more especially in devising, con- | part of such as liberal pay, more lib structing, charging, and planting torpedoes, wherewith they did more execution and caused more embarrassment to blockaders and besieging squadrons than had been effected in any former war. Their devices for obstructing the mouths or channels of rivers and harbors were often unsurpassed in efficiency. On the ocean, however, they were hampered by the fact that the Southrons are neither a ship-building nor a sea-faring people; that, while they had long afforded the material for a large and lucrative commerce, they had neither built, nor owned, nor manned, many vessels. They would, therefore, have been able to make no figure at all out of sight of their own coast, but for the facilities afforded them by British sympathy and British love of gain, evading the spirit if not the strict letter of international maritime law. Great ship-building firms in Liverpool and Glasgow, wherein members of Parliament were largely interested, were almost constantly engaged in the construction of strong, swift steamships, calculated for corsairs and for nothing else; each being, when completed, in spite of information from our consuls and protests from our Minister, allowed to slip out of port under one pretext or another, and make for some prearranged rendezvous, where a merchant vessel laden with Armstrong, Whitworth, Blakely, and other heavy rifled guns of the most approved patterns, with small arms, ammunition, provisions, &c., was awaiting her; and, her cargo being quickly transferred to the embryo corsair, a crew was made up, in part of men clandestinely enlisted for the service, in eral promises, and the cajolery of officers, could induce to transfer their services to the new flag; and thus the unarmed, harmless British steamship of yesterday was transformed into the Confederate cruiser of to-day: every stick of her British, from keel up to mast-head; her rigging, armament, and stores, British; her crew mostly British, though a few of her higher officers were not; and, thus planned expressly to outrun any heavily armed vessel and overpower any other, she hoisted the Confederate flag and commenced capturing, plundering, burning, and sinking our merchant vessels wherever she could fall upon them unprotected by our navy: every British port, on whatever sea, affording her not only shelter and hospitality, but the fullest and freshest information with regard to her predestined prey and the quarter wherein it could be clutched with least peril. Shielded from the treatment of an ordinary pirate, by the Queen's proclamation of neutrality, and from effective pursuit by the mar itime law which forbids the stronger belligerent to leave a neutral harbor within twenty-four hours after the weaker shall have taken his departure, though the latter may have dodged in just out of range of the former, after a keen chase of many hours one of these corsairs was able to do enormous damage to our commerce with almost perfect impunity; for, by the time her devastations in one sea had been reported to our nearest naval commander, she would be a thousand miles away (but in what direction none could guess), lighting up another coast or strait with the glare of her conflagrations. THE ALABAMA AND THE FLORIDA. 643 If it be gravely held that Great Bri- | after vieing with her consort, the tain was nowise responsible for the Alabama-a new British vessel henceravages of these marauders, then it forth commanded by Semmes-and must be confessed that the letter of with other such from time to time existing international law does no fitted out, in their predatory career. justice to its spirit and purpose, but Each of these habitually approached stands in need of prompt and thor- her intended prey under her proper ough revision. (British) colors, but hoisted the Confederate so soon as the prize was securely within her grasp. Occasionally, a vessel of little value was released on condition of taking to port the crews of several of the most recently burned; a few were bonded, mainly because they carried British cargoes or were insured in British offices; but the great majority were simply robbed of their money, food, &c., and burnt. Among those bonded by the Alabama was the steamship Ariel, on her way from New York to Aspinwall, with the California passengers and freight; but the $250,000 which was to have been her ransom, being expressly "payable six months after the recognition [by the United States] of the independence of the Southern Confederacy," has not yet fallen due. Such was the just alarm caused by this capture, while several National vessels were anxiously looking for the Alabama, that the Ariel dared not bring the specie from California that met her at Aspinwall, but left it there, until a gunboat was sent for it by the Government; and the specie continued to be so transmitted for some months thereafter. The career of the Sumter, Capt. Raphael Semmes, came to an early and inglorious end, as has already been narrated.' But another and superior cruiser was promptly constructed at Birkenhead to replace her; which our Embassador, Hon. Charles F. Adams, tried earnestly, but in vain, to have seized and detained at the outset by the British Government. Escaping from Liverpool under the name of Oreto, she was twice seized at Nassau, but to no purpose: that island being the focus of blockade-running, and, of course, violently sympathetic with the Rebellion-as was, in fact, nearly every officer in the British naval or military service. Released from duress, she put to sea, and soon appeared as a British ship of war off the harbor of Mobile, then blockaded by Com'r Geo. H. Preble, who hesitated to fire on her lest she should be what she seemed; and in a few minutes she had passed him, and run up to Mobile, showing herself the Rebel corsair she actually was. Preble was promptly dismissed from the service -an act of justice which needed but a few repetitions to have prevented such mistakes in future. Running out again under cover of darkness, the Oreto, now commanded by John N. Maffitt, became the Florida, there The merchant ships captured and destroyed by these freebooters were hundreds in number, and the value of vessels and cargoes amounted to many scores of millions of dollars. clergyman of like name, who was Irish by birth, and a noted pulpit orator. *Nov. 18, 1862. But the damage thus inflicted was not limited to this destruction-far from it. The paralysis of commerce -the transfer (at a sacrifice) of hundreds of valuable ships to British owners (real or simulated) in order that they might be allowed to keep the seas with impunity-with the waste of money and service involved in sending many costly and formidable steamships to every ocean and almost every port in quest of some corsair, which was plundering and burning, perhaps on one side of a petty island, while the Vanderbilt or Tuscarora was vainly seeking it on the other-which was sure to be anywhere but where it was awaited or sought-and which would drop into the neutral harbor whither its pursuer had repaired for coal, or food, or information, and lie there by his side, bearding him with impunity; taking its own time to depart in peace and safety, because no pursuit was allowed for the next 24 hours such are the bare outlines of a system of maritime injury and annoyance which for years sickened the hearts of stanch upholders of the Union. That the officers of the Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and their confrères, were greeted in every British port with shouts and acclamations, receptions and dinners, as though they had been avowed Britons engaged in honorable warfare with their country's deadly foe, was observed by loyal Americans with a stinging consciousness of the hollowness and fraud of British neutrality which will not soon be effaced. And, when every remonstrance made by our Government or its representative against the favor shown to these pri 5 June 12, 1863. vateers, not only in their construction, but throughout their subsequent career, was treated as though we had asked Great Britain to aid us against the Confederates, when we had only required that she cease to aid unwarrantably our domestic foes, the popular sense of dishonesty and wrong was with difficulty restrained from expressing itself in deeds rather than words. Early in May, 1863, the Florida, while dodging our gunboats among the innumerable straits and passages surrounding the several West Indies, captured the brig Clarence, which was fitted out as a privateer and provided with a crew, under Lt. C. W. Read, late a midshipman in our navy. This new buccaneer immediately steered northward, and, sweeping up our southern coast, captured some valuable prizes; among them, when near Cape Henry, the bark Tacony,' to which Read transferred his men, and stood on up the coast; passing along off the mouths of the Chesa peake, Delaware, New York, and Massachusetts bays, seizing and destroying merchant and fishing vessels utterly unsuspicious of danger; until, at length, learning that swift cruisers were on his track, he burned the Tacony (in which he would have been easily recognized), and in the prize schooner Archer, to which he had transferred his armament and crew, stood boldly in for the harbor of Portland; casting anchor at sunset at its entrance, and sending at midnight two armed boats with muffled oars up nearly to the city, to seize the steam revenue cutter Cushing and bring her out for his future use. This was done; but, no sooner * June 24. CAPTURE OF THE FLORIDA IN BAHIA HARBOR. 645 $13,455,000. All but 17 of these vessels were burned. But now the Tallahassee, in August, swept along the Atlantic coast of the loyal States, destroying in ten days 33 vessels; while the Chickamauga, in a short cruise, burned vessels valued in all at $500,000. The Florida likewise dart had the Cushing left, under her new | by Rebel captures were 193 vesmasters, than she was missed, and sels; valued, with their cargoes, at two merchant steamers were armed and manned (by volunteers) and started after her. She was soon overhauled, and, having no guns to cope with her armament, the pursuers were about to board, when her captors took to their boats, firing half-adozen shots at her and blowing her up. The Portland boys kept on tilled along our coast, doing great damthey captured first the boats, then age there and thereafter; finally the Archer, towed them up to their running into the Brazilian port of city in triumph, and lodged Read and Bahia; having just captured and his freebooters snugly in prison. burnt the bark Mondamon off that port. Here she met the U. S. steamer Wachusett, Capt. Collins, and came to anchor, as a precaution, in the midst of the Brazilian fleet and directly under the guns of the principal fort; and here, after ascertaining that he could not provoke her to fight him outside the harbor, Capt. Collins bore down upon her, at 3 A. M., while part of her crew were ashore; running at her under a full head of steam with intent to crush in her side and sink her; but, not striking her fairly, he only damaged, but did not cripple her. A few small-arm shots were fired on either side, but at random, and without effect. Capt. Collins now demanded her surrender, with which the lieutenant in command-(Capt. Morris, with half his crew, being ashore)—taken completely by surprise and at disadvantage— had no choice but to comply. In an instant, the Florida was boarded from the Wachusett, a hawser made fast to her, and the captor, crowding all steam, put out to sea; making no reply to a challenge from the Brazilian fleet, and unharmed by three shots fired at her from the fort; all The merchant steamer Chesapeake, plying between New York and Portland, was seized' by 16 of her passengers, who, suddenly producing årms, proclaimed themselves Confederates, and demanded her surrender; seizing the captain and putting him in irons, wounding the mate, and killing and throwing overboard one of the engineers. After a time, they set the crew and passengers ashore in a boat, and, putting the steamer on an easterly course, ran her into Sambro harbor, Nova Scotia, where she was seized by the Union gunboat Ella and Anna, taken, with a portion of her crew, to Halifax, and handed over to the civil authorities. The prisoners were here rescued by a mob; but the steamboat was soon, by a judicial decision, restored to her owners. During 1864, in addition to those already at work, three new BritishConfederate corsairs, named the Tallahassee, Olustee, and Chickamauga, were set afloat; adding immensely to the ravages of their elder brethren. Up to the beginning of this year, it was computed that our direct losses * Dec. 6, 1863. 8 Dec. 16. 'Oct. 5, 1864. 10 Oct. 7. 10 which passed over her. The Brazilian naval commander tried to chase; but was not fast enough, and soon desisted. The Wachusett and her prize soon appeared in Hampton roads; where the latter was sunk by a collision a few days afterward. There can be no reasonable doubt that, if the Florida was a fair, honest vessel, her capture was a foul one. Our consul at Bahia, Mr. T. F. Wilson, had seasonably protested against the hospitality accorded to her in that port, but without effect. As he was known to be implicated in the capture, his official recognition as consul was revoked. On a representation of the case by the Brazilian Minister, Gov. Seward, in behalf of President Lincoln, disavowed the acts of Collins and Wilson, dismissed the latter from office, suspended the former from command, and ordered him to answer for his act before a courtmartial. He further announced that the persons captured on board the Florida should be set at liberty. But he took care to place this reparation wholly on the ground of the unlawfulness of any unauthorized exercise of force by this country within a Brazilian harbor-no matter if against a conceded pirate—saying: "The Government disallows your assumption that the insurgents of this country are a lawful naval belligerent; on the contrary, it maintains that the ascription of that character by the Government of Brazil to insurgent citizens of the United States, who have hitherto been, and who still are, destitute of naval forces, ports, and courts, is an act of intervention, in derogation of the law of nations, and unfriendly and wrongful, as it is manifestly injurious, to the United States. "So, also, this Government disallows your assumption that the Florida belonged to the aforementioned insurgents, and maintains, on the contrary, that that vessel, like Aug. 15. 11 the Alabama, was a pirate, belonging to no nation or lawful belligerent, and, therefore, that the harboring and supplying of these piratical ships and their crews in Brazilian ports were wrongs and injuries for which Brazil justly owes reparation to the United States, as ample as the reparation which she now receives from them. They hope and confidently expect this reciprocity in good time, to restore the harmony and friendship which are so essential to the welfare and safety of the two countries." The Georgia was a Glasgow-built iron steamboat, which had left Greenock, as the Japan, in April, 1863; receiving her armament when off the coast of France, and at once getting to work as a beast of prey. Having destroyed a number of large and valuable merchant ships, she put in at Cherbourg, and afterward at Bourdeaux; whence she slipped over to England, and was sold (as was said) to a Liverpool merchant for £15,000. She now set out for Lisbon, having been chartered, it was given out, by the Portuguese Government; but, when 20 miles from her port of destination, she was stopped" by the U.S. steam-frigate Niagara, Capt. Craven, who made her his prize; returning with her directly to England, and landing her captain and crew at Dover. Her seizure provoked some newspaper discussion, but its rightfulness was not officially questioned. The Alabama had already come to grief. After a long and prosperous cruise in the South Atlantic and Indian oceans, she had returned to European waters, taking refuge in the French port of Cherbourg; when the U. S. gunboat KEARSARGE," which was lying in the Dutch harbor of Flushing, being notified by telegraph, came around at once to look after her. Semmes, however, seems to have been quite ready for the en 12 So named after a mountain in New Hampshire. |