566

THE CONFEDERATE "CONGRESS."

While a large portion of the time of Congress, during the session of 1861-'62, was consumed in the consideration of military measures, and especially the subjects of slavery, confiscation, and emancipation, the finan cial affairs of the country, and public interests of every kind, were attended to with great assiduity. The financial measures and their operations and results will be considered hereafter. Let us now turn for a moment, and see what the Conspirators were doing at Richmond while their armies were in the field.

The Confederate "Congress," so called, reassembled in Richmond on the 18th of November, 1861, and continued in session, with closed doors most of the time, until the 18th of February, 1862, when its term as a "Provisional Congress," made up of men chosen by conventions of politicians and legislatures of States, expired. On the same day a Congress, profes

driven from the State more than twenty years before, because he emancipated his slaves. He was residing in Wisconsin when the rebellion began. When Beaufort came into the permanent possession of the National

forces, he was appointed tax-collector of the district from which he had been driven. In that district the first regiment of colored troops for the National army was organized. They were stationed on Smith's plantation (see map on page 126), about a mile and a half from Beaufort, near the ruins of the old Spanish fort Carolina, which gave the name to the State; and there, in a magnificent oak-grove near the water, Dr. Brisbane addressed them and a large concourse of people, white and colored, on the 1st of January, 1863. There he who had been driven from that, his native soil, because he emancipated a little more than thirty slaves, announced that on that day the President of the United States had proclaimed freedom for over three millions of slaves! What changes time and circumstances bring! When the writer had visited and sketched that grove, and strolled over the remains of the Spanish fort, and through the desolation of the once beautiful garden in front of the Smith mansion, hedged in by palmettos, his attention was called to a huge oak, on the gentle bank of Beaufort River, with double stems, between which were seats. On one of them, overlooking the harbor of Beaufort and Lady's Island, a Massachusetts Doctor of Divinity sat and wrote, a few years before, a large portion of a book devoted to a Defense of Negro Slavery!

Dr. Brisbane was living in the fine old mansion of Edmond Rhett, one of the most violent of the South Carolina secessionists, in which it is said the treasonable "Southern Association" held its meetings (see note 1, page 91, volume I.), and where the form of the South Carolina

Ordinance of Secession, afterward offered by Inglis in the Convention, was discussed. Beaufort was the summer resort of the aristocracy, so called, of South Carolina, and in its churchyards lie the remains of many distinguished persons. In that of the Episcopal church, and not far from the new-made grave of General Elliott, the writer saw and sketched a white marble monument in the form of a palmetto-stem, on the recumbent slab at the foot of which was the following suggestive inscription: "Sacred to the memory of Hugh Toland, son of Melvin and Eliza Sams. Born December 31st, 1846. Died July 29th, 1860. A youthful son of South Carolina, he sought to serve her, even while preparing for her better future service, and entered the State Military Academy in his seventeenth year. Carrying with him the impress of his childhood's training, he exhibited to his Alma Mater a respectful devotion akin to that which animated him as a son. His courteous bearing, hightoned sentiments, and exemplary conduct for nearly four years secured for him the high esteem of his professors and affectionate regards of his fellow-cadets. All grieve for their loss. This tribute is paid by his commanding officer. What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter. John xiii. 17.'

JEFFERSON DAVIS AND HIS COUNCIL.

567

sedly elected by the people,' commenced its session under the "Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States." In this assembly all of the slavelabor States were represented excepting Maryland and Delaware.' The oath to support the Constitution of the Confederate States was administered to the "Senators" by R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, and to the "Representatives" by Howell Cobb, of Georgia. Thomas Bocock, of Virginia, was elected "Speaker." On the following day the votes for "President" of the Confederacy were counted, and were found to be one hundred and nine in number, all of which were cast for Jefferson Davis. Three days afterward he was inaugurated President for six years. He chose for his "Cabinet" Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, as "Secretary of State;" George W. Randolph, of Virginia, "Secretary of War; S. R. Mallory, of Florida, "Secre

tary of the Navy;" C. G. Memminger, of South Carolina, "Secretary of the Treasury ;" and Thomas H. Watts, of Alabama, "AttorneyGeneral." Randolph resigned in the autumn of 1862, when James A. Seddon, a wealthy citizen of Richmond, who figured conspicuously in the Peace Convention at Washington, was chosen to fill his place.

The Confederate "Congress passed strong resolutions in favor of prosecuting the war more vigoously than ever, and declared, by joint resolution, that it was the

JAMES A. SEDDON.

a Feb. 22,

1862.

unalterable determination of the people of the Confederate States "to suffer all the calamities of the most protracted war," and that they would never, "on any terms, politically affiliate with a people who were guilty of an invasion of their soil and the butchery of their citizens. With this spirit they did prosecute the war on land, and by the aid of some of the British aristocracy, merchants, and shipbuilders they kept afloat piratical craft on the ocean, that for a time drove most of the carrying trade between the United States and Europe to British vessels.

We have already noticed the commissioning of so-called "privateers " by the Confederate "Government," and some of their piratical operations

1 In most instances these elections were as much the voice of the people as was that held in Virginia, in accordance with the following proposition of a leading paper in Richmond in the interest of the conspirators: -"It being necessary to form a ticket of electors, and the time being too short to call a Convention of the people, it was suggested that the Richmond editors should prepare a ticket, thus relieving the people of the trouble of making selections. The ticket thus formed has been presented. Among the names we find those of Wm. L. Goggin, of Bedford, and R. T. Daniel, of Richmond; E. H. Fitzhugh, of Ohio County; John R. Edmunds, of Halifax, and C. W. Newton, of Norfolk City. Every district in the State is embraced in this editorial report."

For a list of the members of the "Provisional Congress" see page 468.

3 The votes were as follows:-Alabama, 11; Arkansas, 6; Florida, 4; Georgia, 12; Louisiana, 8; Mississippl 9; North Carolina, 12; South Carolina, 8; Tennessee, 18; Texas, 8; Virginia, 18.

4 See chapter X., volume I.

See page 872, volume I.

568

CONFEDERATE PIRATE SHIPS.

in the spring and summer of 1861. Before the close of July, more than twenty of those depredators were afloat, and had captured millions of property belonging to American citizens. The most formidable and notorious of the sea-going ships of this character, were the Nashville, Captain R. B. Pegram, a Virginian, who had abandoned his flag, and the Sumter, Captain Raphael Semmes. The former was a side-wheel steamer, carried a crew of eighty men, and was armed with two long 12-pounder rifled cannon. Her career was short, but quite successful. She was finally destroyed by the

1862.

Montauk, Captain Worden," in the Ogeechee River. The career Feb. 28, of the Sumter, which had been a New Orleans and Havana packet steamer, named Marquis de Habana, was also short, but much more active and destructive. She had a crew of sixty-five men and

PIRATE SHIP SUMTER.

b 1861.

twenty-five marines, and was heavily armed. She ran the blockade at the mouth of the Mississippi River on the 30th of June, and was pursued some distance by the Brooklyn. She ran among the West India islands and on the Spanish Main, and soon made prizes of many vessels bearing the American flag. She was every where received in British colonial ports

with great favor, and was afforded every facility for her piratical operations. She became the terror of the American merchant service, and everywhere eluded National vessels of war sent out in pursuit of her. At length she crossed the ocean, and at the close of 1861 was compelled to seek shelter under British guns at Gibraltar, where she was watched by the Tuscarora. Early in the year 1862 she was sold, and thus ended her piratical career.

Encouraged by the practical friendship of the British evinced for these corsairs, and the substantial aid they were receiving from British subjects in various ways, especially through blockade-runners, the conspirators determined to procure from those friends some powerful piratical craft, and made arrangements for the purchase and construction of vessels for that purpose. Mr. Laird, a ship-builder at Liverpool and member of the British Parliament, was the largest contractor in the business, and, in defiance of every obstacle, succeeded in getting pirate ships to sea.

The first of these ships that went to sea was the Oreto, ostensibly built for a house in Palermo, Sicily. Mr. Adams, the American minister in London, was so well satisfied from information received that she was designed for the Confederates, that he called the attention of the British Government to the matter so early as the 18th of February, 1862. But nothing effective was done, and she was completed and allowed to depart from British waters. She went first to Nassau, and on the 4th of September suddenly appeared

827.

The appearance of the remains of the Nashville in the Ogeechee River is seen in the tail-piece on page

THE PIRATES SEMMES AND MAFFIT.

569

off Mobile harbor, flying the British flag and pennants. The blockading squadron there was in charge of Commander George H. Preble, who had been specially instructed not to give offense to foreign nations while enforcing the blockade. He believed the Oreto to be a British vessel, and while deliberating a few minutes as to what he should do, she passed out of range of his guns, and entered the harbor with a rich freight. For his seeming remissness Commander Preble was summarily dismissed from the service without a hearing-an act which subsequent events seemed to show was cruel injustice. Late in December the Oreto escaped from Mobile, fully armed for a piratical cruise, under the command of John Newland Maffit, son of a celebrated Irish Methodist preacher of that name. Maffit had been in the naval service of the Republic, but had abandoned his flag, and now went out to plunder his countrymen on the high seas "without authority." The name of the Oreto was changed to that of Florida. Her career will be noticed hereafter.

JOHN NEWLAND MAFFIT.

The most famous of all these pirate ships built in England for the conspirators was the Alabama, made for the use of Semmes, the commander of the Sumter. As in the case of the Oreto, Mr. Adams called the attention of the British Government to the matter, but every effort to induce it to interpose

its authority, in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Queen's proclamation of neutrality, was fruitless. The Tuscarora watched her, but in vain. She was allowed to depart, with ample assistance, and under false pretenses she was supplied with cannon and other materials of war by an English merchant vessel, in a Portuguese harbor of the Western Islands. When all was in readiness, Captain Semmes and other officers of the Sumter were brought to her by a British steamer, and she left for Cardiff, to coal. Semmes took formal command, mustered his crew, and read his commission, duly signed and sealed by the Confederate "Secretary of the Navy." A copy of that commission, in blank, is given on the following page."

RAPHAEL SEMMES.3

See page 567, volume I.

This is from a photograph by Ferranti, of Liverpool, taken in the summer of 1864.

4 That copy is a perfect fac-simile of the original, a little less than one-third the size. The original was engraved n England, and printed on elegant vellum, and it was much superior in material and execution to the commissions issued by our own Navy Department. The space within the wreath, on the trophy vignette at the bottom, was the place of the seal.

570

CONFEDERATE NAVAL COMMISSION.

With orders from the Conspirators "to sink, burn, and destroy every thing which flies the ensign of the so-called United States of America," Semmes went forth on the ocean in the Alabama to achieve fame as one of

CONFEDERATE NAVAL COMMISSION.

the most eminent sea-robbers noted in history, and succeeded. His vessel had neither register nor record, no regular ship's papers, no evidence of transfer; and no vessel captured by her was ever sent into any port for adjudication. All the forms of law of civilized nations for the protection of