General Ripley, with instructions to see that they are provided with quarters in a part of the city occupied by non-combatants, the majority of which lat ter, you state, are women and children. You add that you deem it proper to inform me that it is a part of the city which has been, for many months, exposed to the fire of our guns. Many months since, Major-General Q. A. Gillmore, United States Army, notified General Beauregard, then commanding at Charleston, that the city would be bombarded. This notice was given that non-combatants might be removed, and thus women and children spared from harm. General Beauregard, in a communication to General Gillmore, dated August 22, 1863, informed him that the non-combatant population of Charleston would be removed with all possible celerity. That women and children have been since retained by you, in a part of the city which has been for many months exposed to fire, is a matter decided by your own sense of humanity. I must, however, protest against your action, in thus placing defenseless prisoners of war in a position exposed to constant bombardment. It is an indefensible act of cruelty, and can be designed only to prevent a continu ance of our fire upon Charleston. That city is a depot for military supplies. It contains not merely arsenals, but also foundries and factories for the manufacture of munitions of war. In its ship-yards, several armed iron-clads have already been completed, while others are still upon the stocks in course of construction. Its wharves and the banks of the rivers, on both sides of the city, are lined with batteries. To destroy these means of continuing the war is, therefore, our object and duty. You seek to defeat this effort, not by means known to honorable warfare, but by placing unarmed and defenseless prisoners under fire. I have forwarded your communication to the President, with the request that he will place in my custody an equal number of prisoners, of the like grades, to be kept by me in positions exposed to the fire of your guns, so long as you continue the course stated in your communication. (Signed,) Very respectfully, your obedient servant, J. G. FOSTER, Major-General Commanding." Foster's request was complied with, and the rebels were soon glad to abandon this barbarous mode of carrying on war, and to propose an exchange of prisoners. Outside of military operations, nothing caused so much excitement, this month, as the re-nomination of Mr. Lincoln by the Republican party, as the candidate for the Presidency, in the election to come off in the ensuing Fall. The two great political parties were organizing for a polit ical campaign which was to be almost as bitter and deadly as that which was carried on in the field. CHAPTER XXX. JUNE, 1864. CHALLENGES WINS BUILDING AND FITTING OUT OF THE ALABAMA IN AN ENGLISH PORT-COM- BUT THE KEARSARGE AND ALABAMA. UT while the month of June was pregnant with such great events in our own borders, there occurred a seafight on the other side of the Atlantic, that will ever occupy a prominent place in our naval history. On Sunday, the 19th of June, the same Sabbath that followed the last grand assault on Petersburg, and while we were gathering up our wounded, and burying our dead, that fell in front of the rebel works, and while Sherman was lying at the base of Kenesaw Mountain, preparing to storm its impregnable defenses, the Kearsarge and Alabama were engaged in mortal combat, off the quiet port of Cherbourg, in France. The Alabama, with other vessels, had been built by private enterprise, in England, ostensibly for neutral powers, or commercial purposes, but, after clearing the English coast, took 420 THE ALABAMA. in their armaments and crews, and hoisting the Confederate flag, preyed upon our commerce. The Alabama was a powerful steamer, a swift sailer, and carrying guns of the heaviest kind. She had been a bold, successful cruiser for two years, though she had carefully avoided a contest with our war vessels, except in the single instance, when she attacked and sunk the Hatteras, which was no match for her, off Galveston harbor. Standing fearlessly along the track of our commerce, on the Atlantic, she had made the ocean lurid with the flames of burning merchantmen. Our fastest vessels had been sent in search of her, and the Vanderbilt had steamed half-way round the globe in the vain effort to capture her. Down the coast of the Eastern Continent, around the Cape of Good Hope, into the Indian Ocean, she had proudly flaunted her hated flag, and destroyed our merchantmen. She with others, had well-nigh driven our ships from the ocean, so that our commerce was carried on almost entirely in foreign bottoms. Her launch from an English dock-yard, had caused the most serious complaints to be made, by our Government, against Great Britain; such conduct being denounced as a breach of neutrality. The discussion of the question is not ended yet, and though the steamer lies at the bottom of the sea, she may, in the end, be the cause of the gravest difficul ties between the two nations. Unable to carry her prizes into any port, she plundered them of what she needed, sparing some, on the captains' giv ing bonds to pay a certain sum of money after the estab lishment of Southern independence, and burning the rest on the high seas. She had been the terror of our commerce, as far as the Indian Ocean, from which she had just returned and entered the port of Cherbourg for repairs. Captain Winslow, commanding the Kearsarge, had long been in search of her, CHALLENGE OF SEMMES. 421 and the moment he heard of her arrival, set sail, and lay off the mouth of the harbor, for the purpose of following her to sea when she again left port, and forcing her to a combat. On the 14th, Semmes sent Captain Winslow the following challenge: "CONFEDERATE STATES' STEAMER ALABAMA, SIR-I hear that you were informed by the United States Consul that the Kearsarge was to come to this port solely for the prisoners landed by me, and that she was to depart in twenty-four hours. I desire you to say to the United States Consul that my intention is to fight the Kearsarge as soon as I can make the necessary arrangements. I hope these will not detain me more than till to-morrow evening, or after to-morrow morning, at the farthest. I beg she will not depart before I am ready to go out. I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient Servant, He very much mistook the Commander of the Kearsarge, if he supposed it was necessary to send a challenge to get a fight out of him. He had come to Cherbourg for no other purpose, and intended, by no means, to leave till he could follow the bold corsair out on the deep, and there sink him, or be sunk himself. The Sabbath morning, of the 19th of June, broke in all the loveliness of early Summer over the rippling sea. A gentle breeze drifted lazily in from the ocean, and the sun, half shorn of his brightness, looked down through a hazy atmosphere, on the town and port, and revealed the Kearsarge gently swaying to the easy swell, as she lay three miles off the entrance, watching the movements of her antagonist. News of the expected fight had spread to Paris, and, in the morning, an excursion train came down from the French Capital loaded with passengers, eager to witness the combat. The boatmen of the port swarmed like hackmen around the terminus of the railway, offering the services of their boats to those who wished "to see a genuine naval battle, 422 BEFORE THE COMBAT. that was to come off during the day." A photographer, with all his apparatus and materials, perched himself on a church tower, to take an impression of the contest. Spectators swarmed upon every spot, commanding a view of the harbor and sea beyond, while boats flew about in every direction as on a great holiday. The bells of the churches of Cherbourg had not yet done pealing, when the rebel steamer cast off her fastenings and began to steam slowly out of port. Semmes had taken the precaution to send ashore sixty chronometers that he had taken from his prizes, his money, and bills of ransomed ves sels; thus showing that he was fully aware of the desperate character of the conflict that awaited him. As the steamer slowly drifted past the end of the mole, crowded with human beings, a great shout rent the air, and "God speed you," rolled over the waters. The next moment the drums were heard beating to quarters. The iron-plated frigate, Couronne, accompanied her to the limit of the French waters, while the English yacht, Deerhound, followed in her wake out to sea. This was about half-past ten, and Winslow, as soon as he descried his adversary approaching, turned his ship's head seaward, to avoid the question of jurisdiction, and to draw the Alabama so far off that, in case of being disabled, she could not get back into port, and thus escape capture. The Alabama followed after, till the former was about seven miles from shore, when Winslow turned short about, and steered straight for the privateer, intending to run her down. The latter immedi ately sheered off and slowed her engines, presenting her starboard battery to her enemy. While the Kearsarge was still a mile off, there suddenly came sharp puffs of smoke from the side of the Alabama, followed by the heavy, dull reports of the guns that rolled heavily away over the shuddering waters. |