after the Wee- 
 hawken had commenced firing. The Atlanta was not dis- 
 abled, nor had there been any great number of serious casu- 
 alties among the crew; but they had had enough. The 
 possibilities of a XY-inch gun, fired at a range of two 
 hundred yards, were matters that they had no wish to inves- 
 tigate further. As Rodgers diily remarked in commenting 
 upon the action, the first shot took away their disposition to 
 fight, and the third their ability to get away. 
 
 The battle was so short and decisive that the Nahant had 
 no opportunity to take part in it. When the Weeliawken 
 ranged up to her prize, the latter was found to be aground ; 
 but she was backed off a few hours later with little difficulty, 
 and steamed without assistance to Port Royal. 
 
 The engagement of the Weehawken and the Atlanta was 
 one of the extraordinary events of the war, and illustrates, 
 perhaps better than any other, the revolution which fifty 
 years of scientific progress had wrought in naval warfare. 
 The action of the Chesapeake and Shannon, which took 
 
THE ATLANTIC SQUADRONS. 
 
 119 
 
 place in June, 1813, off Boston, had enough points of resem- 
 blance to make the two engagements a fair subject of com- 
 parison. Both were exceptional victories, for so complete a 
 victory in fifteen minutes, the time covered in each of the two 
 fights, will probably always be exceptional. Nor does the 
 resemblance stop here. In both actions the victorious cap- 
 tain is one of the marked men of his service — bold but pru- 
 dent, attentive to details, minutely careful in preparation, 
 skilful in action. Each is a splendid type of his kind in the 
 age to which he belongs. As Broke w r as the model captain 
 of his day, so Rodgers is of his. The Shannon was always 
 ready for any kind of service, her discipline exact, her crew 
 willing, her gunnery precise. The Weehawken shows her 
 surpassing excellence in the same qualities ; for no man knew 
 better than Rodgers how to get good work and ready service 
 from his men. But the captain of 1813 is an able executive, a 
 skilful seaman, a capable gunnery officer ; while the captain 
 of 1863 is all this, and a man of science in addition. On the 
 losing side, the parallel is equally striking. There is in 
 both engagements the same negligence of preparation, shown 
 in the case of the Atlanta by the extreme disorder of the 
 vessel, and in that of the Chesapeake by the disorganization 
 of the crew. There is the same ineffective gun-practice, the 
 same speedy demoralization. Both captains are brave men * 
 but both go into action with the same easy confidence, in 
 each case fully shared, perhaps largely created, by the peo- 
 ple around them, who go off in pleasure-boats to witness the 
 fight, as if it were to be merely an exhibition of fireworks. 
 
 But here the parallel ceases. There is little in common 
 between the stately frigates — the Chesapeake, bearing down 
 before the wind under all sail, or the Shannon, with her 
 lofty spars, and her main topsail against the mast, and the 
 two rafts whose armored citadels protect everything but the 
 
120 
 
 TEE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 decks and the funnel. As little do the batteries of carro- 
 nades and long eighteens resemble the Brooke rifles of the 
 Atlanta or the huge Dahlgren smooth-bores of the monitor. 
 The mode of fighting corresponds to the character of the 
 ships and the weapons. The Chesapeake ranges up along- 
 side her antagonist, and the two vessels deliver their broad- 
 sides almost in contact. An accident brings them foul: 
 and straightway the crew of the Shannon, their captain at 
 the head, rush on board the enemy with pike, cutlass, and 
 pistol. After a bloody struggle, a hand-to-hand pell-mell 
 fight, the crew of the Chesapeake is overpowered and surren- 
 ders. Fifty years later, the vessels do not approach nearer 
 than two hundred yards, and four shots, deliberately aimed, 
 settle the whole affair. There is little bloodshed ; no one is 
 touched on board the Weehawken, and the injured among 
 the prisoners comprise about a tenth part of the defeated 
 
 crew. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 The command of the Gulf Blockading Squadron was as- 
 signed to Flag-Officer ‘William Mervine, who had served in 
 California during the Mexican war, and who had now been 
 fifty-two years in the service. He arrived in the Gulf on June 
 8, 1861, whither he was shortly followed by his flagship, 
 the Colorado. Before his arrival the blockade had been set 
 on foot by the vessels already on the station. Some of these 
 had pushed westward late in May, and on the 26th of that 
 month, the Powhatan, under Porter, arrived off Mobile, 
 while the Brooklyn, taking her station on the same day off 
 Pass-a-Loutre, announced the blockade of New Orleans. The 
 Powhatan remained off Mobile until the 29th, when she was 
 relieved by the Niagara, which came in from Havana. 
 Porter then proceeded off the Southwest Pass of the Missis- 
 sippi, which he blockaded on the 31st. On the 13th of June 
 the Massachusetts arrived off the Passes, where she remained 
 on blockade duty. Galveston was invested by the South 
 Carolina, on the 2d of July. When Mervine arrived at his 
 post on the 8th of June, in the frigate Mississippi, he found 
 a beginning already made, and by July he had a force of 
 twenty-one vessels. 
 
 Mervine’s first act after his arrival on the station was to 
 publish a proclamation declaring, in the usual form, that 
 “ an effective blockade of the port of Key West, Florida, has 
 
 L— 6 
 
122 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 been established and will be rigidly enforced and main- 
 tained against any and all vessels (public armed vessels of 
 foreign powers alone excepted) which shall attempt to enter 
 or depart from the said port of Key West, Florida.” As 
 Key West was wholly in the possession of the United 
 States authorities, and as it is a barren island, dependent on 
 supplies by sea for the barest necessaries of life, the procla- 
 mation caused some consternation among the inhabitants. 
 Next day, however, the order was rescinded, and it was an- 
 nounced that trading with the loyal States and with Cuba 
 would be permitted under certain restrictions. 
 
 A cruise made by H. M. S. Jason, Captain Von Donop, 
 shortly after Mervine’s arrival, showed the following disposi- 
 tion of the forces in the Gulf : the Cuyler was off Tampa 
 Bay ; the Montgomery in Appalachee Bay ; the Mississippi, 
 Niagara, and Water Witch off Pensacola ; the Huntsville and 
 the sailing-sloop St. Louis off Mobile ; and the Brooklyn, 
 Powhatan and two gunboats were off the Mississippi Passes. 
 The Jason did not go to Galveston. This report, coupled 
 with other evidence, goes to show that during the first few 
 months, the main entrances to the principal ports in the Gulf, 
 as in the Atlantic, were efficiently blockaded ; but there was 
 no blockade of the intermediate stretches of coast, and the 
 side entrances to the ports were also without a guard. 
 
 The general course of operations in the Gulf was similar 
 to that in the Atlantic ; and the same plan of converting the 
 blockade at various points into an occupation was gradually 
 but systematically carried out. A lodgment was effected at 
 New Orleans before the first year was over, and the necessity 
 of a blockade was largely obviated at the most important 
 point on the coast. From this base, further operations 
 checked the desultory commerce carried on by small vessels 
 in the Louisiana bayous. The occupation of Ship Island 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 123 
 
 covered the waters of Mississippi Sound, where a small 
 coasting trade with Mobile was, nevertheless, persistently 
 carried on. At Pensacola, Fort Pickens commanded the 
 entrance from the beginning ; and in 1862 the city was 
 evacuated, and became the depot of the West Gulf Squad- 
 ron. Galveston was occupied by the United States forces 
 from October, 1862, until the disaster on the first day of 
 1863. During the following year, possession was taken of 
 various points in Texas, but the land forces were subse- 
 quently withdrawn and the blockade re-established. Fi- 
 nally, in August, 1864, Mobile was closed by the surrender of 
 the forts to Admiral Farragut and General Granger. 
 
 In the latter part of September, 1861, Mervine was relieved 
 by Flag-Officer William W. McKean. It was decided that a 
 division of the squadrons in the Gulf was necessary, such as 
 had been made in the Atlantic, and the Department only 
 waited until its plan of active operations in that quarter 
 could be matured and a sufficient force sent to the station. 
 Farragut had been selected to command the expedition 
 against New Orleans, and on the 21st of February he as- 
 sumed command of the West Gulf Squadron, with a cruising- 
 ground extending from Pensacola to the Rio Grande. Far- 
 ragut remained in command until late in 1864, when Commo- 
 dore Thatcher was appointed to succeed him. 
 
 The Eastern Gulf Squadron extended from Cape Canaveral 
 on the eastern coast of Florida, to Pensacola. Its head- 
 quarters were at Key West. McKean remained in command 
 until June 4, 1862, when he was relieved by Captain Lard- 
 ner. Lardner was soon followed by Commodore Tlieodorus 
 Bailey, who retained the command two years, and whose 
 healLh finally broke down, as did that of many of his offi- 
 cers, upon this undesirable station. After a short interval, 
 Commodore Cornelius K. Stribling assumed the command 
 
124 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 on the 12th of October, and retained it until the close of the 
 war. 
 
 The blockade of Florida required a different management 
 from that of other parts of the coast. There were no large 
 commercial centres which might influence the destination of 
 steamers with valuable cargoes; nor were there any points 
 whose position, by giving ready access to the interior, made 
 it indispensable that they should be strongly intrenched. 
 Hence the main force of the blockade could not be concen- 
 trated at a few points. On the other hand, there were innu- 
 merable bays and inlets, difficult and dangerous of access, 
 where small vessels might enter unobserved, and remain 
 concealed for an indefinite time. It was well-nigh impos- 
 sible, no matter how large or vigilant the force in these 
 waters, to prevent absolutely the trade carried on by these 
 vessels. The best that could be done was to keep up a con- 
 stant watch, and to scour the coast at intervals, sending in 
 small parties in boats to seize a vessel whenever its presence 
 was known. Numberless little affairs thus took place on 
 the station — engagements with small batteries, boarding 
 parties, cutting-out expeditions, raids upon salt-works, sud- 
 den dashes into remote and unfrequented inlets, on dark 
 nights, through tortuous channels, usually followed by the 
 capture of cotton-laden schooners, or stray boats, or bales 
 of cotton, with the loss of a man or two here and there. 
 
 While the Tahoma was lying off Cedar Keys, on February 
 23, 1862, a boat expedition was sent in, under Lieutenant 
 Crosman, to cut out a schooner lying in the boat-channel 
 between Cedar Keys and the mainland, and to capture a 
 ferry-boat which had been used for communicating between 
 the land and the Keys. Crosman secured the ferry-boat, 
 but the schooner lay on the other side of the railroad trestle 
 crossing the channel ; and, night coming on, he was obliged 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 125 
 
 to defer operations. Going into the channel next morning, 
 he found that the schooner had disappeared; and, as he 
 was coming out of the narrow passage, a heavy fire of small 
 arms was opened from a stockade on the shore. His men 
 were at the oars, pulling against a strong flood tide and a 
 fresh wind ; and the two officers of the boats were the only 
 people who could return the fire. The leading boat had 
 barely got out of range, when the prize capsized. Nothing 
 daunted, Crosman pulled back under the fire of the troops, 
 which covered the prize, and endeavored to right her ; but 
 after some time spent in unavailing efforts, he scuttled and 
 sank her, returning with the loss of only one man to his 
 ship. 
 
 The ferry-boat Somerset, under Lieutenant-Commander 
 Earl English, attacked the salt-works near Depot Key on 
 October 4, 1862. After a few shells had been fired, a white 
 flag was hoisted on the works, and a party was sent on shore 
 to destroy them. No sooner had the party landed, than they 
 were fired upon from the building displaying the flag of 
 truce, and half of them were disabled. Immediately after 
 the affair, the gunboat Tahoma arrived, under Commander 
 John C. Howell. A strong force was landed, led by Crcs- 
 man with his usual energy and judgment, and fifty or sixty 
 salt-boilers were destroyed. 
 
 These are only a few out of numberless small affairs that 
 took place on the coast. They made little noise, but the 
 service was one that involved hardship and danger, and it 
 exacted ceaseless activity and untiling effort. It was more 
 like the old conflicts of the excisemen and smugglers on 
 the Scottish coast than the regular operations of warfare ; 
 though the contrabandistas of Florida had no occasion to sell 
 their lives as dearly as the Hatteraicks of eighty years ago. 
 
 In the West Gulf, the most important points were Mobile 
 
126 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 and New Orleans. The latter was by far the largest and 
 wealthiest city at the South ; in fact, it ranked sixth in point 
 of population among the cities of the Union. Its tonnage 
 movement was enormous, its export trade being one of 
 the most extensive in the world. There were two principal 
 entrances to the Mississippi, Pass-a-Loutre and Southwest 
 Pass, though there were several others of less importance. 
 At these two entrances the deposits of mud made by the 
 river were continually altering the channels ; and the posi- 
 tion of the bar and the depth of water were shifting and 
 uncertain. The channel was deeper now in one, now in the 
 other, and the commerce of New Orleans varied its course 
 accordingly. The smaller passes admitted only vessels of 
 the lightest draft. 
 
 The main passes were about fifteen miles in length and 
 there were from fourteen to seventeen feet of water on the 
 bars at their mouth. The three smaller passes had from six 
 to ten feet. At the point of divergence, known as the Head 
 of the Passes, the stream of the Mississippi is broad and 
 deep, and though the current is strong, there is a safe and 
 roomy anchorage. The two forts that formed the main de- 
 fences of New Orleans lay twenty miles above this point, and 
 there was nothing to obstruct the movements of the block- 
 ading fleet between the forts and the bar. It would seem 
 that the first step in the blockade of New Orleans would 
 naturally be to station a force at the Plead of the Passes, 
 where all the outlets could be closed at once. It was clearly 
 the most economical and most effectual way to blockade the 
 river ; but the position was exposed to sudden attacks by the 
 enemy, and in order to be maintained successfully, it re- 
 quired a force that should combine strength for resisting 
 attack with handiness of movement. A sloop-of-war with 
 one or two small, active, well-armed despatch-vessels or gun- 
 
rttsses of the Mississippi. 
 
128 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 boats, to act as pickets, could close the passage effectually, 
 and by the exercise of constant vigilance could reduce the 
 risk of lying in the enemy’s waters to a minimum. 
 
 Early in October, 1861, the squadron w T as moved up from 
 the bar, and took its post at the Head of the Passes. Pos° 
 session was taken of the telegraph station, and work was 
 begun on a fortification. The force consisted of the Bich- 
 mond, commanded by Captain John Pope, the senior officer 
 present ; the Vincennes, Commander Bobert Handy ; the 
 Preble, Commander French; and the side-wheel steamer 
 Water Witch, Lieutenant Francis Winslow. The Vincennes 
 and the Preble were sailing sloops-of-war. The Bichmond 
 was one of the smaller of the first-class screw-sloops built 
 shortly before the war, and an admirable vessel, carrying a 
 powerful battery of twenty-two IX-incli guns, one 80-pound- 
 er, and one rifled 30-pounder. The Vincennes carried four 
 VIH-inch shell guns, and fourteen 32-pounders. The Water 
 Witch, a small vessel, well adapted for river sendee, had 
 one 24-pound howitzer, two 12-pounders, and one Dahlgren 
 20-pounder. It was known that considerable preparations 
 were making at New Orleans to fit out a naval force under 
 the direction of Commodore Hollins, and in particular that 
 a formidable ram, the Manassas, w T as in process of construc- 
 tion ; but no extraordinary precautions seem to have been 
 taken by the blockading squadron to prevent a surprise. 
 
 On the 11th of October, the Water Witch had towed a 
 coaling schooner alongside the Bichmond, and had afterward 
 anchored on her starboard quarter, a little inshore. The 
 Preble lay in advance of the Bichmond, about one hundred 
 and fifty yards off, on her starboard bow. The Vincennes 
 was lower down the river, on the opposite side. 
 
 A little before four o’clock, on the morning of the 12th, 
 while the watch on deck was getting coal on board the Bich* 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 129 
 
 mond from tile schooner alongside, a ram was discovered 
 close aboard. This was the Manassas, commanded by Lieu- 
 tenant-Commander Warley. The Preble saw her at the 
 same moment, as well as the prize-scliooner Frolic, and 
 giving the alarm at once, beat to quarters. A moment later, 
 the ram struck the Richmond abreast of the port fore- 
 channels, making a small hole in her side, and tearing the 
 schooner from her fasts. The injury was speedily repaired ; 
 and the Richmond, slipping her cable and ranging ahead, 
 avoided a second blow on her quarter. The ram, having 
 been herself seriously injured by the shock, then gave up 
 the attempt, and standing up the river, received broadsides 
 from the Richmond and from the Preble as she passed them. 
 Steaming ahead, the Richmond found herself near the shore, 
 and attempted to turn, but only succeeded in getting half- 
 way round, with her broadside up and down the river. Or- 
 ders were then given to the two sailing-sloops to proceed 
 down the Southwest Pass, while the Richmond covered 
 their retreat. 
 
 As the ram passed up the river she fired a rocket. Imme- 
 diately afterward three lights were seen in motion, which 
 gradually brightened and expanded until they were dis- 
 covered to be fire-rafts, drifting down on the squadron. The 
 Water Witch avoided them without difficulty, steering to 
 the northeast, up the stream, while the rafts, left to the 
 wind and current, drifted to the western shore, doing no 
 injury. The rest of the squadron was already out of their 
 reach, on its way to the bar. 
 
 Winslow now remained alone in the Water Witch, near 
 the Head of the Passes, having inteipreted the commanding 
 officer’s last signal to mean “ Act at discretion,” and being 
 tinder the conviction that a force was still required at this 
 point if the blockade was to be efficiently maintained. Tlio 
 6 * 1 
 
130 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 rest of the squadron apparently took a different view of the 
 state of affairs. It was now daylight and, making a recon- 
 noissance, Winslow discovered the smoke of four steamers, 
 above a bend in the river, and a bark-rigged propeller higher 
 up, having the appearance of a blockade-runner. As the pro- 
 peller would have a clear path through Pass-a-Loutre un- 
 less the squadron could be brought back, the Water Witch 
 steamed at full speed down the Southwest Pass until she 
 ove^ook the retreating blockaders. W T hen she came up 
 with them, the Richmond was making a general signal to 
 cross the bar. Winslow ranged up alongside and earnestly 
 represented the necessity of returning immediately up the 
 river, but Pope, deeming the position of the squadron un- 
 safe, overruled the suggestion and ordered the Water Witch 
 to the assistance of the sailing vessels. This order was car- 
 ried out. The Preble was piloted across the bar by Davis, 
 the executive of the Water Witch, and the gunboat went her- 
 self to assist the Vincennes; but before WTnslow could 
 reach her, the sloop grounded. A moment later the Rich- 
 mond also ran ashore. 
 
 In this position the vessels of the squadron found them- 
 selves when Hollins came down the Pass with his flotilla. 
 It was now about eight o’clock. The enemy’s attack was not 
 maintained with any great spirit, and though the cannonade 
 lasted for a couple of hours, no advantage was gained by 
 either side. As the Richmond lay with her broadside up 
 the river, she could rake the channel effectuaUv; and the 
 Confederates, whose force of lightly-armed river-boats was no 
 match for the squadron, kept at a respectful distance from 
 her heavy battery. Their firing was inaccurate, their shells 
 bursting around and beyond the Richmond. On the other 
 hand, the Richmond’s shot fell short. She succeeded once 
 or twice in backing off into deeper water, and drifted do™ 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 131 
 
 with the current, grounding finally about a quarter of a mile 
 below the Vincennes; but the little "Water Witch pluckily 
 held her position, al though she was obliged to keep actively 
 moving to leave a clear space for the Richmond’s fire. 
 
 The position of the Vincennes would now have become 
 critical had the enemy shown a bold front and approached 
 her ; but they kept off, satisfied with a mere demonstration. 
 Then came the most singular incident of this singular con- 
 flict. The Richmond made signal to the vessels below the 
 bar to get under w T ay. This was erroneously interpreted on 
 board the Vincennes as an order to abandon the vessel. Cap- 
 tain Handy, apparently himself in some doubt as to his inter- 
 pretation, sent an officer to the Water Witch asking if such a 
 signal had been made, and announcing that he should defend 
 his vessel. Winslow replied to the question that it was im- 
 possible, and suggested to Handy that he should fight his 
 ship. Handy did not adopt the suggestion, however, but 
 concluded to obey the supposed order. Having first caused 
 a slow-match to be applied to the magazine, he manned the 
 boats, and sending a part of his crew on board the Water 
 Witch, he repaired to the Richmond with the rest. From 
 some dramatic fancy, he wrapped a large American ensign 
 about his waist, and in this strange guise he appeared over 
 the side of the commanding officer’s vessel. This was at 
 9.30, when the enemy’s forces were beginning to draw off 
 from the attack; and shortly after Captain Handy reached 
 the Richmond they withdrew up the river. 
 
 Captain Pope, after waiting “ a reasonable time,” as he 
 says in hi3 report, for the explosion, and thinking, “ from 
 the description of the slow-match,” that it had gone out, 
 ordered Handy back to the Vincennes. The latter there- 
 upon divested himself of his colors, and returned to his ves- 
 sel. The next day she was got afloat, with the assistance of 
 
132 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 the South Carolina, which was ordered up from Barrataria. 
 A new disposition was made of the vessels, and the blockade 
 was continued by keeping a ship off the mouth of each of 
 the Passes. 
 
 On the 16th of September Ship Island had been evacuated 
 by the Confederates. A force was landed from the Massa- 
 chusetts, and the fort was occupied. The island became an 
 important station, and facilitated the blockade of Mississippi 
 Sound, where the cruisers might intercept the small vessels 
 running between New Orleans and Mobile. On the 19th of 
 October, the steamer Florida came out, under Commodore 
 Hollhi'i, and engaged the Massachusetts off the island. The 
 Florida, being a faster vessel, and of less draft, was able to 
 choose her distance, and the engagement was carried on at 
 long range. A 68-pounder rifle-shell was exploded in the 
 Massachusetts, but it did not seriously injure the vessel, and 
 the enemy finally retreated out of reach. Ship Island served 
 as the depot of the West Gulf Squadron until the evacuation 
 of Pensacola, which then became the headquarters. 
 
 Mobile, the second point of importance in the Gulf, pre- 
 sented few natural difficulties to the blockaders ; and the 
 same peculiarities that made it an easy port to defend made 
 it an easy port to blockade. The city lies at the head of a 
 bay twenty-four miles long and ten miles wide in its upper 
 part, expanding to twenty miles at its southern end. Very 
 little, however, of this large sheet of water is accessible for 
 vessels of even moderate draught. The upper anchorage has 
 only twelve feet of water. The lower anchorage has from 
 eighteen to twenty feet, and is five miles north of Mobile 
 Point, at the main entrance to the bay. This entrance lies 
 between two long, narrow sand-spits, and is approached by a 
 channel running north and south. The channel, five miles 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 133 
 
 in length, and only half a mile wide at its narrowest point, 
 has at its southern extremity a bar, upon which there is a 
 depth of nearly twenty-one feet. The northern end was pro* 
 
 tected by two forts, one of them, Fort Morgan, a work of 
 considerable strength. But as the entrance of the channel 
 was five miles from the forts, the blockading squadron could 
 
134 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 take a position close to tlie bar ; and the blockade was re- 
 duced to a limited area. At tliis point, therefore, it could 
 be maintained more effectually and by a smaller force than 
 at almost any other place of trade on the coast. 
 
 There were two other entrances to the bay, one to the 
 westward, with so little water as to be comparatively unim- 
 portant, and the other to the northeast, extending, like the 
 Beach Channel at Charleston, close along the shore, and ter- 
 minating directly under Fort Morgan, just as the northeast 
 channel at Charleston terminated at Fort Moultrie. Though 
 it was less than twelve feet deep at low water, and therefore 
 does not appear on the map, it could be used, when the 
 tide served, by many of the blockade-runners ; and when 
 they had once entered, it was next to impossible to cut them 
 out. Additional blockading vessels were generally stationed 
 at both these side-entrances. 
 
 Early in the war, the force off Mobile consisted sometimes 
 of a single vessel, which might be found cruising eight 
 or ten miles from the entrance ; but after the first year a 
 really efficient force was stationed off the port, and toward 
 the end the vessels lay within two hundred yards of the bar 
 buoy, often with a single gunboat posted inside the channel. 1 
 Especially after the second escape of the Florida, the officers 
 of the squadron were put on their mettle, and during the 
 year before its capture, Mobile was a difficult port for block- 
 ade-runners to attempt. 
 
 The simplest operations on the blockade, however, were 
 liable to a variety of accidents and incidents, and no sendee 
 
 1 The old theory with reference to the danger of lying off Mobile finds expres- 
 sion in the following passage of Blunt's Coast Pilot (ed. 1S41): “Those off Mo- 
 bile should recollect the necessity of getting an offing as soon as there are appear- 
 ances of a gale on shore, either to weather the Balize or, which is better, to take 
 in time the Road of Naso, as destruction is inevitable if you come to anchor out* 
 side Mobile Bar during the gale” 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 135 
 
 demanded a higher degree of preparation and perseverance 
 in action. This was illustrated again and again. A case 
 occurred early in 1862, which will serve as one instance 
 out of many. On the 20th of January, the steamer R. R. 
 Cuyler, watching the eastern passage over Mobile bar, dis- 
 covered a schooner at anchor, near the shore, several miles 
 to the eastward. The Cuyler was commanded by Lieutenant 
 Francis Winslow, the same officer who had shown his judg- 
 ment and courage in the affair at the Head of the Passes. 
 Apparently it was a simple enough matter for the Cuyler, a 
 fast and well-armed’ steamer, to make the schooner an easy 
 prize. As the Cuyler approached, how T ever, the blockade- 
 runner got under way, and steered for the beach. Here she 
 grounded, her crew making for the land. A boat was sent to 
 take possession, and the Cuyler was anchored as near the 
 shore as she could safely go. 
 
 Meantime, a party of men had collected on the beach, and 
 opened a sharp lire of musketry, under cover of the dunes. 
 This was returned from the Cuyler, and with the help of an 
 occasional shell, the steamer silenced the fire from the shore. 
 A hawser was carried out, and an attempt w T as made to start 
 the schooner. The hawser was parted by the strain ; and a 
 second attempt met with a similar result, except that this 
 time the hawser fouled the Cuyler’s propeller. The largest 
 hawser in the ship w T as now made fast to the schooner’s fore- 
 mast, and the working party w T as recalled ; but just as they 
 got off, their boat swamped. Two other boats at once put off 
 to the rescue, and, as they approached, received a warm fire 
 from the sand-hills, the enemy having now gathered in con- 
 siderable force. As the Cuyler’s stern was secured to the 
 schooner, and her propeller was still clogged, her broadside 
 could not be brought to bear, and she could only answer with 
 small arms. One of the boats had a howitzer ; but half her 
 
136: 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 crew, including the officer in charge, were already disabled, 
 and the four men who remained could not use the gun. At 
 this critical juncture, the Huntsville arrived with two of the 
 Potomac’s cutters in tow. Master Schley pulled gallantly in 
 with the cutters, and the Huntsville opened on the beach ; 
 and a series of mishaps which had nearly resulted in disaster 
 finally ended in success. 
 
 The most prominent event in the history of the blockade 
 of Mobile was the daring passage of the Confederate cruiser 
 Florida past the blockading squadron, on two separate occa- 
 sions. The first was on the 4th of September, 1862. At this 
 time the blockade was maintained by the sloop-of-war 
 Oneida, and the gunboats Winona and Cayuga. The senior 
 officer was Commander George H. Preble of the Oneida. 
 The Oneida was one of the four sloops* built at the beginning 
 of the war, and she was armed with two Xl-inch guns, four 
 32-pounders, and three Dahlgren 30-pounders. The frigate 
 Susquehanna had been lying off the port, but had gone to 
 Pensacola for repairs five days before. The gunboats Pinola, 
 Kanawha, and Kennebec were also attached to the blockad- 
 ing squadron, and temporarily absent for repairs or coal. On 
 the evening of the day before, the Cayuga had been sent to 
 Petit Bois and Horn Island, the entrances of Mississippi 
 Sound, which had been left unguarded. The boilers of the 
 Oneida needed some slight repairs, and on the morning of 
 the day in question, the fire had been hauled under one 
 boiler, while a full pressure of steam was kept on the other. 
 The repairs were nearly completed soon after noon, and at 
 3.45 p.m., the fire was again started, though a working press- 
 ure of steam was not obtained for some time, and the speed 
 of the vessel was reduced from ten knots to seven. The 
 blockading force, therefore, on this critical day, consisted 
 only of the Oneida, undergoing repairs, and the Winona. 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 137 
 
 On the 7th of August the Confederate cruiser Florida had 
 left Nassau, where she had been lying for three months, and 
 had put into Cardenas in Cuba. Intelligence of this fact 
 had been received at Pensacola, the headquarters of the 
 squadron, Uut no intimation had been sent to the blockading 
 officer off Mobile, though several vessels had come from 
 Pensacola in the meantime. The Florida was in a crippled 
 state ; her crew was short ; what men she had were most 
 of them sick with yellow fever ; and her battery was unpro- 
 vided with the necessary equipments. Her captain, Maffitt, 
 found it necessary to make a port where he could obtain a 
 crew, and the equipments that he needed ; and he decided 
 to attempt Mobile. Knowing that his ship was an exact 
 duplicate of the English gun- vessels that were constantly 
 cruising on the coast and going in and out of the blockaded 
 ports, he adopted the bold course of personating an Eng- 
 lishman, and attempting to run the blockade of Mobile in 
 broad daylight. 
 
 At 3.35 on the afternoon of the 4th, the squadron off the 
 port, composed of the Oneida and the Winona, had sighted a 
 sail to the southward and westward, and the Winona^was or- 
 dered in chase. The sail was found to be the United States 
 man-of-war schooner Rachel Seaman ; and the two vessels 
 were returning towards the Oneida, when at five o’clock an- 
 other sail was reported in the southeast. She was presently 
 discovered to be a steamer with a barkantine rig, burning 
 bituminous coal, and heading directly for the senior officer’s 
 vessel. Satisfied that she was an English gun-vessel in- 
 specting the blockade, Preble got under way, and went to 
 quarters, steering for the stranger’s port bow. The latter 
 had been carrying a pennant, and she now hoisted the Eng- 
 lish ensign. 
 
 The mles adopted on the blockade allowed foreign sliips-of- 
 
138 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 war the privilege of entering the blockaded ports ; but this 
 was of course never done without first communicating with 
 the squadron outside. No vessel, whatever her character or 
 nationality, can be permitted to ran past a blockading squad- 
 ron without this formality. Ajs the Oneida approached the 
 supposed Englishman, she put her helm to starboard in order 
 not to pass him, and came around until she was heading in the 
 same direction, still a little on his port bow. He kept on at 
 full speed, and when at a distance of about one hundred yards 
 the Oneida hailed him. Receiving no reply, she fired a shot 
 across his bow, from the rifled pivot gun on the forecastle, 
 followed quickly by another, also across his bow, and by a 
 third, close to his forefoot. As these produced no impres- 
 sion, the order was given to fire into him, and the starboard 
 broadside was immediately discharged. This is stated to 
 have been done three minutes after the first shot was fired. 
 But with a blockade-runner alongside running fourteen knots 
 to the blockader's seven, time is counted by seconds. When 
 the broadside was fired, the stranger’s ensign and pennant 
 were hauled down. It turned out that orders were given on 
 board jthe Florida, for such she proved to be, to hoist the 
 Confederate flag, but the quartermaster lost his fingers in 
 the attempt, and the vessel kept on her course without any 
 colors. An attempt was also made on board the Florida to 
 loosen sail ; but Jhe Oneida’s fire drove the men out of the 
 rigging. According to Maffitt, “had their guns been de- 
 pressed, the career of the Florida would have ended then and 
 there.” The Winona and Rachel Seaman joined in the firing, 
 from a greater distance ; but the Florida did not slacken her 
 speed, and made no attempt at resistance. An Xl-inch shell 
 from the Oneida passed through the coal-bunker on the port 
 side, but did not explode. Another exploded close to the 
 port gangway. A third entered a few inches above the water- 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 139 
 
 line, and passed along the berth-deck ; and a shot from the 
 Winona went through the cabin and pantry. 
 
 During the firing the Florida had been gaining rapidly on 
 her assailants, and she now passed ahead, making directly for 
 the entrance of the channel. The Oneida was obliged to 
 yaw, to bring her guns to bear, but the chase was continued 
 until the Florida had crossed the bar. Then the blockading 
 vessels hauled off. An hour later, the Florida was safely an- 
 chored under the guns of Fort Morgan. 
 
 After remaining four months at Mobile, repairing and 
 completing her equipments, the Florida came out. This 
 time no disguise was possible, and when his ship was ready, 
 Maffitt only waited for a northerly wind and a dark night. 
 On the afternoon of January 15, the prospect seemed favor- 
 able, and the Florida ran down to Mobile Point. The vio- 
 lence of the wind delayed her for a few hours, but at two 
 o’clock on the morning of the 16th, she weighed and stood out 
 by the main ship-channel across the bar. 
 
 The blockading fleet now consisted of seven vessels. 
 Among these was the R. R. Cuyler, a fast steamer that had 
 been sent down especially to stop the Florida. When Maffitt 
 had come down in the afternoon, he could see the blockading 
 vessels aligned off the main entrance, two miles from the 
 bar. He was also sighted from the squadron ; and the Cuy- 
 ler was ordered to change her position, and be prepared to 
 give chase, with the Oneida. Between two and three o’clock 
 in the morning, the enemy was reported. He passed be- 
 tween the Cuyler and the flagship Susquehanna, at a distance 
 of three hundred yards from the former. After a consider- 
 able delay, a part of the squadron started in pursuit. It is 
 stated by an officer of the Cuyler, in a letter quoted by Maffitt, 
 that half an hour was lost in getting under way, owing to 
 a regulation of the ship by which the officer of the watch 
 
140 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 was required to report and to wait for the captain to come 
 on deck before slipping the cable. The Oneida, when she 
 saw the signal from the flagship, beat to quarters, but 
 remained at anchor; and at 3.50, “ having seen no vessel 
 running out, beat a retreat.” 1 So says her log. The Cuyler, 
 however, saw the Florida distinctly, and chased her during 
 the rest of the night and the whole of the day ; but though 
 the blockading steamer could make at times fourteen knots, 
 
 1 her highest speed that day was twelve and a half. At night 
 the Florida changed her course and ran off to Cuba, where 
 she was burning prizes the next day, while the Cuyler was 
 looking for her in the Yucatan channel. 
 
 On the day after the Florida ran out, the Oneida was sent 
 to Key West with despatches for Admiral Bailey, informing 
 him of the escape of the Florida. Bailey sent her to the 
 coast of Cuba ; but she missed the Confederate cruiser, and 
 Wilkes, commanding the Flying Squadron, having fallen in 
 with her, constituted her a part of his force, as well as the 
 Cuyler, to the no small injury of the blockade; an act which 
 subsequently brought down upon him the displeasure of the 
 Department. 
 
 Galveston, the third point of importance in the Gulf, was, 
 like Mobile, comparatively easy of blockade, except against 
 vessels of the lightest draft. The absence of strong fortifi- 
 cations, especially in the early part of the war, enabled the 
 blockading vessels to lie near the shore ; and the town was 
 exposed to the fire of the squadron, as it found to its cost in 
 August, 1861, when a shore battery fired upon one of the 
 South Carolina’s tenders. Alden w T as then commanding the 
 blockading force, and he brought the South Carolina, which 
 drew only twelve feet, within a mile of the shore, and opened 
 
 1 Meaning “ beat the retreat . 1 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 141 
 
 on the batteries. One or two of his shells fell in the town, 
 which led to a protest from the foreign consnls against bom- 
 bardment without notice ; but the injury to the town was 
 afterwards shown to be accidental. 
 
 Occupied as he was with active operations in the Missis- 
 sippi, Farragut early turned his attention to the necessities 
 of the Gulf blockade. In a letter written home shortly 
 after his arrival, he had said : “ My blockading shall be done 
 inside as much as possible.” The special charge of the ves- 
 sels in the Gulf was entrusted to Commodore Henry H. Bell, 
 and the steps already taken to convert the blockade of prom- 
 inent points into an occupation were continued, especially to 
 the westward of the Mississippi, on the coast of Louisiana 
 and Texas. The principal entrances were Atchafalaya Bay 
 and the Calcasieu, on the coast of Louisiana, Sabine Pass, at 
 the western boundary of the State, and Galveston, Pass Ca- 
 vallo, Aransas, and Corpus Christi, in Texas. Several small 
 vessels were sent to operate in connection with a detachment 
 of troops in Atchafalaya and its inner waters, under Lieuten- 
 ant-Commander Buchanan. These operations continued for 
 a long period, though Buchanan was killed two months after 
 his arrival, in an engagement in the T&che. The other 
 points were seized by different expeditions, whose operations 
 were attended with varying success ; and on the coast of 
 Texas, blockade and occupation alternated at the different 
 passes with considerable frequency during the rest of the 
 war. One great difficulty in holding the occupied points 
 was the w T ant of troops. In December, 1862, Farragut writes : 
 “ It takes too much force to hold the places for me to take 
 any more, or my outside fleet will be too much reduced to 
 keep up the blockade and keep the river open ” — two prim- 
 ary considerations in the operations of the squadron. 
 
 At all the passes on the coast of Texas and Louisiana there 
 
142 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 had been considerable blockade-mnning by small craft from 
 Havana. To break it up and seize the passes three expedi- 
 tions were sent out, one to Corpus Christi, one to Calcasieu 
 and Sabine Pass, and one to Galveston. The first of these, 
 under Acting-Lieutenant Kittredge, consisted of the bark 
 Arthur, the steamer Sachem, the yacht Corvpheus, and one 
 or two smaller sailing-vessels. There were only about one 
 hundred men in all the vessels. Kittredge was confident of 
 success, but he could hardly have counted on meeting with 
 serious opposition. Corpus Christi lies at the mouth of the 
 Nueces River, on a bay which is enclosed by the long nar- 
 row islands that make a double coast along nearly the whole 
 line of the Texas shore. Entering the lagoon, Kittredge 
 proceeded up the bay. On August 16 and 18 attacks were 
 made upon the city, and a battery which had been thrown 
 up on the levee was silenced. On the 18 th, a landing party 
 of thirty men with a howitzer was sent into the town, but 
 by this time the enemy had collected a considerable force, 
 estimated at five hundred men ; and though their attack 
 was repulsed, there was no possibility of holding the place, 
 and the landing party was withdrawn. The vessels, how- 
 ever, continued to cruise inside of the Passes of Corpus 
 Christi and Aransas. Several vessels were destroyed or cap- 
 tured, and the blockade became really efficient. The only 
 casualty was the capture of Kittredge and his gig’s crew, 
 when making an incautious reconnoissance. 
 
 The second expedition, under Acting-Master Crocker, set 
 out in September for the Sabine River. The importance of 
 this point as an entrance for blockade-runners had been under- 
 rated, and no adequate blockade had been established. A 
 railroad crossed the river at a point not very far above Sabine 
 City, and the town was actively occupied in the exportation 
 of cotton and the reception of large quantities of munitions 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 143 
 
 of war. The expedition, consisting of the steamer Kensing- 
 ton and the schooner Rachel Seaman, found the mortar- 
 schooner Henry Janes lying off the entrance. The Janes 
 constituted the whole blockading force, and she had been 
 there only a few days. Crocker was an energetic officer, 
 and at once set about active operations. The vessels as- 
 cended the river and attacked the fort protecting Sabine 
 City. The fort was soon evacuated and the city surrendered. 
 Crocker then made a reconnoissance at the two entrances to 
 the eastward, Mermenteau and Calcasieu, and on his return 
 captured a blockade-running schooner, the Velocity, 'which 
 he armed and manned as a cruiser. Going once more to Cal- 
 casieu, he pulled up the river eighty miles in boats, and cap- 
 tured the steamer Dan, which he also fitted out for service, 
 putting on board a rifled 20-pounder and a howitzer. This 
 new acquisition was taken around to Sabine, and a few days 
 later Crocker moved her up the river, and destroyed the rail- 
 road bridge, although the enemy were posted there in force. 
 On his return, he found that the pickets from a camp of the en- 
 emy’s cavalry, five miles back of Sabine City, had given some 
 annoyance. Landing with a party of fifty men and a howitzer, 
 Crocker marched to the place, drove off the enemy, burned 
 their stables, and broke up their encampment. After these 
 gallant and successful operations, to which were added the 
 capture of several blockade-runners, Crocker returned in the 
 Kensington to Pensacola, leaving the Rachel Seaman, and 
 the prize-vessels Dan and Velocity to keep up a real block- 
 ade at Sabine Pass. 
 
 The expedition to Galveston was under the command of 
 Commander W. B. Renshaw, and consisted of the ferry-boat 
 Westfield, Renshaw’s vessel, another ferry-boat, the Clifton, 
 under Lieutenant-Commander Law, the side-wheel steamer 
 Harriet Lane, Commander Wain wright, and the gunboat 
 
144 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 O wasco, Lieutenant-Commander Wilson. The squadron, 
 though small, was a formidable one to send against Galves- 
 ton, which was imperfectly protected. All the vessels carried 
 for their size heavy batteries . 1 
 
 No fighting took place, however. Several days were spent 
 in negotiations, and a truce was granted by Renshaw, under 
 a verbal stipulation that the force on shore should not be 
 increased. The Confederates took advantage of this some- 
 what loose arrangement to carry off the guns from the fortifica- 
 tions — a proceeding against which Renshaw remonstrated 
 unsuccessfully. At the end of the truce, the city was surren- 
 dered, and the fleet thenceforth occupied a secure position 
 inside the bay. 
 
 Captain Renshaw requested that a military force should 
 be sent to hold Galveston, and reported that two or three 
 hundred men, with half a dozen pieces of artillery, could 
 easily defend themselves on Fort Point or Pelican Island. 
 An expedition was accordingly fitted out, which was to land 
 at Galveston, and make that point the base of military oper- 
 ations. The first detachment of troops consisted of three 
 companies of a Massachusetts regiment, under Colonel Bur- 
 rill, numbering two hundred and sixty men, but without 
 any artillery. This force was clearly inadequate to hold the 
 place ; but with such an efficient squadron, it seemed un- 
 likely that the enemy would' be able to accomplish any great 
 results by an attack, particularly as they had no vessels 
 specially adapted for hostilities in those waters. This ab- 
 
 1 The general statement gives so imperfect an idea of the powerful armament of 
 Renshaw’s squadron, and especially of the ferry-boats, that it may be worth while 
 to mention the guns in detail. They were as follows : Westfield — One 100- 
 pounder rifle, four VUI-inch shell guns (56 cwt.), one IX-inch. Clifton — twc 
 IX-inch, four heavy 32-pounders (57 cwt.), one 30-pounder. Harriet Lane- 
 three IX-inch, two 24-pound howitzers. Owasco — one XI- inch, one 20-pounder 
 Parrott, one 24-pound howitzer. 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 145 
 
 sence of an enemy in force seems to have given Renshaw 
 a false sense of security, and he neglected to destroy the 
 railroad bridge connecting Galveston with the mainland — 
 a fatal omission. Whatever may be the disadvantages under 
 which an enemy labors, there is always danger to be appre- 
 hended for a small squadron lying in his waters ; and noth- 
 ing can justify the want of vigilance or of preparation. 
 
 Galveston Harbor and Entrance. 
 
 By the end of November Farragut held nearly all the prin- 
 cipal points in the West Gulf except Mobile. About this 
 time, he writes : “We shall spoil unless we have a fight oc- 
 casionally. Blockading is hard service, and difficult to carry 
 out with perfect success, as has been effectually shown at 
 Charleston, where they run to Nassau regularly once a week. 
 We have done a little better than that ; we take them now 
 I. -7 
 
146 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 and then. I don’t know how many escape, but we certainly 
 make a good many prizes.” Farragut was not quite accurate 
 in his comparison, as the number of prizes reported for 
 Charleston in 1862 considerably exceeded that at Mobile. 
 In December he says again of the blockade at the latter 
 place : 4 4 We have taken or destroyed all the steamers that 
 run from Havana and Nassau except the Cuba and Alice, and 
 I hope to catch those in the course of time.” 
 
 But Farragut’s hope of improving the efficiency of the Gulf 
 blockade was destined to be rudely shattered. It was only a 
 few days after he wrote the letter just quoted that the aspect 
 of affairs on the coast of Texas was suddenly changed by the 
 defeat of the squadron at Galveston, and the consequent ces- 
 sation of the blockade at that point. 
 
 On the last day of December, intimations were received 
 by both commanders at Galveston, ashore and afloat, that an 
 attack would be made that night. The affair was therefore 
 no surprise ; in fact, the presumption is that it was expected. 
 Moreover, there was a bright moonlight on the night chosen 
 for the attack ; and the steamers of the approaching force 
 were seen in the bay above, both by the Clifton and the 
 Westfield. This was about half -past one on the morning of 
 the 1st of January. 
 
 At this time the troops were occupying a wharf in the 
 town, in order that they might have the fleet as a base. 
 The small steamer Sachem, which had been a part of Kit- 
 tredge’s force at Corpus Christi, had come in from Aransas 
 two days before, in a broken-down condition. The schooner- 
 yacht Corypheus had come with her as escort, and the two 
 vessels were lying opposite the wharf. The Harriet Lane 
 was stationed higher up the channel, to the westward, and 
 therefore nearer the enemy. The Westfield lay three or four 
 miles off, in Bolivar channel, a body of water to the north- 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 147 
 
 ward of the town, only accessible from the harbor of Galves- 
 ton by a roundabout passage to the eastward. With the 
 Westfield were the schooner Velocity, which Crocker had 
 captured at Sabine Pass, and some transports and coal-barks. 
 The Clifton and O wasco were about midway between the two 
 groups of vessels. 
 
 Though the enemy first made their appearance at half -past 
 one, it was three o’clock before the attack began in the town, 
 and only at daylight that the Confederate steamers reached 
 the Harriet Lane, the nearest of the blockading force. The 
 latter was at the time under way, and anticipated the attack, 
 herself taking the offensive. Her opponents were two river- 
 steamers, the Bayou City and the Neptune, the first armed 
 with a rifled 68-pounder, the second with two small brass 
 pieces. Each carried from 150 to 200 men, and both were 
 barricaded with cotton bales, twenty or more feet above the 
 water-line. 
 
 As the two steamers came down, the Harriet Lane ad- 
 vanced to meet them, firing her bow gun. The Bayou City 
 replied, but her gun burst at the third fire. The Harriet 
 Lane then ran into her, carried away her wheel-guard, and, 
 passing, gave her a broadside, which did her little damage. 
 The Neptune then rammed the Harriet Lane, but she was 
 herself so much injured by the collision that she backed off 
 out of action, and soon after sank on the flats in eight feet of 
 water. The Bayou City rammed the Lane in her turn, and 
 her bow catching under the guard-rail of the other vessel, 
 she was held fast. A sharp fire of musketry was now ex- 
 changed between the two vessels, which caused no great 
 mortality on either side, though it inflicted an irreparable 
 loss on the Federal steamer by wounding the captain and 
 first lieutenant, Wain wright and Lea, both excellent officers. 
 The fire drove the Harriet Lane’s crew from their guns, and 
 
THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 148 
 
 the enemy boarded, and, after a short struggle, carried the 
 vessel. Wain wright was killed at the head of his men, de- 
 fending his ship gallantly to the last, and fell after having 
 received seven wounds. Lea had already been mortally 
 w T ounded before the enemy boarded. 
 
 After Wainwright fell, no defence was attempted. The 
 surviving senior officer, an acting-master, almost immediately 
 surrendered, though less than a dozen men were seriously 
 hurt out of his crew of 112. Upon this proceeding Farragut 
 makes the following brief comment : “It is difficult to con- 
 ceive of a more pusillanimous surrender of a vessel to an 
 enemy already in our power. ” 
 
 Meantime the other vessels were variously occupied. The 
 Sachem and Corypheus, lying near the wharf held by the 
 troops, supplied in some measure the want of artillery ; and 
 the battle on shore, which had begun about three o’clock, 
 was kept up until daylight, the Confederates gradually com- 
 ing closer to our lines. The Owasco, at the beginning of 
 the engagement in the city, had moved up to a position 
 between the Sachem and Corypheus, and united with them 
 in the support of the troops. When daylight showed the 
 Harriet Lane engaged with two of the enemy’s vessels, the 
 Owasco moved up to assist her, occasionally touching the 
 ground, as she steamed up the channel, which was two hun- 
 dred yards wide at this point. After proceeding a short dis- 
 tance, she was driven back by the small-arm fire of the 
 Bayou City ; and w T hen the howitzers of the Lane opened on 
 her, she backed down below the Sachem and Corypheus, 
 and took up her berth opposite the town. 
 
 It remains to account for the two other steamers, the West- 
 field and the Clifton, which, despite the fact that they were 
 ferry-boats, were well-fitted to act with effect in such an en- 
 counter as this. The Westfield got under way at the first 
 
THE GULE SQUADRONS. 
 
 uy 
 
 sight of the enemy’s steamers, but had no sooner begun to 
 move than she went fast aground. It was high water at the 
 time, and Benshaw signalled for assistance. In response to 
 the signal, Lieutenant-Commander Law took the Clifton 
 around to Bolivar channel, and made an effort to get the 
 Westfield afloat. In the midst of this operation, the attack 
 began in the town, and Benshaw sent the Clifton back to 
 support the other vessels. 
 
 The moon had now gone down, and in the darkness Law 
 made his way back slowly, shelling the Confederate batteries 
 as he passed Fort Point, the eastern end of Galveston Island. 
 On his arrival opposite the town, he came to anchor. Ac- 
 cording to the report of the Court of Inquiry, the Clifton 
 “did not proceed up to the rescue of the Harriet Lane, 
 owing to the failure of the Owasco, the intricacy of the channel, 
 and the apprehension of killing the crew of the Harriet Lane, 
 who were then exposed by the rebels on her upper deck.” 
 
 The enemy now sent a flag of truce to demand the surren- 
 der of the vessels, at the same time offering the privilege of 
 taking one out of the harbor with the crews of all. The 
 bearer of the demands announced the capture of the Lane, 
 and the death of Wainwriglit and Lea, and represented that 
 two-thirds of her crew were killed and wounded — a misrep- 
 resentation in which he was sustained by an officer of the 
 Harriet Lane, whom he brought with him. It appears that 
 the object of this proceeding was to gain time. Law received 
 the message, made a verbal arrangement for a truce, in which 
 the status quo was to be maintained, and went in a boat to 
 the Westfield, to refer the question to Benshaw. After a 
 long delay, which the Confederates, taking advantage of the 
 absence of written stipulations, occupied in bringing down 
 the Harriet Lane, moving up their artillery, and making pris- 
 oners of the troops, Law returned with Benshaw’s refusal. 
 
150 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 The truce being now ended, Law proceeded to carry out 
 his instructions, which were to take the vessels out of the 
 harbor ; a movement that was accomplished successfully and 
 with celerity. It was Renshaw’s intention to blow up the 
 Westfield, which was still hard aground, and to come out in 
 one of the army transports. By some one’s carelessness or 
 negligence, the explosion took place prematurely, and Ren- 
 shaw, together with some of his officers, and a few of his crew, 
 who had not yet been transferred, were killed. The remain- 
 der of the vessels, except the two coal-barks, crossed the bar ; 
 and in view of the fact that the remains of the squadron were 
 not deemed equal to an engagement with the Harriet Lane, 
 they steamed off at once to Southwest Pass, and the block- 
 ade of Galveston was raised. 
 
 The blockade did not long remain broken. Immediately 
 after the arrival of the Clifton, Admiral Farragut sent Com- 
 modore Bell to Galveston with the Brooklyn, the Hatteras, 
 and several gunboats, to resume the blockade. They arrived 
 off the town on the 8th, so that the interruption lasted only 
 seven days. Had they been a day or two later, they would 
 probably have found the Alabama lying snugly in the port. 
 As it was, she was sighted outside, and the Hatteras was sent 
 to overhaul her. The chase resulted in an encounter twenty- 
 five miles from Galveston, which lasted thirteen minutes, and 
 which ended in the sinking of the Hatteras. The squadron 
 cruised all night in search of the Hatteras, and finding the 
 wreck in the morning returned to Galveston. 
 
 In consequence of the withdrawal of the squadron from 
 Galveston, after the capture of the Lane, a proclamation was 
 issued, on the 20tli of January, by Magrader, the Confederate 
 General commanding in Texas, declaring that the blockade 
 had ceased, and inviting neutrals to resume commercial in- 
 tercourse until an actual blockade had been re-established 
 
THE GULF SQUADRONS. 
 
 151 
 
 “with, the usual notice demanded by the law of nations.” 
 Though the blockade had indisputably been raised, the pro- 
 clamation was a little late in giving the information, and 
 Bell replied by a counter-proclamation of the same date, 
 giving a general warning that an actual blockade was in ex- 
 istence. To another proclamation of Magruder’s, announ- 
 cing the cessation of the blockade at Velasco, a port forty 
 miles to the southward of Galveston, Bell could make no 
 reply, as the only vessel assigned to that point was on duty 
 off Aransas. 
 
 Shortly after these events, on the 21st, an attack was made 
 on the Morning Light and Velocity, two sailing-vessels 
 blockading Sabine Pass. The enemy’s force consisted of 
 two “ cotton-clad ” steamers. One of the steamers was armed 
 with a rifled 68-pounder, the other with two 24-pounders. 
 The wind was light and the blockaders were manoeuvred with 
 difficulty ; and after some resistance they surrendered. On 
 receiving news of the event, Commodore Bell despatched the 
 New London and the Cayuga to Sabine. When they arrived 
 they found that the Morning Light, which was too deep to 
 cross the bar, had been set on fire, and was still burning. 
 Bell’s promptness took away any foundation for a claim that 
 the blockade was raised, and the incident led to the conclu- 
 sion that it was impossible to maintain a blockade with small 
 sailing-vessels at points where the enemy had a force of 
 steamers. Altogether the month of January, 1863, was a 
 disastrous period on the Texas blockade. 
 
 During the rest of the year there was little change in the 
 state of affairs. An attack on Sabine Pass, now strongly de- 
 fended, was made by an expedition under Acting-Lieutenant 
 Crocker, who had conducted the successful affair at the 
 same point the year before. Upon this occasion Crocker 
 had a larger force, and a detachment of troops was ordered 
 
152 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 to co-operate. The expedition, however, was a failure. The 
 Clifton and Sachem were forced by the fire of the fort to 
 surrender, and the other vessels, with the transports, were 
 withdrawn. Toward the end of the year 1863, and in the 
 early part of 1861, a series of combined operations made by 
 the army and navy resulted in the occupation of Brazos, 
 Aransas, and Pass Cavallo, and the blockade of these ports 
 was thenceforth discontinued. In the following summer, it 
 became necessary to withdraw the troops for operations else- 
 where, and early in September the occupation was again re- 
 placed by a blockade, which continued till the end of the war. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE BLOCKADE-RUNNERS. 
 
 During the early part of the war blockade-running was 
 carried on from the Capes of the Chesapeake to the mouth of 
 the Rio Grande. It was done by vessels of all sorts and 
 sizes. The most successful were the steamers that had be- 
 longed to the Southern coasting lines, which found them- 
 selves thrown out of employment when the war broke out. 
 The rest were small craft, which brought cargoes of more or 
 less value from the Bahamas or Cuba, and carried back 
 cotton. They answered the purpose sufficiently well, for the 
 blockade was not yet rigorous, speed was not an essential, and 
 the familiarity of the skippers with the coast enabled them 
 to elude the ships-of-war, which were neither numerous nor 
 experienced in the business. By April, 1861, the greater 
 part of the last year’s cotton crop had been disposed of, and 
 it was estimated that only about one-seventh remained un- 
 exported when the blockade was established. Cotton is 
 gathered in September, and shipments are generally made in 
 the winter and spring, and considerable time must conse- 
 quently elapse before a new supply could come into the 
 market. The ‘proclamation of the blockade caused for a 
 time a cessation of regular commerce ; and it was only after a 
 considerable interval that a new commerce, with appliances 
 specially adapted to the altered state of things, began to de- 
 velop. Meantime illicit trade in a small way flourished, 
 7* 
 
154 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 The profits were considerable, though not comparable to 
 those of later years ; and the work required neither skill nor 
 capital. 
 
 This guerilla form of contraband traffic gradually decreased 
 after the first year, though there was always a little going 
 on from the Bahamas, and on the coast of Texas. By the 
 end of the second year it was only to be found in out-of-the- 
 way nooks and corners. 'Little by little the lines were drawn 
 more tightly, as Dupont threw vessels into the inlets below 
 Charleston, and Goldsborough into the Sounds of North 
 Carolina, while the blockading force grew from a dozen ves- 
 sels to three hundred. In all the squadrons the burning 
 and cutting out of schooners gave frequent occupation to the 
 blockading forces, and the smaller fry were driven from their 
 haunts. As these vessels were captured or destroyed one by 
 one, there was nothing to replace them, and they gradually 
 disappeared. 
 
 Meantime the blockade was beginning to tell both upon 
 friends — or, to speak with exactness, upon neutrals — and upon 
 enemies. The price of cotton decreased at the South, and 
 advanced abroad. The supply was short, the crop of 1861 
 being about half that of the previous year ; East India cotton 
 had not yet come into the market, and the demand was great. 
 The price of manufactured goods at the South advanced 
 enormously. The time was ripe for judicious action ; and 
 the Liverpool cotton-merchant, who in the winter of 1861-62 
 had found ruin staring him in the face, suddenly awoke to 
 the fact that the ports of the South were an Eldorado of 
 wealth to the man who could go in and come out again in 
 safety. 
 
 "With cotton at fourpence a pound in Wilmington and two 
 shillings a pound in England, the Liverpool merchant was 
 not a man to hesitate long. Blockade-running from Europe 
 
THE BLOCKADE-RUNNERS. 
 
 155 
 
 had already been attempted, but the profits had not been 
 sufficient to outweigh the risk of capture during the trans- 
 atlantic voyage. Now, however, when half-crowns could be 
 turned into sovereigns at a single venture, capitalists could 
 afford to run almost any risk ; and as it happened, at the 
 very time when the profits increased, a plan was devised to 
 lessen the danger. Attempts had already been made to 
 obviate the risk by a fictitious destination to Nassau or Ber- 
 muda ; but the capture and condemnation of one or two 
 vessels proved this device to be a failure. The plan of trans- 
 shipment was then adopted, and two vessels were employed, 
 each specially fitted for its peculiar service, one for the long 
 and innocent passage across the ocean, the other for the 
 short but illegal run to the blockaded port ; and liability to 
 confiscation was thus reduced to a minimum. Capital was 
 invested in large amounts in the new industry ; shrewd 
 north-countrymen embarked in it, and companies were 
 formed to carry on operations on a large scale. Officers of 
 rank in the English navy, on leave of absence, offered their 
 services, under assumed names, and for large compensation, 
 to the owners of vessels in the contraband trade, and met 
 with distinguished success in their enterprises. Doubtless 
 there were few of these last ; but the incognito which they 
 preserved has been respected, and neither their names nor 
 their number have been generally made known. 
 
 The Confederate Government did not hesitate to enter 
 the field and take a share in the business. Vessels adapted 
 to the purpose were bought by agents in England, and 
 loaded with munitions of war, and Confederate naval officers 
 under orders from the Department were placed in command. 
 These vessels cleared under the English flag, taking out a 
 sailing captain to comply with the requirements of law. 
 Later they were transferred to the Confederate flag, and 
 
156 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 carried on a regular trade between Nassau or Bermuda and 
 Wilmington or some other blockaded port. The Govern- 
 ment owned three or four such vessels, and was part-owner 
 in several others. These last were required to cany out 
 cotton on Government account, as part of their cargo, and to 
 bring in supplies. Among the vessels wholly owned by the 
 Government was the Giraffe, a Clyde-built iron side-wheel 
 steamer, of light draft and considerable speed, which had 
 been used as a packet between Glasgow and Belfast. She 
 became famous under a new name, as the R. E. Lee ; and 
 under the efficient command of Captain Wilkinson, who had 
 formerly been an officer of our navy, and who was now in 
 the Confederate service, she ran the blockade twenty-one 
 times in ten months, between December, 1862, and November, 
 1863, and carried abroad six thousand bales of cotton. The 
 cotton was landed at Nassau, the Government not appearing 
 in the transaction as shipper or owner. Here it was entrusted 
 to a mercantile firm, which received a large “ commission” 
 for assuming ownership, and by this last it was shipped to 
 Europe under neutral flags. The firm employed for this 
 purpose is reported to have obtained a handsome return from 
 its transactions. 
 
 The trade was now reduced to a system, whose working 
 showed it to be nearly perfect. The short-voyage blockade- 
 runners, destined for the passage between the neutral islands 
 and the blockaded coast, began to make their appearance. 
 In these every device was brought into use that could in- 
 crease their efficiency. Speed, invisibility, and handiness, 
 with a certain space for stowage, were the essentials; to 
 these all other qualities were sacrificed. The typical block- 
 ade-runner of 1863-4 was a long, low side-wheel steamer of 
 from four to six hundred tons, with a slight frame, sharp 
 and narrow, its length perhaps nine times its beam. It had 
 
THE BLOCKADE-RUNNERS. 
 
 157 
 
 feathering paddles, and one or two raking telescopic funnels, 
 which might be lowered close to the deck. The hull rose 
 only a few feet out of the water, and was painted a dull gray 
 or lead color, so that it could hardly be seen by daylight at 
 two hundred yards. Its spars were two short lower-masts, 
 with no yards, and only a small crow’s-nest in the foremast. 
 The deck forward was constructed in the form known as 
 “turtle-back,” to enable the vessel to go through a heavy 
 sea. Anthracite coal, which made no smoke, was burned in 
 the furnaces. This coal came from the United States, and 
 when, in consequence of the prohibition upon its exporta- 
 tion enforced by the Government, it could not be obtained, 
 the semi-bituminous Welsh coal was used as a substitute. 
 When running in, all lights were put out, the binnacle and 
 fire-room hatch were carefully coyered, and steam was blown 
 off under water. In the latest vessels of this class speed 
 was too much studied at the expense of strength, and some 
 of them were disabled before they reached their cruising- 
 ground. 
 
 The start from. Nassau or Bermuda was usually made at 
 such a time that a moonless night and a high tide could be 
 secured for running in. A sharp lookout was kept for 
 cruisers on the outside blockade, and the blockade-runner, 
 by keeping at a distance, could generally pass them unob- 
 served. If by accident or carelessness he came very close, 
 he took to his heels, and his speed enabled him to get 
 away. He never hove to when ordered ; it was as hard to 
 hit him as to overtake him : a stray shot or two he cared 
 nothing for. Even if his pursuer had the advantage of him 
 in speed, which was rarely the case, he still kept on, and, 
 by protracting the chase for a few hours, he could be sure 
 that a squall, or a fog, or the approach of night would en- 
 able him to escape. Wilkinson describes a device which 
 
158 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 was commonly employed under these circumstances. In 
 running from Wilmington to Nassau, on one occasion, he 
 found himself hard pressed by a sloop-of-war. His coal 
 was bad, but by using cotton saturated with turpentine, he 
 succeeded in keeping ahead. The chase had lasted all day, 
 and at sunset the sloop was within four miles, and still 
 gaining. The engineer was then directed to make a black 
 smoke, and a lookout was stationed with a glass, to give 
 notice as soon as he lost sight of the pursuer in the deep- 
 ening twilight. The moment the word came, orders were 
 given to close the dampers, and the volumes of smoke ceased 
 to pour out ; the helm was put hard-a-starboard, changing 
 the course eight points ; and the blockade-runner disap- 
 peared in the darkness, while the cruiser continued her 
 course in pursuit of a shadow. 
 
 Having passed the outside blockade successfully, and ar- 
 rived in the neighborhood of his destination, the blockade- 
 runner would either lie off at a distance, or run in close to 
 the land to the northward or southward of the port, and wait 
 for the darkness. Sometimes vessels would remain in this 
 way unobserved for a whole day. If they found the place too 
 hot and the cruisers too active, one of the inlets at a little 
 distance from the port of destination would give the needful 
 shelter. Masonboro Inlet, to the north of Wilmington, was 
 a favorite resort for this purpose. At night the steamers 
 would come out of hiding and make a dash for the entrance. 
 
 The difficulty of running the blockade was increased by 
 the absence of lights on the coast. In approaching or skirt- 
 ing the shore, the salt-works in operation at various points 
 served as a partial substitute. Temporary lights were used at 
 some of the ports to aid the blockade-runners. At Charles- 
 ton, there was a light on Fort Sumter. At Wilmington, 
 in the first year, the Frying Pan light-ship was taken in- 
 
THE BLOCKADE-RUNNERS. 
 
 159 
 
 side the entrance, and anchored under Fort Caswell, where 
 she was burnt in December, 1861, by two boat’s crews from 
 the Mount Vernon. At New Inlet, a light was placed on 
 “the Mound,” a small battery that flanked the works on 
 Federal Point. In the earlier blockade, the lights of the 
 squadron served as a guide to blockade-runners. After the 
 general practice was discontinued, the plan was adopted of 
 carrying a light on the senior officer’s vessel, which was an- 
 chored in the centre of the fleet, near the entrance. This 
 fact soon became known to the blockade-runners ; indeed, 
 there was little about the squadron that was not known and 
 immediately disseminated at Nassau, that central-office of 
 blockade-running intelligence. Thenceforth it served as a 
 useful guide in making the channel. After a time the block- 
 ading officer discovered his error, and turned it to account 
 by changing his position every night, thereby confusing 
 many calculations. 
 
 The run past the inshore squadron was always a critical 
 moment, though by no means so dangerous as it looked. It 
 was no easy matter on a dark night to hit, much less to stop, 
 a small and obscure vessel, going at the rate of fifteen knots, 
 whose only object* was to pass by. But the service neverthe- 
 less called into action all the faculties of the blockade- 
 runner. It required a cool head, strong nerve, and ready 
 resource. It was a combat of skill and pluck against force 
 and vigilance. The excitement of fighting was wanting, as 
 the blockade-runner must make no resistance ; nor, as a rule, 
 was he prepared to make any. But the chances, both out- 
 side and inshore, were all in his favor. He had only to 
 make a port and run in, and he could choose time, and 
 weather, and circumstances. He could even choose his 
 destination. He always had steam up when it was wanted. 
 He knew the critical moment, and was prepared for it ; and 
 
160 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 his moments of action were followed by intervals of repose 
 and relaxation. The blockader on the other hand, was in 
 every way at a disadvantage. He had no objective point 
 except the blockade-runner, and he never knew when the 
 blockade-runner was coming. He could choose nothing, 
 but must take the circumstances as they happened to come ; 
 and they were pretty sure to be unfavorable. He was com- 
 pelled to remain in that worst of all situations, incessant 
 watchfulness combined with prolonged inaction. There 
 would be days and nights of anxious waiting, with expecta- 
 tion strained to the tensest point, for an emergency which 
 lasted only as many minutes, and which came when it was 
 least expected. There was no telling when or where the 
 blow would need to be struck ; and a solitary moment of 
 napping might be fatal, in spite of months of ceaseless vigil- 
 ance. 
 
 At New Inlet, which was a favorite entrance, the blockade- 
 runners would frequently get in by hugging the shore, 
 slipping by the endmost vessel of the blockading line. 
 Even on a clear night a properly prepared craft was invisible 
 against the land, and the roar of the surf drowned the noise 
 of her screw or paddles. Having a good pilot and little 
 depth, she could generally run well inside of the blockaders. 
 After passing the line, she would show a light on her inshore 
 side ; this was answered from the beach by a dim light, 
 followed by another, above and beyond the first. These 
 were the range-lights for the channel. By getting them in 
 line, the blockade-runner could ascertain her position, and in 
 a few moments, she would be under the guns of the fort. 
 When the practice of blockade-running was reduced to a 
 system, a signal-service was organized on shore, and signal 
 officers and pilots were regularly detailed for each vessel. 
 After the fall of Fort Fisher, and before the fact was known, 
 
THE BLOCKADE-RUNNERS. 
 
 161 
 
 the duties of the signal-service were assumed by the officers 
 of the Monticello, under the direction of Cushing ; and two 
 well known blockade-runners, the Stag and the Charlotte, 
 were helped in by range-lights from the shore, only to find 
 themselves prizes when they were comfortably anchored in 
 the river. 
 
 Vessels passed so often between the squadron and the shore 
 that special measures were taken to stop it. The endmost 
 vessel was so placed as to leave a narrow passage. When the 
 blockade-runner had passed, the blockader moved nearer 
 and closed the entrance, at the same time sending up signal 
 rockets. Two or three of her consorts were in waiting and 
 closed up, and the adventurous vessel suddenly found her- 
 self hemmed in on all sides, and without a chance of escape. 
 
 Whenever a blockade-runner was hard pressed in a chase, 
 it was a common practice for the captain to run her ashore, 
 trusting to favorable circumstances to save a fragment of his 
 cargo. Communicating with the forces in the neighborhood, 
 he would obtain the co-operation of a detachment of infantry, 
 often accompanied by one or two pieces of artillery, which 
 would harass the parties sent from the blockading vessels to 
 get the steamer off. At Wilmington, lunettes were thrown up 
 along the shore, large enough for two guns, and a field-bat- 
 tery of Whitworth 12-pounders was kept in constant readiness 
 to run down and occupy them. Sometimes the blockaders 
 were able to command the land approaches, and so prevent 
 the people on shore from doing mischief ; but at other times 
 the latter had it all their own way. It was no easy matter in 
 any case to float off a steamer which had been beached in- 
 tentionally under a full head of steam, especially if the tide 
 was running ebb ; and the fire of one or two rifled guns 
 placed close by on the beach made the operation hazardous. 
 The only course left was to burn the wreck ; and even then, if 
 
162 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 the work was not done thoroughly, the chances were that the 
 fire would be extinguished, and the damaged vessel ulti- 
 mately recovered. In July, 1863, the Kate, one of the new 
 English-built craft, after running to Charleston and being 
 chased off, put into Wilmington. She attempted to pass the 
 fleet off New Inlet, but choosing her time badly, she was 
 sighted about five in the morning, and, after a chase, she 
 was run ashore on Smith’s Island, and abandoned. The 
 troops came down, but did nothing. A party was sent in 
 from the Penobscot to get her off ; but this failing, she was 
 set on fire, and the officer in charge of the boat-party re- 
 ported that he had disabled her so effectually that she would 
 be of no further use. Three weeks later, however, she was 
 floated off by the Confederates, and anchored under the bat- 
 teries ; a position from which she was cut out with some 
 difficulty. 
 
 The Hebe, a Bermuda steamer, was run ashore a fortnight 
 later on Federal Point, under circumstances generally simi- 
 lar, except that it was blowing a gale from the northeast. A 
 boat sent in from the Niphon was swamped, but the crew 
 succeeded in getting on board the Hebe. A second boat 
 was driven ashore, and the crew were taken prisoners by the 
 cavalry on the beach. The Hebe was covered by a two-gun 
 Whitworth battery and fifty or more riflemen. Other boats 
 put off, and rescued a few of the men on board the steamer. 
 The last boat capsized ; and the remaining men of the first 
 party fired the ship, and making for the shore were captured. 
 This time the vessel was destroyed. A few days later the 
 large vessels of the squadron came in, silenced the battery, 
 and finally sent in a landing-party, and brought off the guns. 
 
 One night in October of the same year the Venus, one of 
 the finest and fastest of the vessels in the Nassau-Wilmington 
 trade, made the blookading fleet off New Inlet. She was 
 
THE BLOCKADE-RUNNERS. 
 
 163 
 
 first discovered by the Nansemond, commanded by Lieuten- 
 ant Lamson. Lamson was always on the alert, and his work 
 was always done quickly and thoroughly. After a short 
 chase, he overhauled the Venus. When abeam he opened fire 
 on her. Four well-directed shells played havoc with the 
 blockade-runner. The first struck her foremast ; the second 
 exploded in the cabin ; the third passed through forward, 
 killing a man on the way ; and the fourth, striking near the 
 water-line, knocked in an iron plate, causing the vessel to 
 make water fast. This was good practice, at night, with 
 both vessels making nearly fourteen knots. The blockade- 
 runner headed straight for the shore, and she was no sooner 
 hard and fast, than the boarders had taken possession, and 
 captured her officers and crew. As it was impossible to 
 move her, she was riddled with shells and finally burnt 
 where she lay. 
 
 One of the prettiest captures made off Wilmington was 
 that of the Ella and Anna, by Acting Master J. B. Breck of 
 the Niphon, in the following November. Breck was an offi- 
 cer of pluck and resource, and he won a name for himself by 
 his dashing successes on the Wilmington blockade. About 
 five o’clock on the morning of the 9th of November, as he was 
 returning along the shore from a chase near Masonboro Inlet, 
 he discovered a side-wheel steamer to the northward, stealing 
 along toward the entrance of the river. Outside of her lay a 
 blockader, which opened on her with grape, and the block- 1 
 ade-runner, finding herself intercepted, steered directly for 
 the Niphon with the intention of running her down. Breck 
 saw the intention, and fixed on his plan in an instant. Head- 
 ing for the steamer, he formed his boarders on the bow. The 
 blockade-runner dashed on at full speed under a shower of 
 canister, and struck him a blow that carried away his bowsprit 
 and stem. In a moment, his boarders were over the rail and 
 
164 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 on the deck of the blockade-rnnner ; and a few seconds made 
 her a prize. She had on board three hundred cases of Aus- 
 trian rifles and a quantity of saltpetre ; and the prize-sale 
 netted $180,000. The Ella and Anna was taken into the ser- 
 vice, and in the next year, under her new name of the Mal- 
 vern, became famous as the flagship of Admiral Porter. 
 
 The warfare on both sides was accompanied by a variety of 
 ruses and stratagems, more or less ingenious and successful, 
 but usually turning out to the benefit of the blockade-runner. 
 When a steamer was sighted, the blockading vessel that made 
 the discovery fired signals in the direction she had taken. 
 This was at best an uncertain guide, as the blockaders could 
 only make a rough guess at the stranger’s position. The 
 practice was no sooner understood than the enterprising cap- 
 tains at Nassau sent for a supply of signal rockets, and there- 
 after they were carried as a part of the regular equipment. 
 Bunning through the fleet, and finding himself discovered, 
 the captain immediately fired his rockets in a direction at 
 right angles to his course ; and the blockaders were sent on 
 a wild-goose chase into the darkness. If there were many 
 of them, they were apt to get in each other’s way ; and more 
 than once serious damage was done by a friendly vessel. 
 The Howquah, off Wilmington, on a dark night, in Septem- 
 ber, 1864, had nearly succeeded in making a prize, when the 
 concentrated fire of the batteries, the blockading squadron, 
 and, according to the belief of the commander, of the 
 blockade-runner, proved to be too much for him, and caused 
 him to draw off. 
 
 One of the blockade-running captains relates that, on a 
 certain night, when he found himself alongside a vessel of 
 the fleet and under her guns, he was told to heave to. Ac- 
 cordingly, steam was shut off, and he replied that he had 
 8topi>ed. There was a moderate sea, and the boat from tha 
 
THE BLOCK ADE-RUNNEBS. 
 
 165 
 
 cruiser was delayed. As it reached the side of the blockade- 
 runner, the captain of the latter gave the order, “ Full speed 
 ahead,” and his vessel shot away toward the channel. A de- 
 ception of this kind, whatever may be thought of it abstractly, 
 was one that would be likely to recoil on the blockade-run- 
 ners. A vessel or two might avoid being sunk by pretending 
 to surrender, but a blockader would hardly be caught twice 
 by such a trick. The next time, instead of hailing before he 
 fired, he would fire before he hailed ; and he would be per- 
 fectly justified in so doing. Indeed, it is a question whether 
 in a blockade so persistently broken as that of Wilmington, 
 the ordinary rules of action for belligerent cruisers should 
 not be modified, and vessels found in flagrante delicto , 
 whether neutrals or not, be destroyed instead of being cap- 
 tured. Certainly, if destruction and not capture had always 
 been the object, fewer blockade-runners would have escaped, 
 and possibly fewer would have undertaken the business. 
 There is always a possibility that a vessel met at sea, how- 
 ever suspicious the circumstances, may be innocent; but 
 when found running through the blockading fleet, her guilt 
 is established, and if there is any question about bringing 
 her to — and at Wilmington there was always rather more 
 than a question— the blockader is not far wrong whose first 
 thought is to inflict a vital injury. 
 
 As it was, blockade-running was not an occupation in- 
 volving much personal danger, and little apprehension was 
 felt about running through the fleet. Calcium lights were 
 burned, and shot and shell flew thickly over and around the 
 entering vessel, but they did not often hit the mark. At Wil- 
 mington it was perhaps not so much the inshore blockade 
 that killed the trade as the practice of keeping fast cruisers 
 outside. Until near the end of 1864, when the stringency 
 of the blockade became extreme, the captures were not 
 
166 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 numerous enough to take up more than a slight margin of 
 the enormous profits that it netted. These profits were 
 made both on the outward and the inward voyages, and it is 
 hard to say which were the more extraordinary. The inward 
 cargoes consisted of aH kinds of manufactured goods, and 
 especially of “hardware,” the innocent name under which 
 arms and ammunition were invoiced. The sale of these 
 brought in from five hundred to one thousand per cent, of 
 their cost. The return cargo was always cotton, and the 
 steam-presses at Wilmington, reducing it to the smallest 
 possible bulk, enabled the long, narrow blockade-runners to 
 carry six hundred, eight hundred, or even twelve hundred 
 bales, of five or six hundred pounds each. Even the upper 
 deck was piled up with two or three tiers of bales. As a 
 clear profit of £30,000 each way was no uncommon result, it 
 is easy to believe that owners could afford to lose a vessel 
 after two successful trips. It was the current opinion in the 
 squadron off Wilmington, in the early part of the last year, 
 that two-thirds of the vessels attempting to enter were suc- 
 cessful ; and it has been estimated that out of the sixty-six 
 blockade-runners making regular trips during the war, forty 
 were captured or destroyed, but only after a successful 
 career for a shorter or longer period. Gradually, in the 
 last few months, too many vessels were caught to make the 
 trade profitable ; and it was slowly declining, though it did 
 not cease altogether until the blockade was raised. 
 
 As for the compensation of those who did the work, it may 
 be interesting to give the schedule of rates of pay, on board 
 a first-class vessel, when the business was at its height. The 
 figures are given by “A. Roberts,” one of the most famous 
 of the noms de guerre in the contraband trade of Nassau. 
 The rates are for a single trip from Nassau to Wilmington 
 and back. Half the amount was given as a bounty at the 
 
THE BLOCKADE-RUNNERS. 
 
 167 
 
 beginning of the voyage, and half at its successful comple- 
 tion. The amounts are as follows : 
 
 Captain £1,000 
 
 Chief Officer 250 
 
 Second and Third Officer 150 
 
 Chief Engineer 500 
 
 Crew and firemen (about) 50 
 
 Pilot, 750 
 
 Besides the money received, officers w T ere able to stow 
 away little cargoes of their own, and so to make on each trip 
 a private speculation ; and an occasional cotton-bale was 
 brought out for a friend, by way of making a handsome pres- 
 ent. In fact, the blockade-running captains, after six months 
 of employment, could afford to retire with a snug compe- 
 tency for the rest of their life. 
 
 The merchants who withdrew early from the business ac- 
 quired considerable fortunes ; but those who kept on until 
 the end met with heavy losses. Any speculation that brings 
 sudden and excessive profits is likely to be overdone ; and 
 large amounts of capital were sunk in the last months of the 
 war. At the close, the thriving business of Nassau and Ber- 
 muda suddenly collapsed, and they reverted to their former 
 condition of stagnation ; while the mercantile enterprise of 
 Liverpool was directed to other and more legitimate chan- 
 nels. 
 
CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 The Confederate naval authorities early recognized that 
 the most vulnerable point of their enemy, as a maritime 
 power, lay in his merchant marine. In 1861 the United 
 States still occupied the second place among commercial na- 
 tions. Of the total registered tonnage, however, less than 
 one-tenth belonged to the seceding States ; and this rapidly 
 disappeared. In a warfare against commerce, the Confeder- 
 ates could strike heavy blows, without fear of being struck 
 in return. Accordingly, it was against commerce that they 
 immediately took the offensive ; and they maintained their 
 position until the end of the war — after the r end, in fact. 
 The Federal Government, on the other hand, could not make 
 use of commerce-destroyers, because there was no enemy’s 
 commerce to destroy. It follows that the history of the 
 ocean warfare during the conflict falls naturally into a recital 
 of the doings of Southern cruisers. 
 
 The policy of systematic operations against the merchant 
 fleet of the United States was adopted at the outset. As 
 early as April 17, 1861, Davis published^ his famous proc- 
 lamation, announcing his purpose of issuing letters-of- 
 marque. At this time, the practice of privateering had been 
 somewhat discredited by the general concurrence of Euro- 
 pean States in the Declaration of the Congress of Paris. 
 But the Southern leaders counted upon a support abroad 
 
THE COMMERCE DESTROYERS. 
 
 169 
 
 that would not be weakened by the influence of sentimental 
 considerations ; and as the United States had not subscribed 
 the Declaration, neither party was bound by its articles. 
 When the circular invitation of the Powers was sent to this 
 Government in 1856, Secretary Marcy proposed to 'amend 
 the rules by the addition of a new article, exempting private 
 property at sea from capture. No action was taken on the 
 proposal, and the negotiations were suspended until Presi- 
 dent Lincoln’s accession to office. About a week after Davis’s 
 proclamation was issued, the Department of State instructed 
 the Minister of the United States at London to reopen ne- 
 gotiations, and offered to accfede unconditionally to the Dec- 
 laration. This proposal seemed to point too strongly to an 
 effort to clothe Southern privateering with an illegal charac- 
 ter, and the British Government refused to make an agree- 
 ment which should be applicable to the existing war. As 
 the United States were thus debarred from any present ad- 
 vantage to be derived from the adoption of the rule, the 
 whole question was dropped. 
 
 A volunteer navy may in some degree supply the place of 
 privateers, supposing that plenty of time and an elastic 
 organization are at command, w T ith a flourishing merchant 
 marine upon which to draw ; but at the South, in 1861, there 
 was no merchant marine. Still less was there time or 
 organization. In fact, the scheme of a volunteer navy was 
 tried by the Confederate Government later in the war, and 
 proved a signal failure. Accordingly, the naval administra- 
 tion of the Confederacy was wise in turning over its work to 
 .private parties, and thus saving its own energies. The 
 ocean was covered with an unsuspecting and unprotected 
 commerce, which lay at the mercy of any one whose hostile 
 intentions were backed by a single gun. Few and indifferent 
 as were the vessels available for privateering, a score of 
 I . — 8 
 
170 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 prizes had been brought into New Orleans bj the end of 
 May, six weeks after the issue of the proclamation. 
 
 It was necessary to decide at the outset in what light 
 the acts of the Southern privateers should be regarded. 
 Though the Confederate Government was recognized by 
 the courts as belligerent, and a state of war was held to 
 exist, the legal authority of the United States over its sub- 
 jects could not come to an end, even while these subjects 
 were enemies. According to the strict legal view, neither 
 the fact of a civil war, nor its express recognition, involved 
 any abrogation of the powers of the Government over its 
 subjects in revolt. The Constitution defines treason to be 
 the levying of war against the United States and giving aid 
 and comfort to the enemies thereof ; and it was competent 
 for the State to bring to trial for treason those whose acts 
 came within the constitutional definition. But the insurrec- 
 tion assumed such large proportions in the beginning, and 
 was directed by such complete governmental machinery, that 
 every consideration of policy and necessity, as well as of 
 humanity and morality, prescribed a course of action under 
 which the insurgents should be treated as belligerents, and, 
 when captured, as prisoners of war. 
 
 An attempt was made to put those engaged in hostilities at 
 sea upon a different footing, and to bring them to trial for 
 piracy. The j)roclamation of April 19 gave expression to 
 this principle. In it the President said : 
 
 “And I hereby proclaim and declare that if any person 
 under the pretended authority of the said States, or under 
 any other pretence, shall molest a vessel of the United 
 States, or the persons or cargo on board of her, such person 
 will be held amenable to the laws of the United States for 
 the prevention and punishment of piracy.” 
 
 The policy of the Government, as set forth in the procla/ 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 171 
 
 mation, was never earned out, because it was found to be im- 
 practicable. Certain of the crews of the captured privateers 
 were tried, and as their acts fell specifically under the pro- 
 visions of the law defining piracy, conviction was in some 
 cases obtained ; but the Confederate authorities threatened 
 retaliation, and they were in a position to carry out their 
 threat. The Government therefore went no further with its 
 prosecutions. Nor is it clear, if they had continued, upon 
 what ground they could have been justified. The fact that 
 the war was a civil war afforded no reason for a distinction 
 between combatants at sea and combatants on land. As 
 naval warfare is no more criminal than land warfare, those 
 captured in the one occupation are as much entitled to be 
 treated as prisoners of war as those captured in the other, 
 The only explanation of the prosecution of the “ Savannah 
 pirates,” as the reports designate them, is the fact that the 
 Government, having taken a definite position in the procla- 
 mation of April 19, before the magnitude of the insurrec- 
 tion was fully realized, was unwilling to recede until the 
 courts had sustained its action. 
 
 During the first year of the war the privateers met with 
 moderate success. A considerable number of small vessels 
 were fitted out, old slavers, tugs, fishing-schooners, revenue 
 cutters, and small coasters of all descriptions. Many of them 
 would lie securely in the inlets on the coast of the Carolinas, 
 and issue forth when they sighted a stray merchantman off 
 the coast, returning to cover when they had made their cap- 
 ture. Others went to work more boldly, but nearly all had 
 a short career. The brig Jeff Davis, a condemned slaver, 
 after cruising off the New England coast and making several 
 valuable prizes, was wrecked on the coast of Florida. The 
 Beauregard, a Charleston schooner, was captured by the 
 U. S. bark W. G. Anderson. The schooner Judah was 
 
172 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISER& 
 
 burnt at her wharf, at the Pensacola Navy Yard, by a party 
 of officers and men from the flagship Colorado. The Savan- 
 nah, a Charleston pilot-boat of fifty-four tons, was captured 
 when three days out by the brig Perry, one of the block- 
 ading force, and was carried into New York, where the trial 
 of her crew for piracy led to the threat of retaliation upon 
 prisoners in Southern hands. The Petrel, which had for- 
 merly been a revenue cutter, was sunk by a shell from the 
 frigate St. Lawrence, cruising off Charleston. 1 
 
 In spite of the successes of the sailing-vessels of the navy 
 against the early privateers, it took some time to drive off 
 or capture all these mosquitoes of ocean warfare. In fact, 
 the practice of privateering may be said to have died out 
 rather than to have been broken up. The blockade was in- 
 directly instrumental in killing it. Its principal object was 
 gain, but there was little to be gained when prizes could 
 not be sent into port. The occupation of commerce-de- 
 stroying pure and simple, however useful and patriotic, is 
 not lucrative ; and it was therefore left to the Confederate 
 naval officers, who took it as a part of their duties. The 
 privateers hitherto employed in it were soon diverted to the 
 more profitable pursuit of carrying contraband. The work 
 which they had abandoned was then taken in hand by the 
 Confederate Government, and it was carried on by the navy 
 during the rest of the war with results that exceeded the 
 most sanguine expectations. 
 
 The first, or nearly the first, of the regularly commissioned 
 naval vessels, as distinguished from the privateers, was the 
 Sumter. Indeed, she was one of the first vessels of any kind 
 
 1 The story has been so often repeated that the St. Lawrence was disguised as 
 a merchantman, and that the Petrel attempted to capture her that, although a 
 matter of no special importance, it may be worth while to state that it has no 
 foundation in fact. The Petrel endeavored to escape from the St. Lawrence, but 
 the latter chased and overhauled her. 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 173 
 
 fitted out for hostile purposes at the South, as Semmes was 
 ordered to command her on the 18th of April, 1861. She 
 was a screw-steamer of five hundred tons, and was lying at 
 New Orleans, being one of a line of steamers plying regu- 
 larly between that port and Havana. The frame of the ves- 
 sel was strengthened, a berth-deck was put in, the spar-deck 
 cabins were removed, and room was found for a magazine 
 and additional coal-bunkers. She was armed with an VIII- 
 inch pivot-gun between the fore and main masts, and four 
 24-pound howitzers in broadside. 
 
 Semmes had hoped to get his vessel out before the block- 
 ade began ; but on the 26th of May the Brooklyn appeared 
 off the mouth of the river, where she was soon after joined 
 by the Powhatan. Later, the Massachusetts and South 
 Carolina were added to the squadron, and both the passes 
 were closed. 
 
 The Sumter was not ready for sea until the 18th of June. 
 At this date, she dropped down the river to the forts, and 
 thence to the Head of the Passes, where she remained at 
 anchor for nearly a fortnight, watching for an opportunity 
 to run out. Here Semmes had every advantage, as he could 
 obtain accurate information of the movements of the block- 
 ading vessels, while they were ignorant of his presence. The 
 Brooklyn had made an effort to ascend the river, but after 
 grounding once or twice gave up the attempt. If the vessels 
 could have taken a position at the Head of the Passes, they 
 might have guarded securely all the outlets, instead of keep- 
 ing up an imperfect blockade while lying off the bar at the 
 different mouths. Twice a report that one or another of 
 the blockaders had left her station led Semmes to run down 
 one of the Passes ; but each time he failed to escape. The 
 second time he remained in Pass-a-Loutre, a few miles from 
 the bar, unobserved by the Brooklyn ; and after a few hours 
 
174 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 of waiting, at a moment when the latter had left her anchor- 
 age in chase of a sail, he made for the mouth of the Pass. 
 The Brooklyn, upon sighting him, left her chase, and at- 
 tempted to head him off ; but he reached the bar and got out 
 to sea. The Brooklyn followed, and carrying sail and steam, 
 was still gaining on him; but by hauling up a couple of 
 points, Semmes brought the wind so far ahead that his 
 pursuer took in her sails, and she gradually dropped astern, 
 haying lost the opportunity of destroying, at a single blow, 
 nearly the whole sea-going navy of the Confederacy. 
 
 When only three days out, the Sumter made her first 
 prize, the bark Golden Rocket, which was burnt. By the 
 6th of July, or in less than a week after running the block- 
 ade, she had captured seven other merchantmen. One of 
 these was ordered to New Orleans with a prize-crew, and 
 was recaptured. The remaining six were taken in to Cien- 
 fuegos, where they were afterward released by the Spanish 
 authorities. During the next two months, the Sumter 
 cruised in the Caribbean Sea, and along the coast of South 
 America. She received friendly treatment in the neutral 
 ports which she visited, and was allowed to stay as long as 
 she liked. She coaled without hindrance at Curacao, Trini- 
 dad, Paramaribo, and Maranham. Only at Puerto Cabello, 
 in Venezuela, was she required to depart after forty-eight 
 hours. There was no concealment about her character or 
 her movements ; but none of the vessels that were sent in 
 pursuit of her were able to find her. Among these were the 
 Niagara and the Powhatan, from the Gulf Squadron, and 
 the Keystone State, Richmond, Iroquois, and San Jacinto. 
 
 After leaving Maranham, Semmes shaped his course iot 
 the calm-belt. Here he expected to overhaul many mer- 
 chantmen ; but he only captured two, both of which he 
 burnt. Neither was an important capture, except that from 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 175 
 
 one of them the Sumter was enabled to replenish her stock 
 of fresh provisions. 
 
 After two months of cruising in the Atlantic, the Sumter 
 put in to St. Pierre, in the island of Martinique, for coal and 
 water. She had been here only five days when the Iroquois 
 came in, a very fast sloop-of-war, under Captain Palmer. 
 The usual warnings in regard to the neutrality of the port 
 were administered by the French authorities, and the Ameri- 
 can sloop, after reconnoitering the Sumter closely, came to 
 anchor. Finding that the rule forbidding either vessel to 
 leave port within twenty-four hours of the other would 
 be rigidly enforced, Palmer lost no time in getting under 
 way again, to take a position outside. The coast at St. Pierre 
 forms an open roadstead, twelve miles wide ; and here Pal- 
 mer waited, standing off and on, as near as he could venture 
 without laying himself open to the charge of hovering within 
 neutral waters. So matters remained for a week. 
 
 On the night of the 23d of November, when the Sumter 
 had finished all her preparations, she weighed anchor and 
 stood out. Arrangements had been made for signalling her 
 movements from one of the American schooners in port ; 
 and Semmes, with his quick perception and ready resource, 
 took advantage of the fact to throw his enemy off the scent. 
 Heading for the southern point of the roads, he held his 
 course until he was sure that the Iroquois was following the 
 signal lights ; then doubling suddenly, he returned under 
 cover of the land, and stopping from time to time, he suc- 
 ceeded in giving Palmer the slip. A fortunate rain-squall 
 concealed his movements, and in half an hour he was run- 
 ning under a full head of steam for the northern end of the 
 island, while the Iroquois was chasing furiously to the 
 southward. In a little while she discovered the ruse, and 
 retraced her course; but the Sumter was not to be seen, 
 
176 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 and Palmer, despairing of finding her, made his way to St. 
 Thomas. 
 
 The Sumter now cruised to the eastward with moderate 
 success. Three prizes were taken and burnt. Bad weather 
 came on, and after a time it became necessary to make a 
 port and refit. Cadiz was selected, and thither the ship pro- 
 ceeded, arriving early in January. The Spaniards showed 
 no disposition to have her remain long, and after being 
 docked and repaired she sailed for Gibraltar. On the way 
 she made two prizes, one of which was burnt, and the other, 
 having a neutral cargo, was ransomed. 
 
 The career of the Sumter now came to an end. She had 
 no coal, and neither the government nor the private dealers 
 would furnish a supply. The vessel herself was hardly in a 
 condition to go to sea, and the question of transferring her 
 officers to a new ship had been considered, when the Tns- 
 carora arrived at Gibraltar. Taking her station at Algeciras, 
 on the Spanish coast, .the Tuscarora set on foot an effectual 
 blockade of the Confederate cruiser. Later the Kearsarge 
 and the Ino arrived. In view of serious defects in the 
 boilers, and of the other unfavorable circumstances, the 
 Sumter was condemned by a survey, and afterward sold. 
 She became subsequently a blockade-runner. During her 
 cruise she had made seventeen prizes, of which two wero 
 ransomed, seven were released in Cuban ports by order of 
 the Captain-General, and two were recaptured. Apart from 
 the delays caused by interrupted voyages, the total injury 
 inflicted by the Sumter upon American commerce consisted 
 in the burning of six vessels with their cargoes. 
 
 One of the half-dozen vessels which had been sent in 
 search of the Sumter was the screw-sloop San Jacinto, com- 
 manded by Captain Charles Wilkes. Early in November, 
 1861, the San Jacinto was at Havana. The Confederate 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 177 
 
 commissioners, Mason and Slidell, had shortly before arrived 
 at that place, having been brought to Cardenas by the famous 
 blockade-runner Theodora. They were to take passage for 
 St. Thomas in the British mail-steamer Trent, a vessel be- 
 longing to a regular line of steamers between Vera Cruz and 
 St. Thomas. Wilkes left Havana on the 2d, having formed 
 the intention of intercepting the steamer and seizing the 
 commissioners. 
 
 The Trent sailed on the 7th, and on the next day she was 
 brought to in the Bahama Channel by the San Jacinto. A 
 shot was fired across her bow, and as she continued on her 
 course it was followed by a shell. When the Trent stopped, 
 Lieutenant Fairfax was sent on board, with orders to bring 
 off the commissioners and their secretaries. As they refused 
 to come except under constraint, another boat was sent to the 
 steamer in charge of Lieutenant Greer, with a party of 
 marines, and the four passengers were removed. The diffi- 
 cult task of carrying out his instructions was performed by 
 Lieutenant Fairfax with discretion and forbearance, though 
 there was much to have provoked a man of less coolness and 
 self-command. The mail-agent on board the Trent, a re- 
 tired Commander of the British Navy, was noisy in his de- 
 monstrations, and the bearing of the people on board was 
 offensive and irritating. According to the joint statement 
 made by the commissioners, “many of the passengers be- 
 came highly excited, and gave vent to the strongest expres- 
 sions of indignation, seeming to indicate a purpose of resist- 
 ance on their part ; ” and a slight movement was made by 
 the guard of marines, which checked the disturbance. The 
 affair was conducted with as much good order and propriety 
 as such a proceeding would admit. 
 
 The prisoners were taken to Fort Warren, but were subse- 
 quently given up to the British Government. The Navy De« 
 8 * 
 
178 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 partment, somewhat prematurely, gave Captain Wilkes an 
 emphatic commendation. But the Secretary of State, who 
 was more fully acquainted with the current of opinion in 
 England, and who saw the slender barrier that stood in the 
 way of war, avoided committing himself. He wrote to Mr. 
 Adams that the act had been performed without instructions 
 from the government, and that nothing had been done on 
 the subject to anticipate discussion. This immediate dis- 
 avowal of the act, made under no demand or pressure, 
 enabled the government, when it was called upon to take a 
 definite position, to yield becomingly to Earl Russell’s re- 
 quest that the prisoners should be released. 
 
 Indeed, there was nothing else to be done. After the first 
 burst of satisfaction was over, the more Wilkes’s act was 
 looked at in the light of sober reason, the less could it be 
 justified. It consisted in the removal of four persons from 
 a neutral vessel making a voyage between neutral ports, 
 because they occupied an official station under the Confeder- 
 ate Government. Such an act has no foundation in interna- 
 tional law or usage. The United States, in particular, have 
 always maintained the opposite principle, and in 1812 they 
 had even gone to war to maintain it, as against the English 
 doctrine of the right of impressment. This fact was turned 
 to account by Seward in the elaborate review of the case 
 presented by him to the British Government, after the latter 
 had demanded the release of the commissioners ; and it was 
 shown that Great Britain, by condemning the act of Wilkes, 
 had for the first time acknowledged the illegality of her an- 
 cient practice. 
 
 The question whether the vessel herself was or was not 
 liable to capture is one to which international law does not 
 make a definite answer. The rule, roughly stated, which 
 has the general support of text- writers, declares that neutral 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 179 
 
 vessels employed in transporting persons or despatches of the 
 enemy, in connection with the operations of war, are liable 
 to capture and condemnation. But the rule is subject to 
 many important limitations, and as far as precedent is con- 
 cerned, it rests exclusively upon ten cases, decided in the 
 English Admiralty Court between 1802 and 1810, in seven of 
 W T hich the vessels were condemned. The judgments of Lord 
 Stowell in these cases may be said to have created the rule. 
 None of them covered exactly the case of the Trent, though 
 in one or two there were enough points of resemblance to 
 make the question a fair subject of consideration by a prize- 
 court. But the question could only be brought before a 
 court by capturing the vessel and sending her in for adjudi- 
 cation. 
 
 Wilkes probably had some such idea in his mind, for he 
 excused his release of the Trent by referring to his want of 
 force, and to the inconvenience that would be caused by the 
 detention of the passengers and mails. The first reason was 
 under the circumstances hardly applicable. The second, 
 commendable as was its motive, could not justify Wilkes in 
 allowing the Trent to proceed, if the rule applied to her, and 
 if there was a reasonable suspicion of her guilt. If there 
 was no such suspicion, his only course, according to every 
 principle and precedent, was to release her as he found her, 
 with all her cargo and occupants intact. The course which 
 he adopted, though it seemed from his point of view to be a 
 middle course, and therefore the safest, was really no middle 
 course at all. It was a proceeding of a totally different 
 character from either of the others. Its clear illegality was 
 due to the principle, of which Wilkes lost sight for the 
 moment, that the captor of a neutral vessel has no right to 
 concern himself as to the persons who may be therein, 
 except so far as their presence may afford a ground for the 
 
180 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 capture ; and that the only question for him to decide is 
 whether the vessel can be charged with any illegal act, and, 
 according to the decision, to release her or make her a prize. 
 
 The action taken by the British Government, upon re- 
 ceiving news of the event, was summary in the extreme. It 
 was no new thing for the naval officers of a belligerent to 
 commit an error by which a temporary injury resulted to a 
 neutral. The usual course under such circumstances is for 
 the injured party to make proper representations, assuming 
 that the act was the error of a subordinate ; upon which a 
 disavowal is made, and in cases demanding it an apology 
 and reparation, and with this the affair ends. All this was 
 done in the case of the Trent ; and though the representations 
 of the British Government were made in suitable form, and 
 some discretion was left with Lord Lyons as to his action, 
 yet the two despatches sent by Earl RusseH on the 30 th of 
 November were in reality not the opening of a negotiation, 
 but an ultimatum. At the same time, every preparation for 
 war was set on foot ; vessels were fitted out, and troops 
 were ordered to Canada ; and the whole community, aroused 
 by these measures, thought itself already on the verge of 
 hostilities. Mr. Seward’s despatch, written on the same day 
 with Earl KusseH’s ultimatum, and communicated to the latter 
 by Mr. Adams, gave ample assurance that the injury, such as 
 it was, proceeded from the mistake of an individual. But this 
 fact was concealed, after the despatch had been received, 
 and the preparations were continued. Of course the moral 
 effect of these preparations was to arouse a sympathy for 
 the Southern cause throughout the length and breadth of 
 England ; and without further comment on the position of 
 the English Government, it is enough to say that had it been 
 influenced at this time by unfriendly motives, it could hardly 
 have adopted a more unfriendly course of action. 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 181 
 
 Long before the cruise of the Sumter was over, the Con- 
 federate Government saw that it would be unable to build 
 suitable cruising sliips-of-war at home, and took steps to 
 procure them abroad. Under the rules of international law, 
 however, ships-of-war are or ought to be difficult things for 
 a belligerent to obtain from a neutral. They stand on a 
 footing by themselves, quite different from that of other 
 contraband articles. For supplies of ordinary contraband, 
 furnished by its subjects, a neutral State is not responsible , 
 and the subjects who carry on such a trade do it at their own 
 risk, and are not interfered with by their government. But 
 the construction of a belligerent vessel fitted for purposes of 
 war falls outside the class of acts which foreign subjects 
 may perform consistently with the neutrality of their gov- 
 ernments ; and according to the rule embodied in the Treaty 
 of Washington, though not acknowledged by Great Britain 
 to have been in force during the Civil War, “ a neutral gov- 
 ernment is bound to use due diligence to prevent the fitting 
 out, arming, or equipping within its jurisdiction of any ves- 
 sel which it has reasonable ground to believe is intended to 
 cruise or carry on war against a power with which it is at 
 peace ; and also to use like diligence to prevent the depart- 
 ure from its jurisdiction of any vessel intended to cruise or 
 to carry on war as above, such vessel having been specially 
 adapted, in whole or in part, within such jurisdiction, to 
 warlike use.” 
 
 Whether this rule was a part of international law in 1861 
 or not, a rule somewhat approaching it was generally ac- 
 cepted, and found expression in the neutrality laws of differ- 
 ent States. The British statute then in force imposed a 
 penalty for the “ equipping, furnishing, fitting out, or arm- 
 ing ” of a vessel with the intent that the vessel should cruise 
 or commit hostilities against a friendly State. The British 
 
182 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Government held that this act defined the extent of its neu- 
 tral obligations ; and the Confederate agents were therefore 
 safe if they could evade its specific provisions. This was 
 accomplished successfully by causing ships to be built and 
 sent out completely prepared for warlike operations, except 
 that they lacked their battery, ammunition, and full crew. 
 All that was needed to supply these defects was then sent in 
 another vessel to an appointed rendezvous outside of British 
 jurisdiction. When the two vessels met, the guns and other 
 equipments were transferred, and the cruiser becarhe a Con- 
 federate sliip-of-war on the spot. 
 
 In order to carry out this plan of operations, it was neces- 
 sary for the Confederacy to have its regularly authorized 
 agents abroad. Besides the commissioners, whose mission 
 was primarily diplomatic, there was, first of all, Captain 
 James D. Bullock, an officer of the Confederate Navy, who 
 acted for the Navy Department, and whose name appears to 
 have been used when it was necessary for the Government to 
 be represented by an accredited agent, as in the sale of the 
 Georgia. Next in importance came the Liverpool firm of 
 Fraser, Trenholm & Co., a branch of the Charleston house 
 of John Fraser & Co., the head of which, Trenholm, was 
 for some time the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury. 
 The Liverpool house was the authorized depositary of Con- 
 federate funds in Europe, and it conducted, on the other 
 side, the blockade-running and other enterprises in which 
 the Government at Richmond took a large part. There were 
 other agents, with greater or less responsibilities at various 
 points, North and Huse in England, Barron, whom Semmes 
 designates “ our Chief of Bureau in Paris,” Helm in Cuba, 
 Heyliger at Nassau, and Walker at Bermuda. These, or 
 most of these, acted directly for the Government, and their 
 authority was generally understood and recognized. Be* 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 183 
 
 sides these, there were others, foreign subjects, sometimes 
 merchants in good standing, who were ready to act when a 
 third person was required to carry out a fictitious transfer, 
 or to perform some part in a transaction which was too deli- 
 cate for the principals. Sometimes two or three interme- 
 diaries would be employed, each of whom, whatever his 
 suspicions might be, could swear that he was ignorant of 
 any purpose in contravention of neutrality ; and the differ- 
 ent steps in the transaction were adroitly involved and con- 
 fused until it became impossible to obtain sufficient evi- 
 dence to secure the conviction of any of the guilty parties, 
 on a charge of violation of the neutrality laws. 
 
 The Florida was the first of the commerce-destroyers of 
 English origin. She was built at Liverpool in the fall and 
 winter of 1861-62, and ingenious measures were taken to 
 conceal her ownership and destination. It was given out 
 that she was building for the Italian Government, her osten- 
 sible owner being a merchant of Liverpool and Palermo. 
 The Italian Consul, however, disclaimed all knowledge of her, 
 and her pretended destination deceived no one but the Eng- 
 lish authorities. ^Representations made to the Foreign Office 
 by the United States Minister were of no effect, and on the 
 22d of March, 1862, the Florida cleared from Liverpool 
 under the name of the Oreto, and without a cargo, for 
 Palermo and Jamaica. About the same time, the guns and 
 ammunition for the new cruiser were shipped in the steamer 
 Bahama from Hartlepool for Nassau. 
 
 The Oreto or Florida arrived at Nassau on the 28 th of 
 April. She was consigned to Adderly & Co. This firm 
 was the Nassau correspondent of Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of 
 Liverpool, who were notoriously the financial agents of the 
 Confederate Government in England. Adderly <fc Co. de- 
 livered the vessel to Maffitt, an officer of the Confederate 
 
184 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Navy, who was subsequently placed in command ; and other 
 officers were sent over to join her. She was removed to 
 Cochrane’s Anchorage, nine miles from Nassau, and began to 
 take on board her arms and ammunition ; but this proceed- 
 ing was presently discontinued, as it would leave no loop- 
 hole for the authorities to ignore the character of the vessel. 
 During this time, and later, she was inspected officially by 
 English naval officers, who reported that she w T as 4 4 in every 
 respect fitted as a man-of-war, on the principle of the de- 
 spatch gun-vessels in Her Majesty’s service*” She was de- 
 serted by most of her crew, because they were unwilling to 
 engage in hostilities, and a new crew was shipped at Nassau. 
 
 In view of these facts the Oreto was libelled in the Yice- 
 Admiralty Court. The trial did not reflect credit upon the 
 character of judicial proceedings in the British colonies. 
 The vessel was released on the 7th of August, and sailed on 
 the same day, under the command of Maffitt, for Green Cay, 
 an uninhabited island in the Bahamas. Here she took on 
 board her battery, consisting of two Vll-inch rifles, and six 
 Vi-inch guns, w T ith carriages and ammunition, and forthwith 
 proceeded on her cruise, under the Confederate flag. Maffitt 
 had only been able to obtain a crew of twenty-two men ; and 
 he had no sooner got to sea than the yellow fever appeared 
 on board. To add to his difficulties, he found that in the 
 hurry of departure from Nassau, some of the most essential 
 equipments of the battery had been left behind, and he was 
 without rammers, sponges, sights, locks, elevating-screws, 
 and other indispensable articles. With great reluctance, he 
 gave up for the time his intended cruise, and steered for the 
 coast of Cuba. Avoiding the cruisers, he arrived at Cardenas, 
 his effective crew reduced by sickness to only three men. 
 Here he was attacked by the fever, but recovered after a 
 critical illness. The authorities of Cuba observed their neu- 
 
THE COMMERCE -DESTROYERS. 
 
 185 
 
 tral obligations, and, though Stribling, the first lieutenant 
 of the Florida, succeeded in getting on board a dozen men 
 under the name of laborers, nothing could be done to make 
 up the deficiencies of the battery. 
 
 After a week in Cardenas, Maffitt, still prostrated by dis- 
 ease, took the Florida to Havana. Nothing could be ob- 
 tained here, and he resolved, as the only course open to 
 him, to make at once for Mobile. Proceeding directly from 
 Havana, the Florida sighted Fort Morgan and the blockading 
 squadron on the 4fch of September. In view of the helpless 
 condition of the ship, and the crippled state of her crew and 
 battery, Sfcribling was in favor of a cautious line of action, 
 and advised delaying the attempt, at least until night. But 
 Maffitt had studied the chances, and he decided that the 
 boldest course was the safest. 
 
 How the Florida succeeded in her daring attempt, and 
 how, after four months of rest in Mobile, she ran the block- 
 ade outward on the night of January 16, 1863, has been 
 already told. In the course of ten days after leaving 
 Mobile she captured three small vessels, which she burned, 
 after the example set by the Sumter. According to Maffitt, 
 his “ instructions were brief and to the point, leaving much 
 to the discretion, but more to the torch.” On January 26, 
 the Florida put into Nassau, where her appearance as a 
 ship-of-war must have caused some confusion to the mer- 
 chant who had sworn at the trial in July that he considered 
 her as a merchant-vessel, and then had delivered her to 
 Maffitt. She was received, however, with an ovation, allowed 
 to remain thirty-six hours, when the instructions of the Gov- 
 ernment limited the time to twenty-four, and took on board 
 coal for three months, though the authorities had been di- 
 rected to limit coal-supplies to a quantity sufficient to ena- 
 ble the belligerent cruiser to reach the nearest port of her 
 
186 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 own country. A month later she received one hundred tons 
 of coal at Barbadoes, in further violation of the instruc- 
 tions, which forbade a second supply within three months. 
 
 The important part of the Florida’s cruise began with her 
 departure from Barbadoes. In the space of five months, 
 fourteen prizes were taken and destroyed, in accordance 
 with the orders of the Confederate Government. The cruise 
 extended from the latitude of New York to the southward 
 of Bahia. The neighborhood of the island of Fernando de 
 Noronha was found to be a fruitful cruising-ground. One of 
 the vessels captured here, the Lapwing, was laden with two 
 hundred and sixty tons of coal, and Maffitt, by converting her 
 into a tender, was enabled to supply the wants of his ship 
 without going into port. 
 
 On the 6th of May, the Florida captured the brig Clar- 
 ence, off the coast of Brazil. After putting some light guns 
 on board, and a few men, Maffitt entrusted the command of 
 the Clarence, now a ship-of-war, to Lieutenant Bead of the 
 Florida, an officer whose daring and readiness of resource 
 were worthy of Semmes himself. Bead proceeded north- 
 ward on a roving cruise, along the coast of the United 
 States, and during the month of June he made lively work 
 of it between the Chesapeake and Portland. By the 10th he 
 had captured five vessels. Four of these were destroyed. 
 The fifth was the schooner Tacony, and finding her better 
 suited to his purpose, Bead burned the Clarence, after trans- 
 ferring his guns and crew to the new cruiser. In the next 
 fortnight, the Tacony made ten prizes. The last of these, 
 the Archer, then became a ship-of-war, and the Tacony 
 shared the fate of the Clarence. The Archer’s career was 
 short. Two days after she was put in commission, Bead ran 
 into Portland with a party of his men in boats, and surprised 
 and cut out the revenue-cutter Caleb Cushing, which was 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 187 
 
 lying in the harbor. Next morning, however, he was at- 
 tacked by steamers which had been hastily manned and sent 
 out from Portland. As he could not make a successful re- 
 sistance, Read set the cutter on fire, and put off in his boats 
 to the Archer ; but he was pursued and captured, and was 
 shortly after a prisoner in Fort Warren. 
 
 After refitting and coaling at Bermuda in July, the Flor- 
 ida sailed for Brest. Here she remained nearly six months, 
 and was docked and thoroughly repaired. Mafhtt was re- 
 lieved by Captain Barney, who in turn gave place to Cap- 
 tain Morris. The Florida sailed from Brest in February, 
 and after cruising for four months, put in again to Bermuda. 
 Here she repaired, and took on board eighty tons of coal, by 
 permission. Further supplies were taken without permis- 
 sion, the authorities not bestirring themselves very vigor- 
 ously to enforce the regulations, and accepting Morris’s 
 statement that Mobile was the first Confederate port he ex- 
 pected to visit. He did not visit Mobile, whatever may 
 have been his expectations, but made a second raid of three 
 months on the merchant vessels of the United States, this 
 time on their own coast. Crossing the Atlantic, he was at 
 Teneriffe early in August ; and returning, he arrived on the 
 5th of October at Bahia. 
 
 The United States sloop-of-war Wacliusett, Commander 
 Napoleon Collins, was lying at this time in Bahia. The 
 Florida came in and anchored near the shore, about half a 
 mile from the Wacliusett’s berth. Immediately after her ar- 
 rival, a Brazilian corvette, in apprehension of a disturbance, 
 took a position between the two vessels and near the Florida. 
 
 The Florida had received permission to remain in port for 
 forty-eight hours, and Collins made up his mind to destroy 
 or capture her before the time arrived for her departure. 
 Accordingly, before daybreak on the morning of the 7tli, he 
 
188 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 got under way, and crossed the bow of the Brazilian. It was 
 his intention to run the Florida down, and sink her at her 
 anchor ; but the plan was imperfectly carried out, and the 
 Wachusett’s bow, striking the enemy on the starboard quar- 
 ter, cut down her bulwarks and carried away her mizzenmast 
 and main-yard, but did not disable her. A few pistol shots 
 .were fired from the Florida, as the Wachusett backed off, 
 
 ! which were returned with a volley of small arms, and with a 
 discharge from two of the broadside guns. The Florida 
 then surrendered. 
 
 At the time of the capture, Captain Morris was on shore, 
 together with a number of the officers and crew. Lieuten- 
 ant Porter, who had been left in command, came on board 
 the Wachusett with sixty-nine officers and men. A hawser 
 was carried to the Florida, and she w r as towed out of the 
 harbor. The Wachusett had tlireo men slightly wounded, — 
 the only casualties in the engagement. 
 
 In the protest subsequently made by the Brazilian Gov- 
 ernment, it was stated that upon the discharge of the 
 Wachusett’s guns an officer was sent from the Brazilian cor- 
 vette to inform Collins that the forts and vessels would open 
 fire upon him, if he persisted in attacking the Florida. At 
 this time the capture had been already made. The officer 
 of the deck on board the Wachusett, according to the Bra- 
 zilian account, promised to desist. This statement was 
 denied by the American officers. The fact that the conver- 
 sation, whatever it may have been, w^as carried on in English 
 and Portuguese, would probably be sufficient to account for 
 a misunderstanding. The corvette’s boat then returned, 
 and the Brazilian captain fired a gun, “ to ratify his intima- 
 tion,” as he expressed it ; and all was quiet again. As the 
 Wachusett steamed out of the harbor with her prize, the 
 Brazilian made a pro forma demonstration, without stopping 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 189 
 
 the two vessels, and the latter proceeded by way of St. 
 Thomas to Hampton Roads. Here the Florida was sunk, 
 according to the official declaration of the United States 
 Government, through “an unforeseen accident,” after a col- 
 lision wfitli an army transport. 
 
 The capture of the Florida was as gross and deliberate a 
 violation of the rights of neutrals as was ever committed in 
 any age or country. It is idle to attempt to apologize for it or 
 to explain it ; the circumstances were such that the question 
 does not admit of discussion. All that can be said is that it 
 was the independent act of an officer, and that it was dis- 
 avowed by the Government. In the words of the Secretary 
 of State, it “ was a:i unauthorized, unlawful, and indefensi- 
 ble exercise of the naval force of the United States within 
 a foreign country, in defiance of its established and duly rec- 
 ognized Government.” That the action of Collins met wfith 
 approval and satisfaction throughout the country, in spite of 
 the official utterances, is not to be wondered at, considering 
 that communities in general know little of international law, 
 and in a case of this kind do not stop to reason about prin- 
 ciples. Moreover, the slight regard which, during nearly 
 four years, neutrals had shown for their obligations toward 
 the United States, and the use of their own territories which 
 they had permitted to the Southern cruisers, had aroused in 
 this country a just indignation and a deep-seated sense of 
 wrong and outrage. Collins refers to the previous conduct 
 of Brazil by way of justification. He says in his report : “I 
 thought it probable the Brazilian authorities would forbear 
 to interfere, as they had done at Fernando de Noronha, 
 when the rebel steamer Alabama was permitted to take into 
 the anchorage three American ships, and to take coal from 
 the Cora [Louisa] Hatch within musket-sliot of the fort ; 
 and afterward, within easy range of their guns, to set on fire 
 
190 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 those unarmed vessels. I regret, however, to state that they 
 fired three shotted guns at us, while we were towing the 
 Florida out.” 
 
 The imputation of blame cast by Collins’s “ regret ” upon 
 the Brazilian authorities was unnecessary. What the Bra- 
 zilian vessels should have done was to engage the Wacliusett, 
 and prevent the capture. What they attempted to do, ap- 
 parently, was to pursue such a course of action and inaction 
 combined as would enable their Government to avoid a dif- 
 ficulty with either belligerent. That they did not propose 
 to engage the Wachusett is tolerably clear ; but at the same 
 time they did enough to make a diplomatic defence, in case 
 the Confederacy should ever be in a position to settle ac- 
 counts with their Government. 
 
 The second cruiser built in England for the Confederates 
 was the Alabama, whose career began in July, 1862. The 
 attention of the Foreign Office had been first called to this 
 vessel by a note from Mr. Adams on the 23d of June. The 
 evidence then submitted as to her character was confined to 
 a statement made by the Consul at Liverpool, of suspicious 
 circumstances connected with the vessel. The communica- 
 tion was referred to the law officers of the Crown, who gave 
 the opinion that, if the allegations were true, the building 
 and equipment of the vessel were a ‘ ‘ manifest violation of 
 the Foreign Enlistment Act, and steps ought to be taken to 
 put that act in force and to prevent the vessel from going 
 to sea.” It was added that the Customs authorities at 
 Liverpool should endeavor to ascertain the truth of the 
 statements, and that, if sufficient evidence could be ob- 
 tained, proceedings should be taken as early as possible. 
 On the 4th of July, the report of the Customs officers 
 was transmitted to Mr. Adams, tending to show that there 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 191 
 
 was no sufficient evidence tliat a violation of the Act was 
 contemplated. 
 
 Other correspondence and opinions followed. On the 
 21st, affidavits were delivered to the authorities at Liverpool, 
 one of which, made by a seaman who had been shipped on 
 board the vessel, declared that Butcher, the captain of the 
 Alabama, who engaged him, had stated that she was going 
 out to fight for the Confederate States. Other depositions 
 to the same effect were received on the 23d and 25th, all of 
 which were referred, as they came in, to the law officers. 
 The latter rendered the opinion that the evidence of the de- 
 ponents, coupled with the character of the vessel, made it 
 reasonably clear that she was intended for warlike use against 
 the United States ; and recommended that she be seized 
 without loss of time. 
 
 Notwithstanding that the urgency of the case was well 
 known to the Government, and notwithstanding also that, of 
 the four depositions upon wdiich the law officers chiefly 
 based their opinion, one had been received on the 21st of 
 July, two others on the 23d, and the fourth on the 25th, the 
 report was not presented until the 29th. On that day, how- 
 ever, the Alabama left Liverpool, without an armament, and 
 ostensibly on a trial trip. She ran down to Point Lynas, on 
 the coast of Anglesea, about fifty miles from Liverpool. 
 Here she remained for two days, completing her prepara- 
 tions. On the morning of the 31st, she got under way and 
 stood to the northward up the Irish Sea ; and, rounding 
 the northern coast of Ireland, she passed out into the At- 
 lantic. 
 
 Among the innumerable side-issues presented by the case 
 of the Alabama, the facts given above contain the essential 
 point. That the attention of the British Government was 
 called to the suspicious character of the vessel on the 23d of 
 
192 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 June ; that her adaptation to warlike use was admitted ; 
 that her readiness for sea was known ; that evidence wa 3 
 submitted on the 21st, the 23d, and finally on the 25tli of 
 July that put her character beyond a doubt; and that in 
 spite of all this, she was allowed to sail on the 29th, make 
 the real foundation of the case against Great Britain. 
 
 The Alabama arrived at Port Praya, in the Azores, on the 
 10th of August. Here she was joined on the 18th by the 
 bark Agrippina of London, bringing her battery, ammuni- 
 tion, stores, and coal ; and two days later the steamer Ba- 
 hama came in from Liverpool, with Semmes and the re- 
 mainder of the officers and crew. After a week spent at 
 Angra Bay, preparing for the cruise, Semmes left his an- 
 chorage on the 24th of August ; and, going a few T miles off 
 the coast to be outside of neutral jurisdiction, he complied 
 with the formalities of putting his ship in commission. 
 His crew had been shipped at Point Lynas for a fictitious 
 voyage. Of these, eighty were now re-shipped; and the 
 remainder were obtained from the men that had come out 
 in the Bahama. Nearly all belonged to Liverpool. Those 
 who were unwilling to go returned to England in the other 
 vessel ; and the Alabama started on her cruise. 
 
 The first two months were spent in the North Atlantic. 
 In this time twenty prizes were taken and burnt. In one or 
 two cases, there were at least doubts as to the hostile own- 
 ership of the cargo ; but the prize-court of the Confederacy 
 now sat in Semmes’s cabin, and all questions of law and fact 
 were settled by the captain’s decision. The interested neu- 
 tral in these cases was Great Britain, and Semmes had 
 doubtless satisfied himself beforehand as to how far he 
 could safely go. There was no probability that the British 
 Government, after making so little effort to prevent his 
 departure, would quarrel with him about the destruction of 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 193 
 
 a cargo of her subjects’ merchandise. That Semmes was 
 not mistaken in his conjecture, is proved by the letter in 
 reference to this point, addressed by direction of Earl Rus- 
 sell to the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. The letter 
 says : “ British property on board a vessel belonging to one 
 of the belligerents must be subject to all the risks and con- 
 tingencies of war, so far as the capture of the vessel is con- 
 cerned. The owners of any British property, not being 
 contraband of war, on board a Federal vessel captured and 
 destroyed by a Confederate vessel of war, may claim in a 
 Confederate prize-court compensation for the destruction of 
 such property.” 
 
 However one may wish to avoid reviving an old grievance, 
 which is now happily a grievance of the past, it is impossible 
 to avoid comparing the extreme complaisance of the Foreign 
 Office toward the acts of Semmes — acts for which a neutral 
 ordinarily demands instant reparation — and its summary 
 action in the case of the Trent, when the property of its 
 subjects had been in no way injured. In one case it ex- 
 cused not only the officer, but the Government under which 
 he was acting ; and its suggestion of a remedy for the own- 
 ers, in view of the character of prize proceedings in the 
 Confederacy, was little less than a mockery. In the other 
 case, it accompanied its diplomatic demands with hostile 
 preparations, and it encouraged the manufacture of public 
 sentiment in favor of war by withholding explanatory de- 
 spatches. The inference is unavoidable that the Govern- 
 ment deliberately intended to pursue a policy as unfriendly 
 as it could possibly be without passing the technical bounds 
 of a legal neutrality. 
 
 After cruising as far as the Banks, the Alabama turned her 
 head southward. Her coal was nearly exhausted, and ar- 
 rangements had been made before starting for receiving a 
 I.-9 
 
194 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 fresh supply, from vessels despatched for the purpose from 
 England, which were to meet her at dates and places agreed 
 upon. Arriving on the 18th of November at Fort de France, 
 in the island of Martinique, Semmes found the Agrippina 
 awaiting him ; but he postponed taking in his coal, and as a 
 precaution, sent her to another rendezvous. 
 
 Already, in October, the San Jacinto, now commanded by 
 Commander Ronckendorff, had been ordered to cruise in the 
 West Indies, in search of the Alabama, and the latter had 
 not been at Martinique a day before the sloop came in. She 
 carried one Xl-inch and ten IX-inch guns ; so that in arma- 
 ment the Alabama was not a match for her. As the Governor 
 of Martinique proposed to enforce the ‘ 4 twenty-four hours ” 
 rule, the San Jacinto did not come to anchor, but went out 
 to cruise beyond the marine league, waiting for the enemy 
 to leave the harbor. She did not have long to wait. On 
 the 20th, early in the evening, the Alabama put out. Signal 
 was made from an American brig in the harbor, and Semmes 
 was prepared for a critical moment. But the night was 
 dark, and the San Jacinto was lying well out from the en- 
 trance ; and though she had two boats on the watch, the 
 Alabama got out unobserved. As the San Jacinto, how' 
 ever, was deficient in speed, she would have had some diffi- 
 culty in bringing on an engagement, even if she had met 
 the enemy. 
 
 After coaling at Blanquilla from the Agrippina, Semmes 
 shaped his course for the Mona Passage and thence for the 
 Windward Passage. He remained cruising in and near the 
 latter for five days. On the 7tli of December, the Ariel, one 
 of the mail- steamers for which he had been waiting, was 
 captured, with a large number of passengers. These he pro- 
 posed to land at Kingston, before burning the ship, but the 
 prevalence of yellow fever prevented him from carrying out 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 195 
 
 the plan, and the steamer was released under heavy ran- 
 som-bonds. 
 
 After making some necessary repairs to her engine, the 
 Alabama passed to the southward and westward, cruising in 
 the Gulf of Honduras and off the coast of Yucatan. At the 
 Areas, a group of small islands in the Bay of Campechy, she 
 met another coal-bark. She remained here at anchor for 
 two weeks, coaling and refitting. Thence, on the 5th of Jan- 
 uary, 1863, Semmes proceeded to off the coast of Texas, hav- 
 ing formed the bold design of intercepting a part of the 
 transport fleet, which he supposed would at this time be on 
 its way to Galveston. 
 
 The Alabama arrived off Galveston at noon on the 11th. 
 It will be remembered that only ten days before her arrival 
 the unfortunate affair had taken place at that port, which 
 resulted in the loss of the Harriet Lane and Westfield, and 
 the raising of the blockade by two Texan river-steamers. 
 A squadron under Commodore Henry H. Bell, composed of 
 the Brooklyn, the Hatteras, and three or four gunboats, had 
 been hurriedly collected at New Orleans, to resume the 
 blockade, and several of the vessels had arrived off Galves- 
 ton shortly before the appearance of the Alabama. The 
 latter was sighted from the masthead of the Brooklyn when 
 about twelve miles off. She had no steam up, nor were any 
 sails set that could be distinguished. The lookout from the 
 masthead took her for a bark or a three-masted schooner. 
 The Brooklyn’s fires were out, and new grate-bars were being 
 put in ; otherwise she would have gone in pursuit of the 
 stranger. As it w T as, the commodore signalled the Hatteras 
 to chase, and the latter got under way, and steamed in the 
 direction indicated. 
 
 In the number of men on board, the two ships w T ere nearly 
 equal ; but the Hatteras w'as far from being a match for the 
 
196 
 
 TIIE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Alabama, either in lier gnns or in her construction. She was 
 a mere shell ; an iron side-wheeler, of eleven hundred tons, 
 built for carrying passengers on the Delaware — an“ excur- 
 sion-boat, ^ in short. The armaments of the two vessels 
 were as follows : 
 
 Hattekas. 
 
 Number of Guns. 
 
 4 short 32-pounders (27 cwt.) 
 
 2 rifled 30-pounders 
 
 1 rifled 20-pounder 
 
 1 howitzer 
 
 Total, 8 guns 220 lbs. 
 
 Alabama. 
 
 Number of Guns. 
 
 6 long 32 -pounders (52 cwt.) . . 
 
 1 rifled 100-pounder (Blakeley) 
 
 1 VUI-inch shell gun 
 
 Total, 8 guns 1 360 lbs. 
 
 The efficiency of the enemy’s battery was quite double 
 that of the Hatteras. Added to which, the engines and 
 boilers of the Hatteras were exposed to every shot, while the 
 Alabama’s machinery was protected by coal-bunkers and by 
 its position below the water-line. Moreover, the Hatteras 
 had no speed ; and the ease with which, toward the end of 
 the chase, she overhauled the stranger, led her captain, 
 Blake, to suspect that he was being played with, and that 
 the intention was to draw him away from the squadron. 
 
 1 Blake says in his report that there was also a rifled 24-pounder on board the 
 Alabama, but as Semmes states that this was a 9 pounder, it is omitted in the 
 statement. 
 
 Weight of Pro- 
 jectiles. 
 
 . 192 lbs. 
 
 . 100 lbs. 
 
 . 68 lbs. 
 
 Weight of Pro- 
 jectiles. 
 
 . 128 lbs. 
 
 . 60 lbs. 
 
 . 20 lbs. 
 
 . 12 lbs. 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 197 
 
 If iiis suspicions were well founded, however, he had noth- 
 ing to do but to keep on his course and fight, and he pre- 
 pared for a vigorous attack. When he had left the flagship, 
 between three and four in the afternoon, the chase was not 
 in sight from the Hatteras ; and it was only after he had 
 proceeded some distance that he discovered her to be a 
 bark-rigged steamer, standing on under topsails away from 
 the bar, and occasionally steaming a little. The fact was 
 immediately signalled to the flagship, but the signals were 
 not observed. 
 
 At dusk the Alabama lay to, being then about twenty 
 miles from the squadron, and waited for the Hatteras to 
 come up. Blake had resolved to run up as close as possible, 
 and if his surmises were correct, to endeavor to board. 
 With the Alabama it was his only chance. As he ap- 
 proached he hailed, and the other vessel replied, giving as 
 her name, “ Her Majesty’s ship Petrel. 5 ’ This gentle ruse 
 lulled Blake’s suspicions, and he gave orders to send a boat 
 on board the stranger. The Alabama only waited for Blake’s 
 reply to her hail, to make sure of his nationality ; and on 
 receiving it, before the boat had gone more than its length 
 from the ship, she discharged a broadside at the Hatteras. 
 
 During the hailing, Semmes had endeavored to get a rak- 
 ing position astern of the Hatteras, but the latter had 
 thwarted the attempt. After the firing began, both vessels 
 moved forward, the Hatteras trying to get on board; but 
 the Alabama passed ahead, and Blake, though he came very 
 near — being not more than thirty or forty yards off at one 
 time — failed to accomplish his object. The firing was sharp 
 on both sides ; but out of fifty shots estimated by Blake to 
 have been fired from his vessel, only seven hit the mark. 
 One struck the Alabama under the counter, penetrating as 
 far as a timber, and then glanced off ; a second struck the 
 
198 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 funnel ; a third passed through both sides ; a fourth en- 
 tered the lamp room ; and the others lodged in the bunkers. 
 None of the shells exploded. The Alabama’s fire, on the 
 other hand, was most destructive. In the space of a few 
 moments the Hatteras was riddled like a sieve. Shells were 
 exploded in the hold and the sick bay, and set them on fire ; 
 another shell entered the cylinder; and presently the walk- 
 ing beam was shot away. Desperate as his position now 
 was, Blake, with the tenacity that was characteristic of him, 
 held out a few minutes longer, knowing that he was beaten, 
 yet hoping that some chance might damage his enemy. But 
 the Alabama, placing herself in an unassailable position on 
 his bow, had him completely at her mercy, and continued 
 to pour in a galling fire. Whole sheets of iron were torn off 
 the side of the Hatteras, allowing a volume of water to en- 
 ter; and with his ship on fire in two places, and sinking 
 fast, and his engine and pumps disabled, Blake saw that a 
 few moments of delay would only result in the sacrifice of 
 all on board, and gave up the hopeless struggle. 
 
 The action had lasted thirteen minutes. At its close, the 
 crew of the Hatteras were hastily removed, and ten minutes 
 after they had left the ship she went down bow foremost. 
 The Brooklyn, Sciota, and Cayuga, soon after the beginning 
 of the fight, had got under way, and steered in the direction 
 of the flashes ; but they cruised all night without meeting 
 anything, while the Alabama was steadily holding her course 
 to Jamaica. On her w T ay back to Galveston the next morn- 
 ing, the Brooklyn discovered the masts of a wreck, standing 
 upright, with the tops awash ; and only by a mark on the 
 liurricane-deck, which was found adrift, wa3 the wreck iden- 
 tified as that of the ill-fated Hatteras. 
 
 The Alabama now put in to Port Royal, Jamaica, where 
 6he landed her prisoners and repaired damages. The latter 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 199 
 
 were not serious, and the ship remained only five days in 
 port. After burning two prizes, the crews of which were 
 landed at San Domingo, Semmes shaped his course for a 
 point on the great highway of South American commerce, near 
 the equator. He remained in this neighborhood two months, 
 and captured eight vessels. All of these were destroyed 
 except one, the Louisa Hatch, which was loaded with coal. 
 Proceeding to the Brazilian island of Fernando de Noronha, 
 with the Hatch in company, he coaled in the harbor from 
 his prize. He then took her out and burned her. While 
 lying in the port two American ships arrived outside, and the 
 Alabama w T as permitted, without any remonstrance from the 
 authorities, to run out and destroy them, returning the same 
 day to the harbor. These were the acts to which Collins 
 afterward referred, in excusing his capture of the Florida. 
 The Brazilian authorities clearly neglected their duty in al- 
 lowing this violation of neutrality to pass without remon- 
 strance or interference, but as far as the case of the Florida 
 is concerned, one wrong cannot be said to justify another. 
 
 Semmes now cruised for two months — his usual time for 
 remaining in one locality— on the coast of Brazil, stopping 
 for a fortnight at Bahia. Ten prizes were added to his list 
 in this period. One of these, the bark Conrad, was taken 
 into the Confederate service as a tender, armed with two 
 captured 12-pounders, and put in commission at sea under 
 the name of the Tuscaloosa. About the first of July the two 
 vessels proceeded to the Cape of Good Hope, where they 
 arrived on the 29 th. The Alabama remained in the neigh- 
 borhood of the Cape until the 24th of September, occasion- 
 ally putting in at Cape Town or at Simon’s Bay. 
 
 A question arose at Cape Town in reference to the charac- 
 ter of the Tuscaloosa. As prizes could not be brought by 
 the cruisers of either belligerent into British ports, the 
 
200 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Tuscaloosa, if a prize, would be excluded. Semmes claimed 
 for her all the privileges of a commissioned ship-of-war, and 
 the civil authorities were inclined to side with him. Sir 
 Baldwin Walker, however, the admiral commanding at the 
 Cape, took an opposite view, and wrote to the governor that 
 “to bring a captured vessel under the denomination of a 
 vessel-of-war, she must be fitted for warlike purposes, and 
 not merely have a few men and a few small guns put on 
 board her (in fact, nothing but a prize-crew), in order to dis- 
 guise her real character as a prize. Nov/, this vessel has her 
 original cargo of wool still on board. . . . Viewing all 
 
 the circumstances of the case, they afford room for the sup- 
 position that the vessel is styled a tender, with the object of 
 avoiding the prohibition against her entrance as a prize into 
 our ports, where, if the captors wished, arrangements could 
 be made for the disposal of her valuable cargo.” 
 
 The Admiral’s straightforward opinion was overruled ; but 
 when the case was reported, the Tuscaloosa having then left 
 Cape Town, the Home Government instructed the governor 
 that the vessel was a prize, and should have been detained. 
 These instructions were calculated to afford a cheap satisfac- 
 tion to the United States, without injuring the Confederates. 
 Unfortunately, the Tuscaloosa disturbed the calculation by 
 again coming into port, after a cruise to Brazil, and the 
 colonial governor proceeded to detain her, in accordance 
 with the instructions of his superiors. This was not at all 
 what the Home Government wanted ; and it immediately dis- 
 avowed the act, and ordered the restoration of the Tusca- 
 loosa to Lieutenant Low, her commander, on the ground that 
 “ having been once allowed to enter and leave the port, he 
 was fairly entitled to assume that he might do so a second 
 time.” Comment on these proceedings is hardly necessary. 
 
 Having made arrangements soon after his arrival at Cape 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 201 
 
 Town for the sale of the Sea Bride, his latest prize, and of 
 the Tuscaloosa’s cargo, Semmes retired with his vessels to 
 Angra Pequena, a point on the west coast of Africa, out- 
 side of civilized jurisdiction, and made the transfers. The 
 Tuscaloosa was then ordered to the coast of Brazil. 
 After cruising for tw T o weeks off the Cape, Semmes put 
 into Simon’s Bay. Here he learned that the Vanderbilt, 
 under Commander Baldwin, was cruising in search of him, 
 having left the Bay only five days before. Being satisfied 
 that his pursuer would not return, he remained in port a 
 week, making preparations for his projected cruise to the 
 East Indies. During this stay in port, he shipped eleven 
 men, to make up for losses by desertion. 
 
 It is not necessary to go into the details of this part of the 
 cruise. It lasted six months, and resulted in the capture 
 and destruction of seven vessels. First running due south 
 until she struck the fortieth parallel, the Alabama then 
 steered to the northward and eastward for the Straits of 
 Sunda. She watched the Straits for a time, and next 
 crossed the China Sea to Condore, an island off the coast of 
 Cochin-China. Returning by way of Singapore, the Mala- 
 bar coast, and Mozambique Channel, she found herself on 
 the 20th of March again at the Cape. Thence she sailed on 
 the 24th for Europe. 
 
 In consequence of the appearance of the Alabama and 
 Florida, the Navy Department, in September, 18G2, had set 
 about making a systematic effort to put a stop to the depre- 
 dations of the commerce-destroyers. A flying squadron was 
 fitted out to cruise in the West Indies, and the command 
 was given to Captain Charles Wilkes. In its instructions, 
 dated September 8, 1862, the Department, after recounting 
 the fitting-out of the Alabama and Florida, and the fact that 
 they were cruising in the West Indies, went on to say: 
 9* 
 
202 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 “ The Department has information that other vessels are 
 destined for similar purposes in the same quarter, and it is 
 therefore essential that prompt and vigorous measures be 
 adopted for annihilating these lawless depredators by their 
 capture, and, if necessary, destruction. You have been se- 
 lected to command a squadron for this purpose. . . .” 
 
 The instructions designated the West Indies and Bahamas 
 as the cruising ground, and named the sloops-of-war Wachu- 
 sett and Dacotah, the double-enders Cimmerone, Sonoma, 
 Tioga, and Octorara, and the fast side-wheel steamer San- 
 tiago de Cuba as the vessels that were to compose the squad- 
 ron. Of these only the Wachusett and the Dacotah were 
 fitted to cope singly with the Alabama ; but other suitable 
 vessels were subsequently added to the squadron. 
 
 Wilkes sailed from Hampton Boads in the Wachusett on 
 the 24th of September. His cruise lasted about nine 
 months. During two months of this time, the Alabama was 
 in the same waters ; while the Florida, when she left Mobile, 
 ran directly into his cruising ground. But Wilkes was un- 
 able to find them ; and the main purpose of his cruise, the 
 capture of the commerce-destroyers, was never carried out. 
 
 First and last, Wilkes had sixteen vessels under his com- 
 mand. He made some captures of neutral vessels engaged 
 in contraband trade, and he worried from time to time the 
 English steamers in the West Indies, thereby causing un- 
 necessary friction. He incurred the displeasure of the De- 
 partment by several unwarranted acts, but particularly by 
 the retention of vessels, as a part of his command, which be- 
 longed to other squadrons or had been ordered on special 
 service. The Oneida and the Cuyler, which had been sent 
 in pursuit of the Florida after her escape from Mobile, were 
 among the vessels appropriated in this way ; and Farragut 
 was led to express himself strongly on the subject, and to 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 203 
 
 suggest that if any of Wilkes’s ships came into his neigh- 
 borhood, he should adopt a similar line of action. But 
 the fatal mistake made by Wilkes was in detaining the Van- 
 derbilt ; and in consequence of this and other causes of dis- 
 satisfaction, he was relieved in June, 1863, by Commodore 
 Lardner. 
 
 After the Alabama had reached the West Indies, in Novem- 
 ber, 1862, it was foreseen that she could not remain long in 
 that quarter ; and the Vanderbilt, one of the fastest steamers 
 in the navy, was fitted out to cruise under Commander Bald- 
 win, with a roving commission, in the direction it was sup- 
 posed she would take. The orders of the Department to 
 Baldwin, dated January 27, 1863, when the Alabama was on 
 her way to her cruising ground near the equator, show with 
 what remarkable foresight Semmes’s movements were pre- 
 dicted, and his probable cruise mapped out. 
 
 The orders read : “You will first visit Havana, where you 
 may obtain information to govern your further movements. 
 You can then visit any of the islands of the West Indies, or 
 any part of the Gulf, at which you think you would be most 
 likely to overtake the Alabama, or procure information of 
 her. When you are perfectly satisfied that the Alabama has 
 left the Gulf or the West Indies, and gone to some other 
 locality, you will proceed along the coast of Brazil to Fer- 
 nando de Noronlia, and Bio de Janeiro, making inquiry at 
 such places as you may deem advisable. From Bio continue 
 your course to the Cape of Good Hope, thence back to St. 
 Helena, Cape de Verde, the Canaries, Madeira, Lisbon, 
 Western Islands, and New York. If at any point word is 
 obtained of the Alabama or any other rebel craft, you will 
 pursue her without regard to these instructions.” 
 
 This judicious plan was defeated by Wilkes. On the 28th 
 of February, the Vanderbilt, after looking in at Martinique 
 
204 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 and Guadaloupe, fell in with the Wachusett off St. Thomas. 
 Wilkes thereupon left the Wachusett, and transferring his 
 flag to the Vanderbilt, proceeded to Havana. He was much 
 , pleased with his new acquisition. On the 20th of March he 
 wrote the Department : “I cannot well describe to you the 
 efficiency of this steamer, and the excellent condition of dis- 
 cipline she is in, and the many advantages she offers for this 
 particular cruising. Her speed is much beyond that of any 
 other steamer I know of, and her armament is equal to any- 
 thing she can possibly have to encounter. ” 1 Nothing would 
 induce Wilkes to part with her, until the 13th of June, when, 
 in obedience to peremptory orders from the Department, he 
 allowed her to go on her cruise. She proceeded directly to 
 the coast of Brazil. But it was now too late : the bird had 
 flown. The Alabama had been at Fernando de Noronha on 
 the 10th of April, and at Bahia on the 11th of May ; and by 
 the 1st of July she had left the South American coast alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Touching at the Brazilian ports, Baldwin found himself 
 everywhere upon the track of the enemy, but a month be- 
 hind her. He followed her to the Cape of Good Hope, stop- 
 ping on the way at St. Helena. At the Cape Semmes eluded 
 him successfully ; and the cruise of the Vanderbilt, from 
 which so much had been expected, produced no substantial 
 reshit. 
 
 At the very time that the Alabama left the Cape and dis- 
 appeared in the Indian Ocean, the United States sloop-of- 
 war Wyoming was cruising in the neighborhood of the Straits 
 of Sunda, to protect the commerce passing over the great 
 highway to the China Sea. Two days before the Alabama 
 arrived in the Straits the Wyoming was lying at Batavia, 
 
 1 The Vanderbilt carried two lUO-pounder rifles and twelve IX-inch guns. 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 205 
 
 one hundred miles to the eastward. When the Wyoming 
 put to sea, Semmes doubled on her. and himself ran down 
 into the Java Sea north of Batavia. The Wyoming returned 
 to Batavia, and Semmes made his way to the China Sea. 
 During the first week in December, the sloop was at Singa- 
 pore and Johore, while Semmes was refitting at Condore, to 
 the northward. Late in the same month, Semmes, on his 
 way home, put in to Singapore, and remained there four 
 days. But by this time the Wyoming was off on a false 
 chase to Manila, twelve hundred miles away to the north- 
 east, and the opportunity of meeting the Alabama was gone 
 forever. 
 
 The Alabama arrived at Cherbourg from the Cape of Good 
 Hope on the 11th of June. Here Semmes proposed to have 
 her docked and thoroughly repaired; but permission was 
 delayed, and the vessel was still lying in the harbor when, 
 on the 14th, the sloop-of-war Kearsarge, commanded by Cap- 
 tain John A. Winslow, steamed into Cherbourg. The Kear- 
 sarge was lying at Flushing when the news reached her of 
 the Alabama’s arrival ; and she immediately proceeded to 
 Cherbourg, in the hope of an engagement. After send- 
 ing a boat ashore, she steamed out of the harbor without 
 anchoring; and, taking her station outside, maintained a 
 close watch for the enemy, in case he should attempt to 
 escape. 
 
 But Semmes had no intention of running away. After 
 warring so long on unarmed merchant-ships, he could not 
 afford to decline the battle that was so pointedly offered 
 him by a vessel with which he w T as nearly matched. His 
 English friends, who had stood by him loyally hitherto, 
 though he gave them much to carry, would have been com- 
 pelled to disown him if he had shirked the encounter. He 
 met the occasion squarely, and wrote a letter to a resident 
 
206 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 of Cherbourg, by which the United States Consul was defi- 
 nitely informed of his intention to engage the Kearsarge. 
 
 For four days the Alabama was occupied with prepara- 
 tions for battle ; and between nine and ten o’clock on the 
 morning of the 19th, she came out of the harbor. The 
 weather was fine, with a slight haze. It was Sunday, 
 Semmes’s “ lucky day ; ” but for once his luck had deserted 
 him. Perhaps he had some apprehensions of this kind, as he 
 sent ashore all his valuables, including his captured chro- 
 nometers, and his collection of ransom-bills, which were to be 
 paid after the recognition of the Confederacy. The Kear- 
 sarge was lying three miles off the eastern entrance, as the 
 Alabama came down to the west of the breakwater, escorted 
 as far as the marine league by the Couronne, a French iron- 
 clad which was to guard the neutrality of the territorial 
 waters. Following the two vessels was an English yacht, the 
 Deerhound. Semmes’s purpose had been made public, and 
 the shore was covered wuth throngs of people, wherever a 
 spot could be found, to witness the fight. 
 
 As the Alabama came out, the Kearsarge steamed off shore, 
 to be well outside the neutral limits, and to prevent Semmes 
 from finding a refuge if the battle went against him. On 
 reaching a point seven miles from the land, the Kearsarge, at 
 10.50, was turned short around, and steered for the enemy. 
 
 The armament of the two ships was as follows : 
 
 Kearsarge. 
 
 Number of Guns. 
 
 4 short 32-pounders 
 
 2 Xl-inch pivots (smooth-bore) 
 
 1 30-pounder (rifle) 
 
 Weight of Pro- 
 jectiles. 
 
 . 128 lbs. 
 
 . 272 lbs. 
 
 . 30 lbs. 
 
 7 guns 
 
 430 lbs. 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 207 
 
 Alabama. 
 
 Number of Guns?. 
 
 6 long 32-pounders (52 cwt.) . . . 
 
 1 rifled 100-pounder (Blakeley) 
 
 1 VUI-inck shell-gun 
 
 8 guns 360 lbs. 
 
 In the matter of speed, that primary essential of a ship- 
 of-war, the Kearsarge had somewhat the advantage. The 
 difference in the number of men, 163 in the Kearsarge and 
 149 in the Alabama (including officers in both cases), was 
 not material. Both ships had their batteries pivoted to 
 starboard ; and the Alabama fought seven guns on her en- 
 gaged side, while the Kearsarge fought five. As to the size 
 of the ships, the tonnage of the Kearsarge was 1,031, and 
 that of the Alabama 1,016, by the old system of measure- 
 ment. They were, therefore, in most respects closely 
 matched ; and in regard to the comparative strength of their 
 armaments, it can only be said that each carried what was 
 considered by those who fitted her out the most effective 
 battery for a ship of that size. 
 
 As soon as the Kearsarge had turned to approach her, the 
 Alabama opened fire, from a raking position, at a distance of 
 a mile. This was at 10.57. The Kearsarge came on at full 
 speed, receiving a second broadside, and part of a third. 
 Coming within nine hundred yards, she sheered off and re- 
 turned the enemy's fire with her starboard battery. At this 
 point, she took the offensive and endeavored to pass astern 
 of the Alabama and rake her ; but the latter prevented the 
 manoeuvre by sheering, still keeping her starboard broad- 
 side to the sloop. These tactics were continued throughout 
 
 Weight of Pro- 
 jectiles. 
 
 . 192 lbs. 
 
 . 100 lbs. 
 
 . 68 lbs. 
 
208 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 the action. Both vessels circled about a common centre, 
 keeping broadside to broadside, and apparently heading in 
 opposite directions, but in reality following each other on 
 their circular course. In this way, they made seven com- 
 plete revolutions, the Kearsarge under a full head of steam, 
 always endeavoring to close and rake, and the Alabama edg- 
 ing around, and keeping only her broadside exposed. 
 
 The crew of the Alabama had had little practice in firing 
 at a target, having been compelled to husband their ammu- 
 nition, and the warfare in which they had been engaged for 
 eighteen months not being of a kind that called for expert- 
 ness in gunnery. Their firing at the beginning was rapid 
 and wild, though it became steadier toward the close. The 
 crew of the Kearsarge, on the other hand, under the thorough 
 training of Thornton, her efficient executive, made excellent 
 practice, firing with deliberateness and precision. They had 
 been instructed to point the heavy guns rather below than 
 above the water-line, leaving it to the 32-pounders to sweep 
 the decks. The two Xl-inch guns, and especially the after 
 gun, played havoc with the enemy. The two ships gradu- 
 ally neared in their revolutions, until they were only five or 
 six hundred yards apart. At this distance, the 100-pounder 
 rifle of that day was no match for the heavier smooth-bores, 
 in an engagement between wooden vessels ; and the sides of 
 the Alabama were torn out by shells and her decks covered 
 with killed and wounded. The crew of her after pivot-gun 
 was renewed four times during the action, and nearly every 
 man that had served it was disabled. 
 
 At noon, after the action had been continued hotly for an 
 hour, the Alabama ceasdd firing, and headed for the shore, 
 then five miles distant. This exposed her pert side, which 
 was blown out by the Xl-inch shells, and only two guns 
 could be brought to bear, one of which had been shifted 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 209 
 
 from the other side. The ship was filling rapidly, and as 
 the water was rising in the fireroom, Semmes set his fore- 
 trysail and jibs, in the hope of escaping into neutral waters. 
 The Kearsarge steered to cross his bow, and she was rapidly 
 approaching, when Semmes saw that the end had come, and 
 struck his flag. The Kearsarge then stopped, “ uncertain 
 whether Captain Semmes was not using some ruse,” as Wins- 
 low reports, and because it was not quite clear whether the 
 flag had been hauled down or shot away. A white flag was 
 then displayed, and the fire of the Kearsarge ceased. Pres- 
 ently the Alabama renewed her fire ; and the Kearsarge, in 
 consequence, opened again and fired three or four times. 
 All this time the white flag was flying. Semmes afterward 
 made bitter complaints of this violation of the laws of war ; 
 but it was perfectly justified by the firing of the Alabama 
 after she had made the signal of surrender. 
 
 It was now a little past noon, and the Alabama was settling 
 perceptibly. A boat came alongside the Kearsarge to an- 
 nounce the surrender, and to ask assistance for the sinking 
 vessel. The only two boats in the ship that were not dis- 
 abled were lowered and sent to bring off the officers and 
 crew ; and the Alabama’s boat was allowed to go back for 
 the same purpose, the officer commanding the boat having 
 given his pledge that he would return. He did not return, 
 however ; and the incident is another instance of the results 
 which are likely to attend the pledging or paroling of pris- 
 oners during an engagement, or before possession has been 
 taken of a vanquished enemy. 
 
 At this moment the Deerhound approached. She had 
 been hitherto a spectator of the action. Winslow hailed the 
 yacht, asking her to assist in biinging off the people of the 
 Alabama. The Deerhound complied with his request, and 
 heading for the Alabama, which was now going down rapidly, 
 
210 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 she picked up forty-two persons, among whom were Semmes 
 and fourteen other officers ; then, gradually edging off, she 
 steamed across the channel to Southampton. Winslow’s offi- 
 cers implored him to throw a shell at the Deerhound, when 
 it was found that she w T as making off, but he refused ; and 
 very properly, as her participation in the affair was due to his 
 own suggestion. In making this suggestion, it appears to 
 have been Winslow’s idea that the Deerhound, after receiving 
 the fugitives, would deliver them up to him as his prisoners. 
 But he had no right to expect anything of the kind. Had 
 the owner of the Deerhound taken such action, he would 
 have incurred a heavy responsibility to the power whose 
 officers and men he had so delivered into the hands of their 
 enemy. On the other hand, if he had undertaken of his 
 own motion to rescue them, either from death or from cap- 
 ture, he would have been connecting himself inexcusably 
 with belligerent operations. It made no difference whether 
 the men were in the ship, or in boats, or in the water; 
 wherever they were, their being there was a part and a con- 
 sequence of the battle, and while the victor was on the spot, 
 and about to reap the fruits of victory, a neutral had no right 
 to interfere in any way whatever. Had the Deerhound’s 
 interference been unauthorized, it would have been the right 
 and the duty of Winslow to have kept her off, and if the oc- 
 casion required it, to have used force in so doing. But as 
 she was doing merely what Winslow asked of her, it is hard 
 to see how he could have been justified in firing at her, or 
 what blame could be imputed to her owner. 
 
 The engagement lasted an hour, and in twenty minutes 
 after the last shot was fired the Alabama sank out of sight. 
 The number of casualties on board the defeated cruiser was 
 not far from forty. Semmes allows thirty in his report, 
 written at Southampton two days after the action ; but owing 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 211 
 
 to liis hasty departure, and his separation from the rest of 
 his crew, he could not well have known the whole number. 
 Of the seventy prisoners taken by the Kearsarge, three were 
 in a dying condition, and seventeen were wounded. Of the 
 crew of the Kearsarge, three men were wounded by the 
 bursting of a 68-pound shell on the quarter deck, one of 
 whom afterward died. With this exception no one was hurt. 
 
 It is commonly supposed that the Alabama’s guns were 
 served by seamen-gunners from the Excellent, the gunnery- 
 ship of the English navy. The supposition rests on a state- 
 ment made soon after the action by a reporter of the Lon- 
 don Times , who referred to Semmes as his authority. But 
 Semmes denied the statement explicitly. A large number of 
 his crew were Englishmen, several of whom had served in men- 
 of-war, and a few were Naval Reserve men ; but beyond this 
 there seems to have been no foundation for the assertion. If 
 it was true, it certainly did not speak well for the Excellent. 
 Out of three hundred and seventy shot and shell fired by the 
 Alabama, only twenty-eight struck the Kearsarge, of which 
 one-half took effect in the hull. The rest struck the sails, 
 rigging and boats. None of the twenty-eight did any mate- 
 rial injury. The hammock- nettings of the Kearsarge were set 
 on fire, but the flames were soon extinguished. One 100- 
 pound shell exploded in the smoke-stack. Another lodged 
 in the stern-post, but fortunately did not explode ; which 
 led Semmes to say that the fate of the battle was decided by 
 the defects of a percussion cap. It is not an uncommon 
 foible in beaten commanders to assign these accidental or 
 incidental causes for their defeat, and sometimes with more 
 or less foundation ; but in the engagement of the Kearsarge 
 and Alabama, the difference in the efficiency of the crews 
 was too marked to admit this as in any sense an explanation. 
 Moreover, the shell was fired in the latter part of the action, 
 
212 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 when the Alabama was already beaten. The Kearsarge fired 
 one hundred and seventy-three shot and shell during the 
 fight. How many took effect it is impossible to say ; but 
 there were few of them that failed to do some injury, and in 
 an hour they sank the enemy. 
 
 Great capital was made by Semmes and his friends after 
 the action by asserting that the Kearsarge was covered with 
 “ chain-plating,” and, in fact, an ironclad; and furthermore, 
 that by concealing the fact, Captain Winslow^ had taken a dis- 
 honorable advantage of his adversary. The plating consisted 
 simply of one hundred and twenty fathoms of sheet-chain 
 placed on the vessel’s side in the wake of the engine, secured 
 up and down by marline to eyebolts in the planking, and 
 covering a space fifty feet in length by six in depth. The 
 device was adopted to serve as a protection for the machinery, 
 as the coal bunkers were emptied. It would have afforded 
 no protection against the 100-pound projectiles, if they had 
 struck it ; but, as a matter of fact, it was struck only twice, 
 once by a shot, and once by a shell, from a 32-pounder, which 
 broke the chain as they struck. The protection it afforded 
 was therefore immaterial. As to the deception, it was cov- 
 ered with one-inch deal boards, as a finish ; it had been put 
 on a year before at the Azores ; and no secret had ever been 
 made of it. But even supposing that there had been an 
 intention to deceive, it would have been quite as legitimate 
 as the ordinary disguises of neutral flags or merchant-rigs, 
 which are every-day ruses ; and Semmes had never shown 
 such a disposition to encounter ships-of-war as to make it 
 advisable to discourage him unnecessarily. Whether there 
 was an intention to deceive or not, the claim of Semmes that 
 he had been deluded into fighting an ironclad under the 
 supposition that she was a wooden vessel, will not be treated 
 by history with great respect, in view of his well-known as- 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 213 
 
 tuteness ; and in view of the fact that, had he been disposed 
 to use them, he might have found in his chain-locker the 
 materials for casing his own vessel in similar armor. Never- 
 theless, he understood perfectly the course of public senti- 
 ment in England; and w 7 lien it appeared that an English- 
 built vessel, with English guns, and a crew of Englishmen, 
 had been thoroughly beaten and sunk in an hour by Ameri- 
 cans in an Ameiican ship with American guns, the ironclad 
 theory received ready acceptance, and was held to account 
 sufficiently for that phenomenal occurrence. 
 
 In 1863, the year after the Florida and Alabama appeared, 
 several attempt were made by the Confederacy to send ad- 
 ditional cruisers to sea, but most of them were unsuccessful. 
 The ironclad rams built by the Lairds for Bullock were 
 seized by the English Government, after a three months’ 
 delay, during which the most earnest remonstrances were 
 made by Mr. Adams, ending with a solemn declaration that 
 to suffer the departure of the vessels was an act of war. 
 The Canton or Pampero was also seized, and remained under 
 seizure during the rest of the war. The Alexandra, whose 
 trial was one of the celebrated cases under the Neutrality 
 Laws, was finally released. She was subsequently libelled 
 at Nassau, and remained there until the war was over. By 
 this time the Government had begun to show a little more 
 regard for its neutral obligations. Two cruisers, however, 
 got to sea from English ports during this year. These were 
 the Rappahannock and the Georgia. 
 
 The Rappahannock had a very brief career. She was for- 
 merly the Victor, and had been a despatch-vessel in the 
 British Navy. The Government, finding her unserviceable, 
 sold her on November 10, 1863, to private parties, who were 
 acting for the Confederates. After the sale, the vessel re- 
 
214 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 mained at Sheerness, refitting under tlie direction of per- 
 sons connected with the Royal Dockyard. Suspicions were 
 aroused as to her character, and inquiries were set on foot ; 
 and the vessel, to escape detention, hastily put to sea, with 
 the workmen still in her, and with only a part of her crew, 
 which had been enlisted by the Inspector of Machinery at 
 the dockyard. She was put in commission in the channel, 
 as a Confederate man-of-w T ar, with the usual ceremonies. 
 Proceeding to Calais, she claimed admission to the port as a 
 ship-of-war in distress, and needing repairs. The impu- 
 dence of this demand was too much for even the most sym- 
 pathetic neutral; and after the Rappahannock had made 
 some attempt to enlist more men, and to continue her prep- 
 arations for sea, her operations were summarily ended by a 
 French gunboat, which was stationed across her bow. Find- 
 ing it impossible to fit her out, her commander finally con- 
 cluded to abandon her. 
 
 The Georgia was somewhat more successful. She was a 
 screw-steamer of about seven hundred tons, and was built 
 for the Confederates on the Clyde. She was launched in 
 January, 1863, and put to sea in April, under the name of 
 the Japan. A Liverpool firm was employed as the interme- 
 diary to cover all the transactions connected with the vessel. 
 One member of this firm w T as her ostensible owner, and she 
 was registered in his name as a British vessel. Another 
 member of the firm took charge of a small steamer, the Alar, 
 which was freighted with guns, ammunition, and stores, and 
 met the Japan, or Georgia, off Morlaix, where her prepara- 
 tions were completed. The crew had already been engaged, 
 and advances had been made by the same firm before the 
 Georgia left the Clyde. For these transactions, proceedings 
 were afterw T ard instituted against the guilty parties, under 
 the Foreign Enlistment Act, and they w T ere sentenced to pay 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 215 
 
 a fine of £50 each — a penalty which was hardly calculated 
 to deter Her Majesty’s subjects from committing violations 
 of neutrality. Meantime the Georgia had escaped. 
 
 The Georgia’s career extended over a period of one year, 
 during which she cruised in the Middle and South Atlantic. 
 She was at Bahia in May, 1863, and at Simon’s Bay in 
 August. Late in October she arrived at Cherbourg, where 
 she lay for four months, part of the time undergoing repairs 
 in the dockyard. During the month of April, 1864, she was 
 at Bordeaux, again repairing. She had made no prizes since 
 leaving Cherbourg, and her cruise, on the whole, had not 
 been very successful. She was accordingly taken to Liver- 
 pool, her crew were discharged, her warlike equipment 
 landed, and she was sold to an English ship-owner, the bill 
 of sale being signed by Captain Bullock, the agent of the 
 Confederate Navy Department. The transfer by a belliger- 
 ent to a neutral of a vessel, even a merchant-vessel, during 
 war, is always a subject of suspicion ; much more so that of 
 a ship-of-war. At the instance of Mr. Adams, the Niagara, 
 then lying at Antwerp, under the command of Commodore 
 Craven, came to Liverpool, ascertained that Lisbon was the 
 destination of the Georgia, and immediately sailed thither 
 to intercept her. Falling in with the converted merchant- 
 man outside of Lisbon, Craven seized her, and sent her to 
 Boston, where she was condemned by the prize-court ; and 
 her owner never received any satisfaction for the loss of the 
 £15,000 which he had been so rash as to pay to the Confed- 
 erate Treasury. 
 
 About the time that the Georgia was launched, another 
 attempt was made by the Confederates to send out a cruiser, 
 this time from one of their own ports. For eight months the 
 blockade-runner Nashville had been lying in the Great 
 Ogeecliee River, blockaded by three of our gunboats. Dur- 
 
216 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 in g the early part of this time, she had been loaded with 
 cotton, and it w T as her intention to run the blockade at the 
 first opportunity ; but the river was so well guarded, that, 
 though constantly on the alert, she never ventured to run 
 out. Later, she withdrew up the river, her cargo w r as re- 
 moved, and she returned to her position fitted out as a 
 privateer. 
 
 The Nashville’s speed and other admirable qualities were 
 well known, and it was a matter of the first importance to 
 destroy her. Nothing but the most constant watchfulness 
 prevented her egress. She lay in an unassailable position 
 above Fort McAllister, a strong and well-constructed earth- 
 work, which was so placed as to enfilade the narrow and 
 difficult channel for a mile below. The river had been 
 staked opposite the fort, and a line of torpedoes had been 
 planted at intervals lower down in the channel. Above the 
 obstructions lay the Nashville, ready to dash out at the first 
 sign of a relaxation of the blockade. 
 
 The blockading gunboats were powerless to do more than 
 watch, and early in 1863, the force had been increased by 
 the addition of the monitor Montauk, under Commander 
 Worden. On the 27th of January, and again on the 1st of 
 February, Worden had made attacks upon the fort; but 
 notwithstanding the vigor and accuracy of the bombard- 
 ment, the character of the work was such that the injuries 
 resulting from the attack were easily repaired. The moni- 
 tor stood the test well, for, though repeatedly hit, she 
 received little damage. Her progress up the liver was 
 checked, not by the battery, but by the obstructions ; and 
 the fort, though incapable of making a serious impression 
 on the vessel, could iirevent the destruction of the barrier. 
 When the Monitor advanced, the Nashville found a refuge 
 up the river, where she was out of the way of any possible 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 217 
 
 harm ; and the only result which the blockading force 
 seemed able to accomplish was to prevent her from coming 
 out. 
 
 On the evening ~of the 27th of February, the Nashville 
 was observed to be in motion above the fort. Making a 
 careful reconnoissance, Worden discovered that, in moving 
 up the river, the steamer had grounded about twelve hun- 
 dred yards above the barrier. He saw his opportunity, and 
 resolved to make the most of it. Having decided upon the 
 destruction of the Nashville, he made his plans with care 
 and judgment. As it was high water at the time of her 
 grounding, he knew that she could not get off before morn- 
 ing ; and though an attack by daylight would expose him 
 to the fire of the fort, he decided to wait, in the conviction 
 that the steamer was in his power, and that the light was as 
 great a necessity to him as it could be to his enemy. 
 
 At daylight the next morning, the Montauk moved up to 
 the barrier, followed at a distance by the three gunboats. 
 Between the monitor and her antagonist lay a point of 
 swampy land, which formed the sharp bend in the river be- 
 low which the obstructions had been placed. Planting him- 
 self directly under the fire of Fort McAllister, to which he 
 made no attempt to reply, Worden opened deliberately 
 upon the Nashville, whose upper works only were visible 
 across the swamp, until he had determined the range with ac- 
 curacy. Dropping his Xl-incli and XV-incli shells with fatal 
 precision upon the vessel, he could watch the explosion of 
 shell after shell on her decks ; and in a few minutes she was 
 in flames. 
 
 A thick fog now settled down, and shut out the combat- 
 ants from view. The Montauk continued her fire at inter- 
 vals, keeping her guns at the same direction and elevation ; 
 and a sharp lookout was kept for boarding-parties, which 
 I.— 10 
 
218 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 might have taken advantage of the weather to come off from 
 the fort. No attempt was made, however; and when the 
 fog lifted, the Nashville was on fire forward, aft, and amid- 
 ships. Presently her pivot gun exploded with the heat ; 
 next the smoke-stack toppled over ; and finally, about one 
 hour after the attack had begun, the magazine blew up, 
 leaving nothing of the vessel but the smoking fragments of 
 her hull. 
 
 To the Montank, the battle had been no more than an 
 hour’s target practice of a winter morning. The gunners of 
 Port McAllister, either unprepared or demoralized, made bad 
 work of it, and struck the ironclad only five times, doing no 
 damage. The gunboats, remaining at a considerable dis- 
 tance down the river, though near enough to fire with ef- 
 fect at the fort, were not injured in the least. After the de- 
 struction of the Nashville, the Montauk dropped down the 
 river. On her way she struck and exploded a torpedo, 
 causing a serious leak, but Worden kept on until safely out 
 of range of the fort. The monitor was then run upon a mud 
 flat, which stopped the leak effectually until the injury could 
 be repaired. This was the only casualty in the action — an 
 action which in its neatness and finish left nothing to be 
 desired. 
 
 The last of the commerce -destroyers was the Sea King, or 
 Shenandoah. This vessel was a full -rigged ship with aux- 
 iliary steam power, of seven hundred and ninety tons, built 
 on the Clyde, and employed in the East India trade. She 
 was a very fast ship, a twenty-four hours’ run of three hun- 
 dred and twenty miles being no uncommon thing with her. 
 She cleared from London for Bombay October 8, 1864, her 
 Captain, Corbett, having a power of sale from the owner to 
 dispose of her at any time within six months. She had on 
 board a large supply of coal and provisions ; but she was not 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 219 
 
 altered Or equipped for war purposes, and she carried no 
 armament except two 12-pounders, which had been on board 
 when she was originally purchased. 
 
 On the same day, the steamer Laurel left Liverpool, hav- 
 ing cleared for Nassau, with several Confederate naval 
 officers, and a cargo of cases marked “ machinery,” but con- 
 taining guns with their carriages and equipments. Making 
 her way to Funchal, Madeira, she met the Sea King. The 
 two vessels then proceeded to Desertas, a barren island in 
 the neighborhood, where the Sea King received her arma- 
 ment and stores, and was transferred by Corbett to Captain 
 Waddell, of the Confederate navy, her future commander. 
 Waddell put her in commission, under the name of the 
 Shenandoah, and she started on her cruise. 
 
 The plan of the cruise of the Shenandoah w T as based upon 
 the movements of the Pacific whaling fleet. A portion of 
 this fleet habitually cruised in the vicinity of the Caroline 
 Islands for sperm whales, going north in spring. It passed 
 the Bonins and along the coast of Japan, to the Sea of Och- 
 otsk, where it cruised for right whale. Thence it pro- 
 ceeded to Behring Strait and the Arctic Ocean. On its re- 
 turn, it refreshed at the Sandwich Islands, generally arriving 
 there in October or November. The plan adopted for the 
 Shenandoah was to leave the meridian of the Cape of Good 
 Hope about the 1st of January for Australia, arriving about 
 the middle of February ; thence after a short stay, to pro- 
 ceed north through the Carolines ; and after spending some 
 time in the route of the China-bound clippers, to enter the 
 Ocliotsk, and make the round of Behring Strait. Upon her 
 return, she was to take up a position a little to the north- 
 ward of the Sandwich Islands, to intercept such of the fleet 
 as might have escaped. 
 
 This elaborate plan was devised by Commander Brooke at 
 
220 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Richmond, and was the direct result of that officer’s experi- 
 ence in 1855, when serving with the North Pacific Exploring 
 Expedition. It was sent by the Confederate Secretary of the 
 Navy to Bullock, who had recently obtained control of the 
 Sea King, and w T ho was considering what disposition should 
 be made of her. Bullock immediately acted upon it. As 
 the commerce of the United States had been thinned out 
 in the cruising grounds of the Alabama and the other com- 
 merce-destroyers, it was desirable to seek a new field of 
 operations ; and the Richmond plan seemed to answer the 
 purpose. 
 
 In pursuance of this plan, after cruising for three months 
 in the Atlantic, and taking several prizes, the Shenandoah 
 proceeded to Tristan d’Acunha, where the crews of the cap- 
 tured vessels were landed. From this point she went to 
 Melbourne, where she remained nearly a month. She was 
 allowed to make extensive repairs in her machinery, or at 
 least, repairs that took a considerable time, and she took on 
 board three hundred tons of coal from a vessel sent from 
 Liverpool for the purpose. Having left Madeira short of 
 her complement, she enlisted forty-three men at Melbourne, 
 ■who were taken on board as the vessel was on the point of 
 sailing. 
 
 Leaving Melbourne on the 18th of February, 1865, the 
 Shenandoah proceeded under sail to her proposed cruising 
 ground in the neighborhood of Behring Strait. Here she 
 captured and burned a large number of whalers. The cap- 
 ture and destruction of prizes was continued until the 28th 
 of June, when it came to an end, on account of information 
 received by Waddell, that the Confederate Government had 
 ceased to exist. Waddell then brought his vessel to Liver- 
 pool, and surrendered her to the British Government. 
 
 The efforts of the Confederate agents to obtain ships-of' 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 221 
 
 war in France were defeated by tlie timely interference of 
 the French Government. Six vessels of a formidable char- 
 acter were built, but only one, the Stonewall, found its way 
 into the hands of the Confederates, and this one only toward 
 the close of the war. Proceeding to Ferrol in March, 1865, 
 she fell in with the frigate Niagara and the sloop-of-war 
 Sacramento, under Commodore Craven, who took up a posi- 
 tion in the adjoining port of Coruna. The Stonewall was 
 a ram with armored sides (four or five inches), a 300-pounder 
 rifled Armstrong gun in the casemated bow, and a fixed tur- 
 ret aft containing two rifled 70-pounders. The Niagara 
 carried ten 150-pounder Parrott rifles, and the Sacramento 
 a miscellaneous armament, in which two Xl-inch and two 
 IX-inch guns, and one 60-pounder, were the principal pieces. 
 The Stonewall moved out before the harbor of Coruna, mak- 
 ing various demonstrations calculated to provoke an en- 
 counter ; but the tw T o vessels refrained from attacking her, 
 upon the ground that an engagement would result disas- 
 trously. 
 
 It is only necessary to make one comment on this affair. 
 The Stonewall was truly an ugly antagonist. It is the 
 opinion of many professional men that, properly handled, 
 she could have sunk the two American vessels ; and as far 
 as probabilities were concerned, the chances might be said 
 to lie with the ram. It may, however, be seriously ques- 
 tioned whether operations which are based exclusively upon 
 nice calculations of the risk to be run in engaging an enemy 
 are likely to be fruitful of great results. 
 
 The Stonewall proceeded to Lisbon, and thence to Ha- 
 vana, where she was surrendered to the United States by 
 the Spanish Government, the war having terminated. She 
 was subsequently sold to Japan. 
 
 Among all the developments in naval warfare that were 
 
222 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 brought about between 1861 and 1865, the art of commerce- 
 destroying, as systematized and applied by Semmes, will 
 not be reckoned the least important. In saying this, it must 
 be understood that reference is made, not to its ethical, but 
 to its military aspect. As a mode of carrying on hostilities 
 it is neither chivalrous nor romantic, nor is it that which a 
 naval officer of the highest type would perhaps most de- 
 sire to engage in ; but it fulfils, in an extraordinary degree, 
 the main object of modern war, that of crippling an ad- 
 versary. 
 
 As war in our days has lost much of its brutality, so it has 
 largely lost the element of chivalry ; it has become scien- 
 tific, stern, bloody, and business-like. The Alabama’s mode 
 of warfare, however, combined the greatest effect with the 
 least bloodshed, and, it may be added, with the least outlay 
 of men and money ; and its success has stimulated efforts in 
 the great navies of the world, which will doubtless some 
 day result in similar enterprises. The name of the Alabama, 
 like that of the Monitor, has become a generic term ; and 
 future Alabamas will regard the cruise of Semmes’ s vessel 
 as the starting-point in all their operations. 
 
 Commerce-destroying had been practised on a considerable 
 scale in earlier wars ; but the introduction of fast steamers 
 enabled Semmes to carry his operations to a point of perfec- 
 tion that had never before been attained. His preliminary 
 cruise in the Sumter showed him the possibilities and the 
 limitations of this species of warfare ; and he entered upon 
 the cruise of the Alabama with a well-considered plan of 
 operations. He began with a careful study of the ocean 
 highways of commerce ; and these determined the locality 
 of his successive cruising-grounds. It is upon this discovery 
 of strategic points that his patent chiefly rests. He calcu- 
 lated nicely the time required for news of his presence to 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 223 
 
 reach the United States, and before a ship could be sent 
 after him, he had moved to a new scene of operations. The 
 period which he generally allowed himself in any one quar- 
 ter was about two months. At the end of this time he was 
 on his way to another craising-ground ; and unless his 
 movements could be foreseen, he was tolerably safe from 
 pursuit. He passed his first two months in the North At- 
 lantic. His next field was the West Indies. On each of 
 these stations he found a large number of unprotected mer- 
 chant-vessels. After leaving the West Indies, he posted 
 himself near the equator, in the track of South American 
 commerce. The waters over which this commerce passes lie 
 within a belt not more than one hundred miles wide. The 
 Alabama occupied this belt. Next she passed two months 
 on the coast of Brazil. Thence she went to the Cape, near 
 which the whole commerce of the Indian Ocean must pass. 
 At the Cape again she remained about two months ; but 
 American shipmasters had by this time become cautious, 
 and they gave the African coast a wide berth. From the 
 Cape Semmes went to the Straits of Sunda, the gateway of 
 the China Sea. Here he remained two months, and was 
 again successful. 
 
 During all this period the Alabama was kept constantly 
 moving. The only delays were for repairs and coal. The 
 latter was furnished at first by coaling-vessels sent to ap- 
 pointed rendezvous. Later, the ship depended upon prizes, 
 and upon supplies in neutral ports, which were never 
 grudged. When a long cruise made repairs or rest a neces- 
 sity, an anchorage was selected, which from its remoteness 
 and obscurity, and from its slight dependence upon a civil- 
 ized power, gave an opportunity to refit at leisure and in 
 security. The Areas, Fernando de Noronlia, Angra Pequena, 
 and Pulo Condore were successively utilized in this way. 
 
224 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 When more extensive repairs were required, Semmes put 
 boldly into a neutral port, and liis ingenuity generally sup- 
 plied the authorities with the points that were needed te 
 justify them in extending to him every facility. 
 
 It is common to speak of the Alabama and the other Con- 
 federate cruisers as privateers. It is hard to find a suitable 
 designation for them, but privateers they certainly were not. 
 The essence of a privateer lies in its private ownership ; its 
 officers are persons in private employment ; and the au- 
 thority under which it acts is a letter of-marque. To call 
 the cruisers pirates is merely to make use of invective. 
 Most of them answered all the legal requirements of ships- 
 of-war; they were owned by the Government, and they 
 were commanded by naval officers acting under a genuine 
 commission. Some of them were put in commission at sea 
 or in foreign waters, and never saw the country of their 
 adoption; but their commission could not thereby be in- 
 validated. There is no rule of law which prescribes the 
 place where a Government shall commission its ships, or 
 which requires the ceremony to take place, like the ses- 
 sions of prize-courts, within the belligerent territory. 
 
 Assuming that the commissioned vessels of the Cenfed- 
 erates were prima facie ships-of-war, the question arises 
 whether they were entitled to the privileges accorded to 
 such vessels by the usage of nations. They were acting for 
 a Government whose belligerency had been recognized, 
 though no recognition had been accorded to the state which 
 it was seeking to establish. This fact might modify some- 
 what the view in which the vessels were regarded by foreign 
 states, in that the latter could maintain no official relations 
 with the insurgent Government, and were therefore de- 
 prived of the ordinary method of redress, if the vessels 
 should commit an offence against their sovereignty. But 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 225 
 
 the method of obtaining redress by negotiation is by na 
 means the only way of dealing with offending ships-of-war 
 in foreign waters. They may be summarily ordered to de- 
 part ; they may be forbidden to enter ; and, finally, if they 
 assail in any w^ay the local sovereignty, or if they refuse to 
 comply with an order for their departure or their exclusion, 
 force may be used against them. There is, and there can 
 be, no rule of law, which compels a government to remain 
 passive wdiile its laws are openly violated, simply because of 
 the sanctity which is supposed to surround a public vessel ; 
 nor, when a neutral government has allowed its neutrality 
 to be infringed by the cruisers of one belligerent, can it 
 justify itself to the other by putting forward such a plea. 
 With stronger reason, a ship -of- war whose very existence is 
 a consequence of evasions or infringements of the local law 
 may be denied the ordinary immunities. When, therefore, 
 the Alabama and the Florida, vessels that had been allowed 
 to go to sea from English ports in violation of English neu- 
 trality, at a subsequent period entered ports of the same 
 Power, while engaged in their belligerent enterprises, the 
 Government could not excuse its inaction on the ground of 
 respect for the Confederate commission ; and, by refusing 
 either to exclude or to detain the cruisers, it added to the 
 wrong which it had already committed. 
 
 In view of the respect which civilized states exact for 
 their public vessels, it is desirable that every safeguard 
 should be employed by the State itself to protect this 
 character from abuse. The Confederate Government showed 
 considerable laxity in this respect. If it had not been in- 
 capable of negotiation, and if the neutral powers had 
 pursued the ordinary policy of neutrals, it would doubtless 
 have received some emphatic remonstrances on the subject. 
 It procured cruisers abroad through “ shifts and strata- 
 10 * 
 
226 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 gems,” 1 cleared them under the names of fictitious owners, 
 or brought them out without a clearance, took formal pos- 
 session of them on the high seas, though they w T ere osten- 
 sibly and according to their papers foreign vessels, and put 
 them in commission as ships-of-war. It procured other 
 vessels abroad, not intended for war purposes, which it 
 owned and controlled, and in some cases officered from its 
 navy, and which it employed in trade — that is, as blockade- 
 runners. These vessels, owned, controlled, and officered by 
 the Confederate Government, sailed sometimes under the 
 British flag, and w 7 ith British papers, and sometimes with 
 those of the Government to which they belonged. They 
 were fitted out, now 7 as ships-of-w 7 ar, now as merchant vessels, 
 according as the one character or the other would best 
 satisfy the exigency of the moment, and the demands of the 
 local authorities in foreign ports. 
 
 A few of the prominent cases w 7 ill serve to show the 
 nature of these arrangements. The Japan or Georgia left 
 the Clyde, registered in the name of a British subject as a 
 British vessel, and she remained, for nearly three months, 
 still registered in the name of her ostensible owner, though 
 she was all that time engaged in hostilities against tho 
 United States. A year later she returned to Liverpool and 
 was dismantled. Whether she was then a sliip-of-v T ar or a 
 merchant vessel does not appear. She w^as soon after sold 
 to an English subject, the bill of sale being signed by 
 Bullock, just as the Sumter had been sold at Gibraltar, wdien 
 Semmes found that he could not take her out to sea. 
 
 The Rappahannock left Slieerness in haste as a merchant- 
 vessel, with her workmen still in her, assumed a public 
 character in the run across the channel, and sought admis- 
 
 1 Earl Russell’s letter of February 12, 18G5. 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 227 
 
 sion at Calais as a ship-of-war in distress. The Tuscaloosa, 
 a prize of the Alabama, entered the harbor at the Cape with a 
 prize crew, and with her captured cargo, which she hoped to 
 sell, still on board, and claimed the privileges of a ship-of- 
 war, because her captor chose so to designate her; and 
 after being accorded these privileges, she left the harbor to 
 carry her wool to Angra Pequena, where it was actually sold. 
 A British Vice- Admiralty court could obtain no evidence at 
 Nassau that the Florida, an exact copy of the gun-vessels of 
 the English navy, was other than a merchantman, owned by 
 a British firm, and in a week after her release she was at sea 
 as a Confederate ship-of-war. Toward the close of the war 
 blockade-runners were hastily converted into cruisers, and 
 as hastily changed back to blockade-runners, until the Con- 
 federate navy list must have been a hopeless muddle. The 
 blockade-runner Edith suddenly appeared out of Wilming- 
 ton one night in October, 1864, under the character and des- 
 ignation of the “ C. S. Steamer Chickamauga,” armed with 
 a 64-pounder and a 32-pounder, and, after seizing and de- 
 stroying four or five unfortunate coasters, returned to port 
 in three weeks, to resume her former state and occupation. 
 It is hard to see what purpose could be served by belliger- 
 ent operations of such a character, at this stage of the con- 
 flict, and it shows the desperate straits to which the Con- 
 federate Government was put toward the end in attempting 
 to keep up the semblance of a naval war. 
 
 But the vessel which had the most varied career was the 
 Tallahassee. She w T as originally called the Atlanta, and 
 under that name she arrived at Bermuda in the spring of 
 1864. She made two trips to Wilmington as a blockade- 
 runner. She was then converted into a cruiser, under the 
 name of the Tallahassee, and sailed from Wilmington early 
 in August. Her course was shaped for Halifax, where she 
 
228 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 arrived on the 19th, after having destroyed several vessels. 
 Owing to the vigilance of the authorities, who for once were 
 on the alert to prevent infringements of the neutrality regu- 
 lations, she was unable to accomplish all that she wanted in 
 getting repairs and coal, and on the 26th, she returned to 
 Wilmington. In November she made another short cruise, 
 this time under the name of the Olustee, 1 during which she 
 took a few prizes. With this cruise her belligerent career 
 came to an end. Her battery was removed, and her officers 
 and crew were detached. A bill of sale was drawn up, the 
 ostensible purchaser being the navy agent at Wilmington ; a 
 register was issued, a crew engaged, a cargo of cotton 
 shipped, and invoices and bills of lading made out in the 
 prescribed form. She received the name of the Chameleon, 
 which must have been a piece of pleasantry on the part of 
 whoever may have been considered as her owner. She left 
 Wilmington in December, under the command of Captain 
 Wilkinson, of the Confederate navy, under orders from the 
 Navy Department, and her object was to obtain a supply of 
 provisions at Bermuda, of which the army was in dire need. 
 Upon her arrival the Lieutenant-Governor was somewhat 
 exercised as to her character, but finally decided that she 
 was not a man-of-war, having been “ sold to a private mer- 
 chant,” to borrow the phrase of the British counter-case at 
 Geneva. According to Wilkinson, the vessel had been “ so 
 thoroughly whitewashed ” that the authorities could find 
 nothing to lay hold of. After loading her cargo, she steered 
 for Wilmington, but Fort Fisher had now fallen, and she was 
 compelled to put back. Charleston was tried with no better 
 success ; and after landing her provisions at Nassau, the 
 
 1 According to the statement in the case of the United States at Geneva, “it is 
 not quite clear whether she made two trips, one under each name, or whether the 
 name was changed in one trip.” 
 
THE COMMERCE-DESTROYERS. 
 
 229 
 
 Chameleon was taken to Liverpool, and delivered to Fraser, 
 Trenliolm & Co., the Confederate agents. She was subse- 
 quently seized by the British Government, and ultimately 
 surrendered to the United States. 
 
 A great deal of uncalled-for abuse has been heaped upon 
 the South for the work of the Confederate cruisers, and 
 their mode of warfare has been repeatedly denounced as 
 barbarous and piratical in official and unofficial publications. 
 But neither the privateers, like the Petrel and the Savannah, 
 nor the commissioned cruisers, like the Alabama and the 
 Florida, were guilty of any practices which, as against their 
 enemies, were contrary to the laws of war. The expediency 
 of enforcing the right of maritime capture has been much 
 discussed during the last hundred years, and has often been 
 questioned on humanitarian grounds. It is not proposed to 
 consider that question here. For the present purpose, it is 
 sufficient that the right to capture an enemy’s private prop- 
 erty at sea is fully recognized by the law and practice of na- 
 tions to-day. All that is necessary is to establish the enemy 
 ownership, and this being done, the prize-courts of every 
 country in the world will decree confiscation. Whether the 
 prize is destroyed at sea, or is brought into a prize-court and 
 condemned, can make no possible difference to the owner, if 
 the owner is clearly an enemy. The officer making the cap- 
 ture is responsible to his Government, and as the proceeds 
 of the prize usually go in part to the State, the ofiicer’s 
 Government may and doubtless will require him to bring in 
 his prize, if possible, for adjudication. But this is a matter 
 purely of internal discipline, a question between the State 
 and its officers. So also, if by accident or intention neutral 
 property is captured and destroyed, a question arises between 
 the captor’s government and that of the neutral, but it is a 
 question with which the other belligerent has nothing to do. 
 
230 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 So much for the law on the subject. As for the practice, 
 it is usual for governments to require their officers to give 
 sufficient reason why a prize is not brought in. Either the 
 unseaworthiness of the prize, or the want of men to navigate 
 her, would manifestly be a sufficient reason. In the absence 
 of any preventing cause, the prize should be brought to a 
 port of adjudication ; and, if that is impossible, to the near- 
 est neutral port that will admit it. But during the war, the 
 ports of the Confederates were under blockade, and the rule 
 was generally adopted by neutrals of excluding the prizes of 
 both belligerents. Nothing then remained but to destroy 
 the captured vessel at sea. To have done otherwise would 
 have been to abandon the right of maritime capture. 
 
 The practice of destroying prizes, however, even when it is 
 possible to send them in, is no new thing in maritime war- 
 fare, especially in the maritime warfare of the United States. 
 The cruise of the Argus in 1813 was precisely parallel to those 
 of the Alabama and Florida ; and the instructions of the Navy 
 Department to commanding officers during the war of 1812 
 were to “ destroy all you capture, unless in some extraordinary 
 cases that clearly warrant an exception.’ * To take a later in- 
 stance, in a decision in the High Court of Admiralty during 
 the Crimean War, Dr. Lushington said, “It may be justifia- 
 ble, or even praiseworthy in the captors to destroy an enemy’s 
 vessel. Indeed, the bringing into adjudication at all of an 
 enemy’s vessel is not called for by any respect to the rights of 
 the enemy proprietor, where there is no neutral property on 
 board.” The French, in at least two cases in the war of 1870, 
 burned prizes at sea, because it was inconvenient to send 
 prize crews on board ; and from more recent events it is clear 
 that other Governments, in case of war with a commercial 
 power, will deem themselves fortunate if they can rival the 
 achievements of the Confederate commerce-destroyers. 
 
CHAPTER VHL 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 As it was a part of the object of this book to deal with the 
 condition of the navy at the outbreak of the war and with 
 the preparations made by the Government to carry it on, it 
 will not be out of place to dwell for a moment upon certain 
 conclusions which may be drawn from a consideration of this 
 branch of the subject. As conclusions by a non-professional 
 observer, they are submitted with hesitation and diffidence ; 
 and as they carry with them no weight of authority, they 
 may be taken simply at their own worth. 
 
 A military force, whether intended to operate on land or 
 at sea, exists primarily for purposes of war. Cruising on 
 foreign stations during peace, in these days when piracy has 
 disappeared, is not an occupation calculated to exercise 
 fully its powers. Sliips-of-war are no doubt of use from 
 time to time at various points, but their usefulness is not so 
 great that a government whose foreign relations are gener- 
 ally amicable would keep up a large establishment for this 
 object alone. Their real purpose is to become the national 
 defence in time of war. As with the ships, so with the offi- 
 cers ; it is in war, not in peace, that the fruit of their la- 
 bors is to be gathered. 
 
 So far, doubtless, everybody is agreed ; in fact, what has 
 been said is little more than a truism. But the logical in- 
 ference drawn from the premises is far from commanding 
 
232 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 universal assent, and still farther from obtaining recognition 
 in practice. The inference is this : that the primary object 
 for a navy at all times is to maintain itself, in all its 
 branches, materiel, personnel, and organization, in the most 
 perfect state that is possible of readiness and efficiency for 
 war. This should be the first and ever-present considera* 
 tion with those who enact, who administer, and who execute 
 measures of naval policy ; the ability to place the whole es- 
 tablishment in the condition of active warlike operation, as 
 instantaneously and as smoothly as an engineer starts his 
 machine. 
 
 In 1861, the navy was by no means in a condition of 
 readiness for war, although war was the purpose for which it 
 existed. In materiel, it had a few ships suitable for cruis- 
 ing purposes, and it had superior ordnance ; but half the 
 fleet was antiquated, and the rest was displaying the flag on 
 distant stations. As to the personnel, it is useless to deny 
 the fact that the list was heavily weighted by the old officers 
 at the head, who had reached their position, not because of 
 merit, but because of the date when they happened to enter 
 the service ; that the middle of the list was suffering from 
 long stagnation, and from the absence of any inducement 
 to effort ; and finally, that the young men, who were to bear 
 the brunt of the work, were altogether too few for the needs 
 of the service. It is commonly said that the navy was on a 
 peace footing ; but if that was the case, a complete and well- 
 defined provision should have been made for expansion. To 
 speak of a “ peace footing” implies that a “ war footing” is 
 something different ; and no naval establishment can con- 
 sider itself prepared for war that has not made beforehand 
 all the arrangements necessary to pass at once from one to 
 the other. 
 
 Conceding the necessity of a peace footing for personnel 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 233 
 
 and materiel, on the score of expense, there is no necessity 
 for such a thing as a peace footing for organization. The 
 organization of a military or naval establishment is fixed 
 primarily with a view to efficiency in war, and only such 
 slight modifications are introduced in time of peace as are 
 indispensable. So far from this being the case in 1861, the 
 wdiole administration w T as arranged on an exactly opposite 
 basis. It was about as unfitted for the conduct of a war as 
 it was possible to be. The organization was that of five 
 bureaus, independent of each other, and only united by a 
 common subordination to the Head of the Department. 
 Now, whatever merits the system of nearly independent 
 bureaus may have in time of peace, it is entirely inadequate 
 as an organization for carrying on war. The direction of 
 military or naval operations must be centralized, not only in 
 the person of the Departmental head, but in his responsible 
 professional advisers ; and to impose this heavy burden upon 
 Chiefs of Bureaus, whose business is with certain specific 
 branches of administration, is to expect men to take in at 
 the same moment the whole field of view and the minutest 
 details of a single part. It is the essence of a good organ- 
 ization that every branch of it should have its own work, 
 and should confine itself to that; and for that, and that 
 alone, it should be held to the fullest responsibility. The 
 province of a Bureau is to furnish a gun, or a hull, or an 
 engine, or a crew, the best possible that can be obtained ; 
 and to devolve upon its Chief the duty of planning cam- 
 paigns is only to divert him from his legitimate business, 
 and would, in the nature of things, result disastrously both 
 to the campaign and the bureau. The general direction of 
 military and naval operations, if we are to accept the testi- 
 mony of the highest authorities and the evidence of the most 
 successful campaigns, is the work of men bred in the busi- 
 
234 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 ness. It cannot be done successfully, according to the de- 
 mands of modern warfare, by this or that officer picked up 
 on the spur of the moment, or by boards of officers created 
 as the exigency arises. It must be put in the hands of those 
 who have spent much labor and thought in examining and 
 fastening upon the strong and weak points of all possible 
 enemies ; who have made their office the repository of all 
 possible information ; who have, as Moltke is said to have 
 had, the whole details of campaigns in their pigeon-holes, to 
 be modified, month by month, as new circumstances arise ; 
 and finally, who are studying, not gunnery, nor machinery, 
 nor construction, nor fleet-tactics alone, but the science of 
 wae, in all its bearings, as an actual, living, and, above all, 
 as a growing science. In short, the direction of naval opera- 
 tions, like that of military operations, should be entrusted 
 to a previously-trained and previously-equipped General 
 Staff. 
 
 Now, in 1861, the navy had no general staff. Staff- work 
 was a branch of naval science as uncultivated as the attack 
 and defence by torpedoes ; nor did it occur to the authorities 
 at the time that a staff might be created. So they set about 
 to find a substitute. By one of those fortunate accidents, 
 which lead our happy-go-lucky nation to fall on its feet, 
 when it has come unprepared upon a crisis, a man had about 
 this time come forward, in connection with the relief-expedi- 
 tions to Fort Sumter, w T ho was fitted, as nearly as any one man 
 could be, to take charge of the work. This man was Captain 
 Gustavus Y. Fox. It may be said in passing that an accident 
 of this kind cannot be counted on, nor can it justify the ab- 
 sence of preparation, when preparation is so simple and easy 
 — in war nothing must be left to chance. In addition to his 
 natural attainments, which were exceptional, Fox was a man 
 of varied experience, having passed eighteen years in the navy, 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 2C5 
 
 during which he had served in ships-of-war, in the Coast Sur- 
 vey, and in command of mail-steamers. Five years before 
 the war he had resigned, and had engaged in business. He 
 therefore started in his career as Assistant Secretary with a 
 grasp of the situation, and a capacity to meet it, that could 
 be found in few men at that time, either outside the service 
 or in it. To say that he became Assistant Secretary does not 
 define his position. He was anything but an Assistant Secre- 
 tary. He was really the Chief of Staff ; or rather he was the 
 •whole general staff in person. Of course he could not per- 
 form all the details of his work himself, and as he had not at 
 command a previously-trained body of staff-officers, he made 
 judicious use of the material at his disposal by the creation 
 of tem'porary boards. One board was organized, composed 
 of Captains Dupont and Davis, Major Barnard of the Engi- 
 neers, and Professor Bache, to report on the coast of the 
 enemy, its points of access and its defences. Here the ex- 
 ceptional character of the war led to the selection of excep- 
 tional persons to give the information necessary for intelli- 
 gent operations ; for, as the enemy’s coast was also our own, 
 no one could be better informed about its accessibility and 
 defences than the Superintendent of the Coast Survey, and 
 the engineer who had built the forts. Similarly another 
 board, composed of Commodores Smith and Paulding, and 
 Captain Davis again, was appointed to examine plans for 
 ironclad vessels. The board modestly stated in its report 
 that it approached the subject 4 ‘with diffidence,' having no 
 experience and but scanty knowledge in this branch of naval 
 architecture. ,, It was composed of extremely able men, and 
 their conclusions were formed under the circumstances with 
 promptness and judgment. Yet the report of the board was 
 only made September 16, five months after the war may be 
 said to have begun, and six weeks after the Act of Congress 
 
236 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 authorizing the expenditure for the purpose of building iron- 
 clads. A properly-organized general staff in working opera- 
 tion would have had every plan that could be presented 
 thoroughly examined and passed upon before Congress was 
 even in session ; and the contracts should have been ready 
 for signature on the day after the appropriation was made, 
 i The importance of time, even in a war as loosely conducted 
 and as long drawn out as that of the Rebellion, has no better 
 illustration than in the case of the Monitor. Congress as- 
 sembled July 5 ; a month later it passed the appropriation ; 
 in six weeks the board reported; three weeks afterward 
 the contract for the Monitor was signed ; and, after all this 
 deliberation and discussion, had the Monitor’s arrival in 
 Hampton Roads been postponed by one single day, by the 
 infinitesimal space, considering the length of preparation, of 
 twenty-four hours, she would have found little in the shape 
 of a fleet to need her protection. 
 
 It is a common mistake to point to our experience in 1861 
 to show that a navy can be prepared for action at short no- 
 tice. It is supposed that, because the Government came out 
 victorious in the end in its naval operations, without having 
 made any preparation beforehand, it will always be safe to 
 postpone measures looking to war until the war is upon us — 
 the supply of a large body of trained officers, the selection 
 of the ablest men for the higher grades, the establishment 
 and training of a general staff, the organization of reserves, 
 the construction of modern vessels. It is true that a partial 
 substitute for all these requisites of an efficient force was 
 secured before the war was over; that in 1865 there were 
 7, 600 officers and 50, 000 seamen in the service, that the ablest 
 men had come to the front, that a Chief of Staff was found 
 in the person of the Assistant Secretary, and that the fleet 
 had been increased from sixty-nine vessels to six hundred 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 237 
 
 and seventy-one, two hundred and eight of which had been 
 built or begun while hostilities were going on. Perhaps, if 
 our next war lasts four years, and if all the sea-board cities 
 are not destroyed during the first half-year, we may do the 
 same again. No doubt the Administration was handicapped 
 at the outset by its unwillingness, for reasons of public 
 policy, to take the offensive ; but even allowing for this 
 delay, the fact remains that in the first six months — months 
 during which, in modern wars, not only the most telling 
 blows are struck, but the issue of the war is generally 
 decided — all that could be done with the most strenuous 
 efforts, and the greatest energy in the administrative head, 
 was to collect our fragmentary resources and to discover 
 the men who could make them available. Fortunately, we 
 were fighting a Government that was destitute of a naval 
 force. Had our enemy been a maritime power with a navy 
 in the most ordinary condition of readiness, and with a com- 
 petent working staff, it would have fared ill with us in the 
 first summer. In our next war we shall probably have no 
 such good fortune, and we shall learn to our cost the fatal 
 result of procrastination. 
 
 It is idle to suppose, in face of the changes that mechani- 
 cal science is making every year in our daily lives, that the 
 materials of naval warfare will remain long at any given 
 stage of development. Progress will go on, and the only 
 way in which a naval force can be kept up which shall be 
 equal to the barest necessities of the country is by a con- 
 stant adaptation of fleets and armaments to the new demands 
 of modern war. Objectors may say that if changes are so 
 rapid, new constructions will shortly be superseded by 
 newer ones. But science advances, whether Governments 
 wish it or not ; and if the navy is to be kept up at all, it 
 must be kept up to date. New instruments of warfare can- 
 
238 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 not be manufactured in a day ; nor can officers be expected 
 to use them to advantage when they have had no previous 
 opportunity to practise their use. “ Our occupation,” wrote 
 Admiral Jurien de la Gravi&re, shortly after the war, “was 
 formerly an instinct ; now it is a science.” The mastery 
 of a science requires study ; but while war is going on, men 
 have little time to think, much less to study. They can 
 only use as best they may the new tools that are put into 
 their hands, if their government has not given them modern 
 tools beforehand. Even admitting, though it should never 
 be admitted for a moment, that it is too much to ask that 
 provision should be made for keeping the material in the 
 forefront of scientific progress, there is at least a limit to 
 the distance which it may be allowed to fall in the rear. If 
 we must be out of date, it is better to be four years behind 
 the times than to be twenty years behind. 
 
 It is hard to see how the advocates of a policy of procras- 
 tination can reiterate the old arguments about the success 
 of our naval operations in the war, to justify inaction. It 
 was not really a naval war, for there was hardly a naval 
 enemy. There were three or four cruisers at sea, some of 
 which were captured or destroyed after having obliterated our 
 commerce, and one of which, at least, never was captured. 
 There was an extemporized fleet here and there, made up of 
 anything that came to hand, such as drove the blockading 
 squadron from the Head of the Passes. There was one 
 steam-frigate that had been raised out of the water, and 
 made in some sense a modern war vessel, -which played 
 havoc with her antiquated opponents, and for a month kept 
 the force at Hampton Roads at bay. There were other 
 ironclads which had been fitted out under almost every dis- 
 advantage that circumstances could create, and which had a 
 short career at various points. In coping, not with this 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 239 
 
 force, for it; could hardly be called a force, but with the sim- 
 ple obstruction of natural causes, the navy, as soon as it ob- 
 tained any suitable ships, maintained an extensive blockade, 
 and captured many vessels ; it occupied several points on 
 the coast, but only three of them in the first year ; it was 
 compelled to postpone attacking others until years had 
 been spent in making them impregnable ; and it cruised in 
 the dark after the commerce-destroyers, without adequate 
 sources of intelligence or unity of direction. In the first 
 six months, the enemy had few powerful forts, and fewer 
 torpedoes ; his navy hardly existed ; and yet all that could 
 be done was to effect an entrance at Hatteras Inlet, and to 
 establish a blockade that during this period came near the 
 suspicion of being fictitious, except at a few of the principal 
 ports. If a navy can be built to order after a war begins, 
 how did it happen that with unheard-of efforts there was not 
 an adequate force afloat in September, 1861, to enter every 
 Southern port ? 
 
 The cause did not lie in the officers. Such faults as they 
 had were faults, not of the men, but of the system — a system 
 which ignored the cardinal principle of naval policy, that a 
 navy must always be maintained in a condition of readiness 
 for instant war. Neither in its central organization, nor in 
 the number and mode of advancement of its personnel, nor 
 in the character of its ships, did it approach such a condi- 
 tion. Even the bravery, endurance, and energy of its offi- 
 cers, and the capacity shown in its direction during the war, 
 in the face of extraordinary obstacles, cannot blind us to the 
 fact that the work would have been better and more quickly 
 done under a better system — a system which should utilize 
 the long intervals of peace to prepare, with the utmost thor- 
 oughness, for the sudden emergency of war. 
 

c U. ’ 
 
 isse 
 
 2 
 
 11 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 42 
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 SLS OF THE UNITED STATES NaVY, MARCH 4 , 1861 . 
 
 In Commission. 
 
 Class. 
 
 Sailing-frigates 
 
 Sailing-sloops. 
 
 Store-ships (sails) 
 
 Screw frigate 
 
 Screw -sloops (1st 
 class). 
 
 Side- wheel steamers. . 
 
 Screw-sloops (2d 
 class). 
 
 Screw-steamers (3d 
 class). 
 
 Side- wheel steamers. . 
 Steam-tender 
 
 Name. 
 
 Station. 
 
 Congress 
 
 Coast of Brazil. 
 
 Sabine 
 
 Home Squadron (Pensacola). 
 
 Cumberland 
 
 Home Squadron (returning 
 from Vera Cruz). 
 
 Constellation . . . 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 Macedonian 
 
 Home Squadron (Vera Cruz). 
 
 Portsmouth 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 St. Mary’s 
 
 Pacific. 
 
 Saratoga 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 John Adams 
 
 East Indies. 
 
 Van d alia 
 
 East Indies. 
 
 St. Louis 
 
 Home Squadron (Pensacola). 
 
 Cyane 
 
 Pacific. 
 
 Levant 
 
 Pacific. 
 
 Relief 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 Release 
 
 New York. 
 
 Supply 
 
 New York. 
 
 Niagara 
 
 Returning from Japan. 
 
 San Jacinto . . . 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 Lancaster 
 
 Pacific. 
 
 Brooklyn 
 
 Home Squadron (Pensacola). 
 
 Hartford 
 
 East Indies. 
 
 ! Richmond 
 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 i Susquehanna . . . 
 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 Powhatan 
 
 Home Squadron (returning 
 from Vera Cruz). 
 
 Saranac 
 
 Pacific. 
 
 (Mohican 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 Narragansett . . . 
 
 Pacific. 
 
 Iroquois 
 
 Mediterranean. 
 
 Pawnee 
 
 Washington. 
 
 'Wyoming 
 
 Pacific. 
 
 ' Dacota h 
 
 East Indies. 
 
 i Pocahontas 
 
 I 
 
 Home Squadron (returning 
 from Vera Cruz). 
 
 Seminole 
 
 Coast of Brazil. 
 
 Wyandotte 
 
 Home Squadron (Pensacola). 
 
 Mohawk 
 
 New York. 
 
 Crusader 
 
 New York. 
 
 Sumter 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 Mystic 
 
 Coast of Africa. 
 
 Michigan 
 
 Lake Erie. 
 
 Pulaski 
 
 Coast of Brazil. 
 
 Saginaw 
 
 East Indies. 
 
 Anacostia 
 
 Washington. 
 
 I- — 11. 
 
242 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Available, but not in Commission. 
 
 No. of 
 vessels. 
 
 Class. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Station. 
 
 . 
 
 1 
 
 Shin-of-the-line 
 
 Vermont 
 
 Boston. 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 Potomac 
 
 New York. 
 
 
 
 
 Brandywine 
 
 New York. 
 
 5 
 
 Sailing-frigates 
 
 
 St. Lawrence . . . 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 
 
 
 Raritan 
 
 Norfolk. 
 
 
 
 
 Santee 
 
 Kittery. 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 Savannah 
 
 New York. 
 
 
 
 
 Plymouth 
 
 Norfolk. 
 
 
 
 
 Jamestown 
 
 Philadelphia. ‘ 
 
 
 
 
 Germantown . . . 
 
 Norfolk. 
 
 9 
 
 Sailing- sloops ■{ 
 
 
 Vincennes 
 
 Boston. 
 
 
 
 
 D< catur 
 
 San Francisco. 
 
 
 
 
 Marion 
 
 Portsmouth, N. H. 
 
 
 
 
 Dale 
 
 Portsmouth, N. H. 
 
 
 
 
 Preble 
 
 Boston. 
 
 
 
 
 Bainbridge 
 
 Boston. 
 
 3 
 
 Brigs ^ 
 
 
 Perry 
 
 New York. 
 
 
 
 
 Dolphin 
 
 Norfolk. 
 
 
 
 
 Roanoke 
 
 iNew York. 
 
 
 
 
 Colorado 
 
 Boston. 
 
 5 
 
 Screw-frigates - 
 
 
 Merrin ac 
 
 Norfolk. 
 
 
 
 
 Minnesota 
 
 Boston. 
 
 
 
 
 Wabash 
 
 New York. 
 
 1 
 
 Screw sloop (1st class) . . 
 Side-wheel steamer 
 
 
 Pensacola 
 
 Norfolk. 
 
 1 
 
 
 Mississippi 
 
 Boston. 
 
 1 
 
 Side-wheel steamer (3d ) 
 class). C 
 
 Water Witch.... 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 1 
 
 Sream-fcender 
 
 
 John Hancock . . 
 
 San Francisco. 
 
 27 
 
 
 Unserviceable. 
 
 9 
 
 Ships-of-the-line 
 
 Sailing- frigates 
 
 Permanent store and 
 receiving vessels 
 (sails). 
 
 I 
 
 Pennsylvania . . . 'Receiving ship, Norfolk. 
 
 Columbus ! In ordinary, Norfolk, 
 
 Ohio Receiving ship, Boston, 
 
 North Carolina.. Receiving ship, New York. 
 
 Delaware In ordinary', Norfolk. 
 
 New Orleans On the stocks, Sackett's H’br. 
 
 Alabama |On the stocks, Rittery'. 
 
 Virginia On the stocks, Boston. 
 
 New York On the stocks, Norfolk. 
 
 Constitution Practice ship, Annapolis. 
 
 United States... In ordinary, Norfolk. 
 
 Columbia 'in ordinary. Norfolk. 
 
 Independence. . . Mare Island. California. 
 
 Fredonia Valparaiso. 
 
 Falmouth Aspinwall. 
 
 Warren I Panama. 
 
 2 
 
 Permanent store and 
 receiving vessels < 
 (steam). 
 
 Screw-frigate 
 
 Side-wheel vessel 
 
 Floating battery (steam). 
 
 Alleghany 
 
 Princeton 
 
 Franklin . 
 
 Fulton 
 
 Stevens . . 
 
 Baltimore. 
 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 ^On the stocks, Kittery. 
 In ordinary, Pensacola. 
 Unfinished, Hoboken. 
 
APPENDIX A, 
 
 243 
 
 Summary. 
 
 Class. 
 
 In 
 
 commission. 
 
 Available, 
 but not in 
 commission. 
 
 Unser- 
 
 viceable. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Sailing-vessels : 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ships-of-the-line 
 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 Frigates 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 Sloops 
 
 11 
 
 9 
 
 
 20 
 
 Brigs 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 3 
 
 Store-ships 
 
 *3 
 
 
 *4 
 
 7 
 
 Total 
 
 16 
 
 18 
 
 16 
 
 50 
 
 Steamers : 
 
 
 
 
 
 Screw-frigates 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 Screw-sloops, 1st class 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 
 6 
 
 Side-wheel steamers, 1st class. 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 4 
 
 1 Screw-sloops, 2d class 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 Side-wheel steamers, 2d class. 
 
 
 
 'i 
 
 1 
 
 Screw steamers, 3d class 
 
 *5 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 Side- wheel steamers, 3d class . 
 
 3 
 
 i 
 
 
 4 
 
 Tenders 
 
 1 
 
 l 
 
 
 2 
 
 Permanent store-ships 
 
 
 
 *2 
 
 2 
 
 Floating battery 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 Total 
 
 26 
 
 9 
 
 5 
 
 40 
 
 Total sail and steam 
 
 42 
 
 27 
 
 21 
 
 90 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 Vessels Constructed or Projected, 1861 - 65 . 
 Unarmored Vessels. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Ammonoosuc Class. 
 7 screw-sloops : 
 
 17 to 19 i 
 
 3,213 to 3,713 i 
 
 
 Ammonoosuc (Iowa) . . 
 
 17 
 
 3,213 
 
 
 Bon Homme Richard 
 
 20 
 
 3,213 
 
 Never built. 
 
 Chattanooga 
 
 17 
 
 3,233 
 
 Sunk and after- 
 
 Madawaska (Tennessee) 
 
 17 
 
 3,281 
 
 wards sold, 1872. 
 
 Neshaminy (Nevada) 
 
 17 
 
 3,213 
 
 Sold, 1877. 
 
 Pompanoosuc (Connecticut). . 
 
 19 
 
 3,713 
 
 
 Wampanoag (Florida) 
 
 15 
 
 3,281 
 
 
 Idaho Class. 
 1 screw-sloop : 
 
 
 
 
 Idaho 
 
 8 
 
 2,368 
 
 
 Java Class. 
 
 
 
 
 S screw- sloops, spar deck : 
 
 25 
 
 3,177 
 
 
 Antietain 
 
 25 
 
 3,177 
 
 
 Guerriere 
 
 25 
 
 3,177 
 
 Sold, 1S72. 
 
 Illinois | 
 
 25 
 
 3,177 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 3,177 
 
 On the stocks, 1874. 
 
 Kewaydin (Pennsylvania)... 
 
 25 
 
 3.177 
 
 Minnetonka (California) 
 
 25 
 
 3,177 
 
 Sold, 1S75. 
 
 Ontario (New York) 
 
 25 
 
 3,177 
 
 
 Piscataqua (Delaware) 
 
 25 
 
 3,177 
 
 
 Hassalo Class. 
 
 2 screw-sloops, spar deck : 
 
 25 
 
 3,365 
 
 
 Hassalo 
 
 13 
 
 3,365 
 
 Never built. 
 
 Watauga 
 
 13 
 
 3,365 
 
 1 
 
 Never built. 
 
 1 The first figures under each class indicate the battery and tonnage as pro* 
 jected. 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 245 
 
 Unarmored Vessels— Continued. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Contoocook. Claes. 
 
 10 screw- sloops, clippers, single 
 
 13 
 
 2.34S 
 
 
 deck : 
 
 
 Arapahoe 
 
 13 
 
 2.348 
 
 Never built. 
 
 Contoocook (Albany) 
 
 13 
 
 2,348 
 
 Sold in 1872. 
 
 Keosauqua 
 
 13 
 
 2,348 
 
 Never built. 
 
 Man i ton ( W orcester) 
 
 13 
 
 2,348 
 
 
 Mondarnin 
 
 13 
 
 2,348 
 
 Never built. 
 
 Mosholu (Severn) 
 
 13 
 
 2,348 
 
 Sold, 1877. 
 
 Pushmataha (Congress) . ... 
 
 13 
 
 2.348 
 
 
 Tali gay uta 
 
 13 
 
 2,348 
 
 Never built. 
 
 Wanalosett 
 
 13 
 
 2,348 
 
 Never built. 
 
 Willamette 
 
 13 
 
 2,348 
 
 Never built. 
 
 Kearsarge Class . 
 
 
 
 
 4 screw- sloops : 
 
 8 to 10 
 
 1,023 (average). 
 
 
 Kearsarge 
 
 7 
 
 1.031 
 
 
 Oneida 
 
 0 
 
 1,032 
 
 Sunk, Yedo, 1870. 
 
 Tuscarora 
 
 10 
 
 997 
 
 
 Wachusett 
 
 9 
 
 1,032 
 
 
 Shenandoah Class . 
 
 
 
 
 6 screw-sloops : 
 
 8 to 16 
 
 1,367 to 1,533 
 
 
 Canandaigua 
 
 9 
 
 1,395 
 
 
 Lackawanna 
 
 9 
 
 1,533 
 
 
 Monongahela 
 
 9 
 
 1.378 
 
 
 Sacramento 
 
 9 
 
 1,367 
 
 Wrecked, 1867. 
 
 Shenandoah 
 
 9 
 
 1,378 
 
 Ticonderoga 
 
 9 
 
 1,533 
 
 
 Ossipee Class. 
 
 
 
 
 4 screw-sloops : 
 
 10 to 13 
 
 1,210 
 
 
 Juniata 
 
 9 
 
 1,240 
 
 
 Os.-ipee. 
 
 9 
 
 1.240 
 
 
 Adirondack 
 
 9 
 
 1,240 
 
 Wrecked near Aba - 
 
 Housatonic * 
 
 9 
 
 1,240 
 
 co, Aug. 23. 1862. 
 Sunk (torpedo), 
 
 Serapis Class. 
 8 screw-sloops : 
 
 12 
 
 1,380 
 
 Feb. 17, 1864. 
 
 Algoma (Benicia) 
 
 12 
 
 1.380 
 
 Launched, 1869. 
 
 ( onfiance 
 
 12 
 
 1,380 
 
 Not built. 
 
 Detroit 
 
 12 
 
 1,380 
 
 Not built. 
 
 Meredosia 
 
 12 
 
 1,380 
 
 Not built. 
 
 Peacock 
 
 12 
 
 1,380 
 
 Not built. 
 
 Serapis 
 
 12 
 
 1,380 
 
 Not built. 
 
 Taghkanic 
 
 12 
 
 1.380 
 
 Not built. 
 
 Talladega 
 
 12 
 
 1,380 
 
 Not built. 
 
 Resaca Class. 
 
 
 
 
 4 screw- sloops : 
 
 8 
 
 831 to 900 
 
 
 Nantasket 
 
 10 
 
 900 
 
 
 Quinnebaug 
 
 10 
 
 831 
 
 
 Resaca 
 
 10 
 
 900 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Swatara 
 
 10 
 
 831 
 
 
 
 
 
 
246 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Unarmored Vessels— Continued. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Nlpsic Class. 
 
 
 
 
 8 screw-sloops : 
 
 7 to 12 
 
 593 
 
 
 Kansas 
 
 8 
 
 593 
 
 
 Maumee 
 
 4 
 
 593 
 
 Sold, 1869. 
 
 Nipsic 
 
 4 
 
 593 
 
 
 Nyack 
 
 3 
 
 593 
 
 
 Pequot 
 
 4 
 
 593 
 
 Sold, 1869. 
 
 Saco 
 
 3 
 
 593 
 
 
 Shawmut 
 
 3 
 
 593 
 
 
 Yantic 
 
 
 
 
 . Unadilla Class. 
 
 
 
 
 S3 screw-gunboats : 
 
 4 to 7 
 
 507 
 
 
 Aroostook 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1869. 
 
 Cayuga 
 
 
 
 Sold. Oct. 25, 1865. 
 
 Chippewa 
 
 
 
 Sold, Nov. 30, 1865. 
 
 Chocura 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Huron 
 
 
 
 Sold, May 14, 1809. 
 
 Itasca 
 
 
 
 Sold, Nov. 30, 1665. 
 
 Kanawha 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1866. 
 
 Katahdin. 
 
 
 
 Sold, Nov. 30, 1865. 
 
 Kennebec 
 
 
 
 Sold, Nov. 30, 1865. 
 
 Kineo 
 
 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Marblehead 
 
 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Ottawa 
 
 
 
 Sold. Oct. 25, 1665. 
 
 Owasco 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1865. 
 
 Pembina 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1865. 
 
 Penobscot 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1869. 
 
 Pinola 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1865. 
 
 Sagamore 
 
 
 
 Sold. 1866. 
 
 Sciota 
 
 
 
 Sunk (torpedo), 
 1865 ; sold, 1865. 
 
 Seneca 
 
 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Tahoma 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Unadilla 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1869. 
 
 Winona 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1865. 
 
 Wissahickon 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1865. 
 
 Pinta Class. 
 
 
 
 
 9 screw-tugs : 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Fortune 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Leyden 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Mayflower 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Nina 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Palos 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Pinta 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Speedwell 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Standish 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Triana 
 
 2 
 
 350 
 
 
 Pilgrim Class. 
 
 
 
 
 2 screw-tugs : 
 
 2 
 
 170 
 
 
 Maria 
 
 .... 
 
 .... 
 
 
 Pilgrim 
 
 
 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 247 
 
 Unarmored Vessels— Continued. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 Remarks, 
 
 Octorara Class. 
 
 
 
 
 12 side-wh’l stmrs, double-enders 
 
 7 to 11 
 
 730 to 950 
 
 
 Cimmerone 
 
 10 
 
 860 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Conemaugh 
 
 8 
 
 955 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Genesee 
 
 4 
 
 803 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Mahaska 
 
 6 
 
 832 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Maratanza 
 
 6 
 
 786 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Miami 
 
 7 
 
 730 
 
 Sold, 1865. 
 
 Octorara 
 
 6 
 
 829 
 
 Sold, 1866. 
 
 Paul Jones 
 
 6 
 
 863 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Port Royal 
 
 8 
 
 805 
 
 Sold, 1866. 
 
 Sebago 
 
 6 
 
 852 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Sonoma 
 
 6 
 
 955 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Tioga 
 
 6 
 
 819 
 
 Sold, 1807. 
 
 Sassactis Class. 
 
 
 
 
 27 side-wh'l stmrs, double enders : 
 
 10 to 14 
 
 974 
 
 
 Agawam 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Algonquin 
 
 12 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1869. 
 
 Ascutney 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1868. 
 
 Chenango 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Chicopee 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 1865. 
 
 Eutaw 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1805. 
 
 Iosco 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 
 Lenapee 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Mackinaw 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Massasoit 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Mattabesett 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Mendota 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Metacomec 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1868. 
 
 Mingoe 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 1867. 
 
 Osceola 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Soldi 1867. 
 
 Otsego 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sunk (torpedo), 
 Dec. 9, 1864. 
 
 Pawtuxet 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1567. 
 
 Peoria 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Pontiac 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Pontoosuc 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1866. 
 
 Sassacus 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Shamrock 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Tacony 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Tallahoma 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Tallapoosa 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 
 Winooski 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Wyalusing 
 
 8 
 
 974 
 
 Sold, 1867. 
 
 Mohongo Class. 
 
 7 side- wheel steamers, iron, dou- 
 
 
 
 
 ble enders : 
 
 10 
 
 1,030 
 
 
 Ashuelot 
 
 10 
 
 1,030 
 
 
 Mohongo 
 
 10 
 
 1,034 
 
 Sold, 1870. 
 
 Monocacy 
 
 10 
 
 1,030 
 
 Muscoota 
 
 10 
 
 1,< 30 
 
 Sold, 1869. 
 
 Shamokin 
 
 10 
 
 K 1,030 
 
 Sold. 1869. 
 
 Suwanee 
 
 10 
 
 1.030 
 
 Wrecked. 
 
 Winnipec 
 
 10 
 
 1,030 
 
 Sold, 1869. 
 
248 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Unarmoiied Vessels — Continued. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Water ee Class. 
 
 1 side-wh‘1 steamer, iron, double- 
 
 12 
 
 974 
 
 
 ender : 
 
 Wateree 
 
 12 
 
 974 
 
 Wrecked, 1868. 
 
 Ironclads. 
 
 Sea-going broadside vessels (case- 
 mate) : 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 D under berg 
 
 5,090 
 
 (Roc ham beau); 
 sold, 1867. 
 
 New Ironsides 
 
 IS 
 
 3,486 
 
 Burned, League Is- 
 land. 
 
 Sea-going turret vessels : 
 
 
 
 
 Dictator 
 
 2 
 
 3.033 
 
 
 Puritan 
 
 4 
 
 3,265 
 
 
 Roanoke 
 
 6 
 
 3,435 
 
 
 Kalamazoo Class. 
 
 
 
 
 4 double-turret monitors : 
 
 4 
 
 3,200 
 
 
 Kalamazoo (Colossus) 
 
 4 
 
 3,200 
 
 
 Passaconaway (Mass.) 
 
 4 
 
 3,200 
 
 
 Quinsigamond (Oregon) 
 
 4 
 
 3,200 
 
 
 Shackamaxon (Nebraska) . . . 
 
 4 
 
 3,200 
 
 
 Monadnock Class , 
 
 
 
 
 4 double-turret monitors : 
 
 4 XV-in. 
 
 1.564 
 
 
 A gamenticus (Terror) 
 
 4 XY-in. 
 
 1.564 
 
 
 Miantonomoh 
 
 4 XV-in. 
 
 1,564 
 
 
 Monadnock 
 
 4 XV-in. 
 
 1,564 
 
 
 Tonawanda (Amphitrite) .... 
 
 4 XV-in. 
 
 1,564 
 
 
 Onondaga Class. 
 
 
 
 
 1 double-turret monitor : 
 
 4 
 
 1.250 
 
 
 Onondaga 
 
 4 
 
 1,250 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Winnebago Class. 
 
 
 
 
 4 double-turret monitors : 
 
 4 
 
 970 
 
 
 Chickasaw 
 
 4 
 
 970 
 
 Sold, 1874. 
 
 Kickapoo (Kewaydin) 
 
 4 
 
 970 
 
 Sold, 1874. 
 
 Milwaukee 
 
 4 
 
 970 
 
 Sunk (torpedo), 
 March 28, 1865. 
 
 Winnebago (Tornado) 
 
 4 
 
 970 
 
 Sold. 
 
 Canonicus Class. 
 
 
 
 
 9 single turret vessels : 
 
 2 
 
 1,034 
 
 
 Canonicus 
 
 2 
 
 1,034 
 
 
 Catawba 
 
 2 
 
 1,034 
 
 Sold, 1868. 
 
 Mahopac 
 
 2 
 
 1,034 
 
 
 Manayunk 
 
 2 
 
 1,034 
 
 
APPENDIX B. 
 
 249 
 
 Ironclads — Continued. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Canonicus Class — Continued. 
 
 
 
 
 Manhattan 
 
 2 
 
 1,034 
 
 
 Oneota . 
 
 2 
 
 3,034 
 
 Sold, 1868. 
 
 Saugus 
 
 2 
 
 1,034 
 
 
 Tinpecanoe (Wyandotte) 
 
 2 
 
 3,034 
 
 Sunk at Mobile. 
 
 Tecumseh 
 
 2 
 
 1,034 
 
 Passaic Class. 
 
 
 
 
 10 single-turret vessels : 
 
 2 to 4 
 
 844 
 
 
 Camanche 
 
 .... 
 
 844 
 
 
 Catskill 
 
 
 844 
 
 
 Lehigh 
 
 2 
 
 844 
 
 
 Montauk 
 
 2 
 
 844 
 
 
 Nahant 
 
 2 
 
 844 
 
 
 N an tucket 
 
 2 
 
 844 
 
 
 Passaic 
 
 2 
 
 844 
 
 
 Patapsco 
 
 2 
 
 844 
 
 Sunk, Jan. 35, 1865. 
 
 Sangamon (Jason) 
 
 2 
 
 844 
 
 Weehawken 
 
 2 
 
 840 
 
 Sunk, Dec. 6, 1863. 
 
 Ya~oo Class. 
 
 
 
 
 20 single-turret vessels : 
 
 1 to 2 
 
 640 
 
 
 Casco (Hero) 
 
 
 614 
 
 
 Chimo (Piscataqua) 
 
 
 614 
 
 
 Cohoes 
 
 
 614 
 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 
 Etlah 
 
 
 614 
 
 Klamath 
 
 
 614 
 
 Sold, 3874. 
 
 Koka 
 
 
 614 
 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 
 M odoc 
 
 
 614 
 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 
 Napa 
 
 
 614 
 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 
 Naubuc (Minnetonka) 
 
 
 614 
 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 
 Nausett 
 
 
 614 
 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 
 Shawnee 
 
 
 614 
 
 Shiloh (Iris) 
 
 
 614 
 
 Sold, 1874. 
 
 Squando (Algoma) 
 
 
 614 
 
 Broken up, 3874. 
 
 Suncook 
 
 
 614 
 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 
 Tunxis (Otsego) 
 
 
 614 
 
 Umpqua 
 
 
 614 
 
 Sold, 1874 ; N. O. 
 
 Wassuc 
 
 
 614 
 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 
 Waxsaw (Niobe) 
 
 
 .... 
 
 Broken up, 1874. 
 
 Yazoo 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1874. 
 
 Yuma 
 
 
 
 Sold, 1874. 
 
 2 single-turret vessels : 
 
 2 
 
 479 
 
 
 Marietta 
 
 2 
 
 479 
 
 Sold, 1873. 
 
 Sandusky 
 
 2 
 
 479 
 
 Sold, 1873. 
 
 3 single-turret vessels : 
 
 Neosho (Osceola ) 
 
 2 to 7 
 2 
 
 623 
 
 Sold, 1873. 
 
 Osage 
 
 2 
 
 623 
 
 Sunk, 1865. 
 
 Ozark 
 
 7 
 
 578 
 
 Sold, 1865. 
 
 2 casemate vessels : 
 
 3 to 5 
 
 
 
 Chillicothe 
 
 3 
 
 *203 
 
 Sold, 1865. 
 
 Tuscumbia’ 
 
 5 
 
 505 
 
 Sold, 1868. 
 
250 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 Miscellaneous. 
 
 Name. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Tonnage. 
 
 Remarks. 
 
 Galena 
 
 6 
 
 738 
 
 
 Indianola 
 
 4 
 
 442 
 
 Captured in 1863. 
 Sunk in 1863. 
 
 "Keokuk 
 
 2 
 
 677 * 
 
 Monitor 
 
 2 
 
 776 
 
 Sunk in 1862. 
 
 
 
APPENDIX G 
 
 Instructions from Flag-Officer Goldsborough to Offi- 
 cers Commanding Blockading Vessels. 
 
 All officers commanding vessels employed on blockading service belonging to the 
 squadron under my command, are to be governed by the following general direc- 
 tions in the discharge of their duties : 
 
 1. Duly not'fy neutrals of the declaration of the blockade, and give to it other- 
 wise all the publicity in your power. 
 
 2 . The blockade must be strict and absolute, and only public armed vessels of 
 foreign powers are to be permitted to enter the ports which are placed in a state 
 of blockade. 
 
 3. Protect our commerce from the depredations of privateers, and, as a matter 
 of course, capture them and all other vessels of the enemy whenever you can do 
 so without being seduced away from your station. 
 
 4. A lawful maritime blockade requires the actual presence of an adequate force 
 stationed at the entrance of the port, sufficiently near to prevent communication. 
 The only exception to this rule arises out of the occasional temporary absence of 
 the blockading vessels, produced by accident, as in the case of a storm, which 
 does not suspend the legal operation of a blockade, and to take advantage of such 
 an accidental absence is a fraudulent attempt to break the blockade, and will 
 justify the application of penalties. 
 
 5. A neutral or foreign vessel, proceeding toward the entrance of a blockaded 
 port, is not to be captured or detained if she shall not have received previously 
 from one of the blockading squadron a special notification of the existence of the 
 blockade. This notification must be inserted in writing on the register and mus- 
 ter-roll of the neutral vessel by the cruiser which meets her, and it should contain 
 the announcement, together with statements of the day and the latitude and 
 longitude in which it was made. 
 
252 
 
 THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS. 
 
 6. Until the ports are closed by proclamation (that is, declared to be no longer 
 ports of entry) the warning just mentioned is to be continued to vessels instead of 
 capturing at once, as will be the case when they come to be so closed. 
 
 7. Vessels leaving guarded insurgent ports without legal clearances are to be 
 seized and sent in for adjudication. If it be claimed that there is not an effective 
 blockade, and therefore that they are entitled to depart, still they must not dis- 
 regard our municipal laws and the requirements of the National Government. 
 
 8. On the coast of North Carolina more particularly, there is an extensive 
 scheme of deliberately concerted measures to evade our vigilance and disregard 
 our laws. This must be broken up, and every effort is to be made to accomplish 
 the purpose effectually. 
 
 9. Vessels with contraband goods on board, approaching any of the blockaded 
 ports, or vessels that may have cleared for any of these ports, or be found, with a 
 due warning on their papers, hovering about any of them, are all to be seized and 
 sent in for adjudication. 
 
 L. M. Goldsborough, 
 
 Flag -Officer, 
 
 September 28, 1861, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adams, Charles Francis, 180, 190, 
 213 
 
 Alabama, the, 150 ; built, 190 et 
 seq. ; captures Ariel, 194 ; 
 sinks the Hatteras, 195 et seq. ; 
 armament of, 2C6 ; fights Kear- 
 sarge, 207 et seq.; sunk, 212 
 
 Albemarle, the, 97 et seq.; at- 
 tempts made to destroy, 100 
 et seq.; destroyed, 104 et seq. 
 
 Atlanta, the, in Wassaw Sound, 
 116 et seq. 
 
 Bahia, neutrality of, violated, 187 
 
 Bailey, Commodore Theodorus, 
 commands East Gulf squad- 
 ron, 123 et seq. 
 
 Bankhead, Commander, commands 
 Monitor, 79 et seq. 
 
 Bayou City, the, 147 et seq. 
 
 Beaufort, N. C. , headquarters 
 blockading squadron, 46, 94 
 
 Bell, Commodore Henry H., 141, 
 150 et seq. 
 
 Bermuda, usefulness to blockade- 
 runners, 37 et seq. , 153 et seq. 
 
 Blockade, its establishment, 27 et 
 seq. ; prizes taken during, 44 ; 
 vessels destroyed during, 44 ; 
 
 effect of, 44 et seq. ; objects 
 of, 83 ; Confederate view of, 88 
 et seq. 
 
 Blockade-runners, 34 et seq. ; deci- 
 sions against, 38 et seq. ; strata- 
 gems of, 38 et seq., 91; de- 
 scription and history of, 153 
 et seq. 
 
 Blockading squadron, East Gulf, 
 123; difficulties of, 123 et 
 seq. 
 
 Blockading squadron, Gulf, 121 et 
 seq. 
 
 Blockading squadron, North At- 
 lantic, 90 et seq. 
 
 Blockading squadron, South At- 
 lantic, 90, 105 et seq.; disposi- 
 tion of, 115, 116 
 
 Blockading squadron, West Gulf, 
 123 
 
 British Government, warlike prep- 
 arations of, 1 80 et seq. ; viola- 
 tion of neutrality by, 190, 200, 
 225 et seq. 
 
 Brooke, Lieutenant John M., 22; 
 restores Merrimac, 54 
 
 Brooklyn, the, 11, 121, 173 et seq., 
 195, 198 
 
 Buchanan, Captain Franklin, com- 
 
254 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 mands Merrimac, 62 ; wound- 
 ed, 68, 76 
 
 Cape Fear River, 91 et seq. 
 
 Chaplin, Lieutenant, bravery of, 86 
 
 Charleston, S. C., blockade of, 84, 
 84 et seq., 87 et seq., 107 et 
 seq. ; attempts to raise block- 
 ade of, 109, 111 et seq., 158 
 et seq. 
 
 Chicora, the, attempts to raise 
 blockade of Charleston, 109 et 
 seq. 
 
 Clarence, the, 186 
 
 Clifton, the, 143, 144 (note), 146 et 
 seq., 152 
 
 Collins, Commander Napoleon, cap- 
 tures the Florida, 189 ; his act 
 disavowed, 189 et seq. 
 
 Colorado, the, 121, 172 
 
 Confederate Government, naval 
 policy of, 168 et seq. ; its agents 
 abroad, 182 
 
 Congress, the, 60 et seq. ; taken, 
 64 ; burned, 65 
 
 Craven, Commodore, commands 
 Potomac flotilla, 87 et seq. 
 
 Crocker, Acting Master, com- 
 mands expedition to Sabine 
 River, 142 et seq. 
 
 Crosman, Lieutenant, 124 et seq. 
 
 Cumberland, the. 48, 52, 60 et seq. ; 
 sunk by the Merrimac, 63 et 
 seq. 
 
 Cushing, Captain, daring exploits 
 of, 94 et seq,, 101, 161 
 
 Cuyler, the, 122, 135, 139 
 
 Dahlgren, Admiral, 105 
 
 Downes, Commander, 117 et seq. 
 
 Dupont, Admiral, 90, 105, 115 
 
 Ericsson, John, plans monitor, 55 
 
 Farragut, Admiral, 90, 123, 141, 
 145 et seq., 148, 150 
 Florida, blockade of, 124 et seq. 
 Florida, the, fights the Massachu- 
 setts, 132 ; runs blockade cf 
 Mobile, 137 et seq. , 184 et seq. ; 
 captured at Bahia, 187 
 Flusser, Lieutenant-Commander, 
 97 ; killed, 98 
 Fisher, Fort, 90 
 
 Fox, Captain Gustavus V., 61 
 (note), 66 (note), 234 et seq. 
 Freeborn, the, 86 
 
 Galveston, Tex., blockaded, 35, 
 140 et seq., 143 et seq. 
 Georgetown, 87 et seq. 
 
 Georgia, the, built, 214 ; cruises, 
 214 et seq. ; sold, 215 
 Goldsborough, Commodore L. M., 
 60, 76 et seq., 90 et seq. 
 Greene, Lieutenant S. Dana, on 
 Monitor, 56, 69 
 Gunboats built, 19 
 Guns, naval, before and during the 
 war, 2, 15 ; loss of, at Norfolk, 
 54 
 
 Hampton Roads, blockaded, 47, 
 82, 85 
 
 Handy, Captain Robert, 12S, 131 
 Harriet Lane, 143, 144 (note), 146 
 et seq. ; captured, 148 
 Hatteras Inlet, 90 
 Hatteras, the, 150 ; fights Ala- 
 bama, 195 et seq. 
 
 Havana, a port for blockade-run- 
 ners, 37 
 
 Housatonic, the, 111 
 Huntsville, the, 122, 136 
 
 Ironclads at the outbreak of the 
 war, 2 
 
INDEX. 
 
 255 
 
 Iroquois, the, 11 ; chases Sumter, 
 175 
 
 Isherwood, B. F., Engineer -in- 
 Chief, 49 
 
 Jamestown, the, 64, 66, 77 
 
 Jones, Lieutenant Catesby, com- 
 mands Merrimac, 68 
 
 Kearsarge, the, 205; armament 
 of, 206 ; fights Alabama, 207 
 et seq. 
 
 Keystone State, blockades Nor- 
 folk, 35; attacked by rams, 
 HO 
 
 Key West, blockaded, 35 83 
 
 Kittredge, Acting - Lieutenpmt, 
 commands expedition to Cor- 
 pus Christi, 142 
 
 Lardner, Captain, 123 
 
 Lee, Acting Rear-Admiral, com- 
 mands South Atlantic Squad- 
 ron, 90 
 
 Lee, R. E., the, 156 
 
 McCauley, Commodore, 49, 51 ; 
 destroys vessels at Hampton 
 Roads, 51 et seq. 
 
 McKean, Flag Officer Wm. W., 
 relieves Commodore Mervine, 
 123 
 
 Maffitt, Captain, 137 et seq. ; com- 
 mands the Florida, 184 
 
 Mallory, Confederate Secretary of 
 Navy, 22 
 
 Manassas, the, 129 
 
 Maps, the Blockaded Coast, 36 ; 
 Hampton Roads, 50 ; entran- 
 ces to Cape Fear River, 92 ; 
 entrances to Charleston Har- 
 bor, 106 ; passes of the Missis- 
 
 sippi, 127 ; entrance to Mobile 
 Bay, 133 ; Galveston Harbor 
 and entrance, 145 
 Marston, Captain John, 60, 67 
 Mason, Confederate commissioner, 
 seized, 177 et seq. 
 Massachusetts, the, at Key West, 
 35, 121, 132 
 
 Matamoras, its importance to 
 blockade runners, 37 
 Mattabesett, the, 99 
 Memphis, the, 111 
 Mercedita, the, attacked, 110 et 
 seq. 
 
 Merrimac, the, 48 et seq., 61 ; 
 name changed to Virginia, 61 
 62 ; in Hampton Roads, 63 et 
 seq. ; fight with the Monitor, 
 68 et seq. ; repaired, 76 ; de- 
 stroyed, 78 
 
 Mervine, Commodore Wm., 84; 
 
 commands Gulf Squadron, 121 
 Miami, the, 98 
 
 Minnesota, the, 60, 62, 65 et seq., 
 82, 85 
 
 Mississippi River blockaded, 122; 
 
 passes of, 126 et seq. 
 Mississippi, the, 11, 84, 121 et 
 seq. 
 
 Mobile, Ala. , blockaded, 35, 122 et 
 seq., 132 et seq. 
 
 Monitor, the, built, 55; its con- 
 struction, 56 et seq. ; voyage 
 to Chesapeake, 58 et seq. ; at 
 Hampton Roads, 67 ; fight 
 with the Merrimac, 68 et seq., 
 78 et seq. ; sinks, 81 
 Monroe, Fortress, 47 et seq., 52 
 Montauk, the 216 et seq. ; de- 
 stroys the Nashville, 217 et 
 seq. 
 
 Morgan, Fort, 133, 139 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ^'C 
 
 Morris, Captain, 187 
 Morris, lieutenant, 62 
 
 Nahant, the, 117 et seq. 
 
 Nashville, the, fitted up, 215 et 
 seq. ; destroyed, 217 et seq. 
 Nassau, port for blockade-run- 
 ners, 36 et seq., 155 et seq. 
 Navy, Confederate organization, 
 etc., 21 
 
 Navy, Union organization, 1-21 ; 
 condition of, in 1861, 232; at 
 close of war, 236 
 
 Navy Yard, Norfolk, 46 et seq. ; 
 abandoned, 52 et seq. ; partly 
 destroyed, 53 
 Neptune, the, 147 et seq. 
 
 New Orleans, La., blockade at, 35, 
 46, 122 
 
 Newton, Isaac, Engineer of Mon- 
 itor, 56, 58 
 
 Niagara, the, at Charleston, 34, 84, 
 121 et seq. 
 
 Norfolk, Va., blockaded, 35, 46 et 
 seq., 55, 71 et seq. ; surren- 
 ders, 78 
 
 Officers, naval, at commence- 
 ment of war, 4 et seq. 
 
 Oneida, the, 136 
 
 Oreto, the, 183 
 
 O wasco, the, 144, 144 (note) 
 
 Palmetto State, the, attempts to 
 raise blockade of Charleston, 
 109 et seq. 
 
 Patrick Henry, the, 64, 66 
 Paulding, Commodore Hiram, 51 
 et seq. ; burns Navy Yard at 
 Norfolk, 53 
 Pawnee, the, 11, 51 
 Pendergrast, Commodore, 82, 84 
 
 Pensacola, Fla., blockaded, 35, 46, 
 122 et seq., 132 
 Pensacola, the, 11 
 Ponchartrain Lake blockaded, 46 
 Pope, Captain John, 128, 131 
 Porter, Commodore David D., 90, 
 121 
 
 Port Royal, 105, 107 
 Port Royal, the, 77 
 Potomac River blockaded, 85 
 Powhattan, the, 11, 114, 121 et 
 
 seq. 
 
 Preble, the, 128 et seq. 
 
 Privateers, the, 168 et seq. 
 
 Quaker City, the, 111 
 
 Raleigh, the, 77 
 Rams, at commencement of war, 
 3, 48, 61, 63 et seq., 97 et seq., 
 109 et seq. , 221 
 
 Rappahannock, the, 213 et seq. 
 Renshaw, Commander W. B., 
 commands expedition to Gal- 
 veston, 143 et seq., 149 ; killed, 
 150 
 
 Resolute, the, 86 
 Rhode Island, the, 79 
 Richmond, the, 11, 128 et seq. 
 Roanoke, the, 60, 62, 65 et seq., 
 66 (note) 
 
 Rodgers, Commander John, 117 et 
 seq. 
 
 Rowan, Commander, 91 
 
 Sabine River, its importance to 
 blockade-runners, 142 et seq. 
 St. Lawrence, the, 62, 66 et seq., 89, 
 172 
 
 St Louis, th^, 122 
 San Jacinto, the, 177, 194 
 Sassacus, the, 99 
 
INDEX. 
 
 J57 
 
 Savannah, Ga., blockaded, 35, 85, 
 87 et seq., 107, 109 
 Selfridge, Lieutenant, 51 
 Semmes, Captain, commands the 
 Sumter, 173 et seq. ; com- 
 mands the Alabama, 192 et 
 seq., 209 et seq., 222 et seq. 
 Snenandoah, the, bought, 218 ; 
 
 cruise of, 219 et seq. , 220 
 Ship Island, 132 
 Smith, Captain Melancton, 99 
 Smith, Lieutenant Joseph B., 61 
 South Carolina, the, at Pensacola, 
 35 ; at Galveston, 35, 140 
 Southfield, the, sunk, 98 
 Steamers, disposition at com- 
 mencement of war, 14 ; pur- 
 chases r-P, 17 et seq., 20 et seq. 
 Stonewall, the, 221 
 Stripling, Commodore Cornelius 
 K., 123 
 
 Stringham, Commodore, appointed 
 to command of Atlantic squad- 
 ron, 82, 83 et seq. , 90 
 Sumter, the, 172 et seq. ; sold 176 ; 
 damage done by, 176 
 
 Tauoma, the, 124 et seq. 
 Tallahassee, the, career of, 237 et 
 seq. 
 
 Tattnall, Commodore, assumes 
 command of naval defences 
 of Virginia, 76 ; sinks Merri- 
 mac. 78 
 
 Texas, blockade and coast of, 46 
 
 Torpedoes, invention and early his- 
 tory of, 3 et seq. 
 
 Tredegar Iron Works, 22, 54 
 
 Trent, the, 1 77 et seq. 
 
 Tuscaloosa, the, 199 et seq. 
 
 Union, the, blockades S** Hannah, 
 85 
 
 Vanderbilt, the, 77, 203 et seq. 
 
 Vincennes, the, 128, 130 et seq. 
 
 Wachusett, the, captures the 
 Florida, 188, 202 
 
 Ward, Commodore Jas. H., 85 et 
 seq:; killed, 88 
 
 Water Witch, the, 122, 128 et seq. 
 
 Weehawken, the, captures the At- 
 lanta, 117 et seq. 
 
 Westfield, the, 143, 144 (note) ; 
 146 et seq. ; destroyed, 150 
 
 Wilkes, Captain, 140 ; seizes Ma~ 
 son and Slidell, 177 et seq. 
 
 Wilkes, Captain Chas., commands 
 flying squadron, 201 ; relieved 
 of command, 203 et seq. 
 
 Wilmington, 85, 87 et seq.; harbor 
 of, 91, 92 et seq. 
 
 Winslow, Lieutenant Francis, 128 
 et seq., 135 
 
 Worden, Lieutenant John L., 
 commands Monitor, 56, 67 et 
 seq.; wounded, 71. 75 (note); 
 commands Montauk, 216 
 
 Wyalusing, the, 9& 
 

Messrs. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
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 A Series of volumes, contributed by a number of leading 
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 Esq., Private Secretary to President Lincoln ; late Consul- 
 General to France, etc. 
 
 • 
 
 A preliminary volume, describing the opening of the war, and covering tltflt 
 period from the election of Lincoln to the end of the first battle of Bull Run. 
 
II , — From Fort Henry to Corinth . By the Hon. M. 
 
 F. Force, Justice of the Superior Court, Cincinnatti; late 
 Brigadier-General and Bvt. Maj. Gen’l, U.S.V., commanding 
 First Division, 17th Corps: in 1862, Lieut. Colonel of the 
 
 20th Ohio, commanding the regiment at Shiloh ; Treasurer of 
 the Society ol the Army of the Tennessee. 
 
 The narrative of events in the West from the Summer of 1861 to May, 1862 ; 
 covering the capture of Fts. Henry and Donelson, the JBattle of Shiloh, etc., etc. 
 
 All . — The Peninsula. By Alexander S. Webb, LL.D., 
 President of the College of the City of New York: Assistant 
 Chief of Artillery, Army of the Potomac, 1861 -’62 ; Inspector 
 General Fifth Army Corps; General commanding 2d Div., 
 2d Corps ; Major General Assigned, and Chief of Staff, Army 
 of the Potomac. 
 
 The history of McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, from his appointment to the 
 end of the Seven Days’ Fight 
 
 IV. — The Army under Pope. By John C. Ropes. Esq., 
 of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, the Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society, etc. 
 
 From the appointment of Pope to command the Army of Virginia, to the appoint- 
 ment of McClellan to the general command in September, 1862 
 
 V. — The AnHefam and Fredericksburg By Francis 
 Winthrop Palfrey, Bvt. Brigadier Gen’l, U.S.V., and form- 
 erly Colonel 20th Mass. Infantry ; Lieut. Col of the 20th 
 Massachusetts at the Battle of the Antietam ; Member of 
 the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts, of the Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society, etc. 
 
 From the appointment of McClellan to the general command, September, 1862, to 
 the end of the battle of Fredericksburg. 
 
 V T.-r- Chancellor sville and Gettysburg. By Abner 
 Doubleday, Bvt. Maj. Gen’l, U. S. A , and Maj. Gen’l, 
 U.S.V. ; commanding the First Corps at Gettysburg, etc. 
 
 From the appointment of Hooker, through the campaigns of Chancellorsville and 
 Gettysburg, to the retreat of Lee after the latter battle. 
 
 VII. — The Army of the Cumberland. By Henry M. 
 Cist, Brevet Brig. Gen’l U.S.V. ; A.A.G. on the stnff of 
 Major Gen’l Rosecrans. and afterwards on that of Major Gen’l 
 Thomas ; Corresponding Secretary of the Society of the Army 
 of the Cumberland. 
 
 From tlie formation of the Army of the Cumberland to the end of the battles at 
 Chattanooga, November, 1863. 
 
VIII. — The Mississippi. By Francts Vinton Greene, 
 Lieut, of Engineers, U. S. Army ; late Military Attache to the 
 U S. Legation in St. Petersburg ; Author of “ The Russian 
 Army and its Campaigns in Turkey in 1877-78,” and of 
 “Army Life in Russia.” 
 
 An account of the operations — especially at Vicksburg and Port Hudson — by 
 vrhich the Mississippi River and its shores were restored to the control of the Union. 
 
 IX. — Atlanta. By the Hon. Jacob D. Cox, Ex-Governor of 
 
 Ohio; late Secretary of the Interior of the United States; 
 Major General U. S.V., commanding Twenty-.third Corps 
 during the campaigns of Atlanta and the Carolinas, etc., etc. 
 
 From Sherman’s first advance into Georgia in May, 1864, to the beginning of 
 the March to the Sea. 
 
 X. —The March to the Sea— Franklin and Nashville. 
 
 By the Hon. Jacob D. Cox. 
 
 From the beginning of the March to the Sea to the surrender of Johnston — 
 including also the operations of Thomas in Tennessee. 
 
 XI. — The Shenandoah Valley in 1SG4. The Cam- 
 
 paign of Sheridan. By George E. Pond, Esq., Asso- 
 ciate Editor of the Army and Navy Journal . 
 
 XII. — The Virginia Campaign of’GA and ’65. The 
 Army of the Potomac and the Army of the 
 James. By Andrew A. Humphreys, Brigadier General 
 and Bvt. Major General, U. S. A. ; late Chief of Engineers ; 
 Chief of Staff, Army of the Potomac, 1863-64; commanding 
 Second Corps, 1864-65, etc., etc. 
 
 Statistical Itecord of the Armies of the United 
 States. By Frederick Phisterer, late Captain U. S. A. 
 
 This Record includes the figures of the quotas and men actually furnished by 
 all States ; a list of all organizations mustered into the U. S. service; the strength 
 of the army at various periods ; its organization in armies, corps, etc.; the divisions 
 of the country into departments, etc.; chronological list of all engagements, with the 
 losses in each ; tabulated statements of all losses in the war, with the causes of 
 death, etc.; full lists of all general officers, and an immense amount of other valuable 
 statistical matter relating to the War. 
 
 The complete Set, thirteen volumes, in a box. Price, $12.50 
 Single volumes, . . . . . • i.eo 
 
 V * For rale by all booksellers , or sent , fast-paid, upon receipt of price , by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 
 
NOW COMPLETE 
 
 In three volumes, 12mo, with Maps and Plans. 
 
 Navy in the Civil War 
 
 HE WORK OF THE NAVY in the suppression of the Rebellion was 
 
 certainly not less remarkable than that of the Army. The same 
 forces which developed from our volunteers some of the finest bodies of 
 soldiers in military history, were shown quite as wonderfully in the creation 
 of a Navy, which was to cope for the first time with the problems of modern 
 
 The facts that the Civil War was the first great conflict in which steam 
 was the motive power of ships ; that it was marked by the introduction ot 
 the ironclad ; and that it saw, for the first time, the attempt to blockade 
 such a vast length of hostile coast — will make it an epoch for the techinal 
 student everywhere. 
 
 But while the Army has been fortunate in the number and character of 
 those who have contributed to its written history, the Navy has been com- 
 paratively without annalists. During a recent course of publications on 
 the military operations of the war, the publishers were in constant receipt 
 of letters pointing out this fact, and expressing the wish that a complete 
 naval history of the four years might be written by competent hands. An 
 effort made in this direction resulted in the cordial adoption and carrying 
 out of plans by which Messrs. CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS are 
 enabled to announce the completion of a work of the highest authority and 
 interest, giving the whole narrative of Naval Operations from 1861 to 1865. 
 
 I. THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS.— By Pro- 
 fessor J. Russell Soley, U. S. Navy. 
 
 II. THE ATLANTIC COAST.— By Rear-Admiral Daniel 
 
 Ammen, U. S. Navy. 
 
 III. THE GULF AND INLAND WATERS. — By Commander 
 A. T. Mahan, U. S. Navy. 
 
 Uniform with (( The Campaigns of the Civil War,” with majs 
 and diagrams prepared under the direction of the Authors. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 THE 
 
 warfare. 
 
 Price per Volume, $1.00. 
 
 7 I I Ji : -I! Droxdway, X<w Ytn-li. 
 

 
 
 
 
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