within, aided by some gunboats outside, and the assailants were driven off with a loss of about two hundred.

But little more was done against Charleston during the rest of the year. General Gillmore thought that, as Sumter's guns were silenced, the fleet might easily pass into the harbor and capture Charleston. But Admiral Dahlgren did not care to run the risk of the torpedoes and powder-mines over which he knew he would have to pass. Besides, General Beauregard had taken advantage of the long delay in taking Wagner to strengthen the inner forts. Fort Johnson had been made into a powerful earthwork, and the fleet, even if Sumter were passed, would meet with as hot a fire as had been experienced outside. General Gillmore therefore contented himself with repairing Wagner and Gregg and turning their guns on Charleston and the forts defending it. As they were a mile nearer the city than the Swamp Angel battery, a slow bombardment was kept up until near the end of the year. About half of Charleston was reached by the shells, and many buildings were greatly injured. As the wharves and most of the harbor were under fire, blockade-runners could no longer run in, and the business of the city was thus wholly destroyed.

In December the Weehawken was unfortunately lost in a gale while lying at anchor off Morris Island. Her hatches being carelessly left open, the waves swept over her and filled her with water, and she went suddenly to the bottom, carrying down thirty of her crew.

But little was done in North Carolina during 1863, the Union troops contenting themselves with holding the places. along the coast which they had won. In March the Confederate General D. H. Hill tried to retake New Berne, but was driven off. He then attacked Little Washington, on the Pamlico River. General Foster hastened thither from New Berne. Hill, who had a large force, nearly surrounded the place and began a regular siege, and soon the garrison got out of supplies, excepting what could be brought to the town in small boats during the night. At last the steamboat Escort ran the blockade of the batteries by night with a supply of provisions and ammunition. General Foster returned to New Berne in her at great risk, for she was struck by forty-seven cannon-shot as she went down the river, and putting himself at the head of seven

1863.]

I'SE JUST SAM.

399

thousand men, marched back to raise the siege. But Hill did not wait for him, and Foster found the Confederates in full retreat.

A few raids were made inland during the rest of the year, chiefly for the purpose of destroying railways, mills, machine shops, cotton, and whatever might aid the enemy in a: a military way. Many negroes followed the raiding parties back to the coast, some bringing along their wives and little ones and all their household goods, as if intending to leave their old homes forever. They were received kindly and generally set at work to build earthworks or to raise food for the soldiers, but some of the able-bodied ones were formed into companies and drilled as soldiers. On arriving within the Union lines the contrabands were generally sent to headquarters, and funny scenes often. took place when they were questioned by the officer in charge. One day a bright-looking negro came to report.

"What's your name?" asked the officer.

"Sam.'

"Sam what?"

"No, sar, not Sam Watt. I'se just Sam."

"What's your other name?"

"Hasn't got no oder name, sar. I'se Sam, dat's all." "What's your master's name?"

"Got none; massa runned away. Yah! yah! free nigger now." And Sam's mouth stretched from ear to ear, as if he enjoyed the situation.

"Well, what's your father's or your mother's name?" persisted the officer.

"Got none, sar.

nobody else."

Nebber had none. I'se just Sam. Aint

"Haven't you any brothers or sisters?"

"No, sar, nebber had none: no brudder, no sister, no fader, no mudder, no massa-nothin' but Sam. When you see Sam, you see all dere is of us.”

CHAPTER XXXIII.

PRIVATEERS.-MOBILE BAY.

EXPEDITION TO FLORIDA.-BATTLE OF OLUSTEE.-LOSS OF PLYMOUTH.-RAID OF THE ALBEMARLE.-HER DESTRUCTION BY CUSHING.-THE CONFEDERATE PRIVATEERS.-THE ALABAMA.-CAPTAIN SEMMES.-THE FIGHT WITH THE KEARSARGE.-RESCUE OF SEMMES.--THE FLORIDA AND THE WACHUSETT.-THE SHENANDOAH.-WHALERS BURNED. THE LAST HOSTILE ACT.-RAMS FOR THE EMPEROR OF CHINA.-THE STONEWALL-THE ALABAMA CLAIMS. -MOBILE BAY.-FARRAGUT PASSES THE FORTS.-THE ADMIRAL IN THE SHROUDS.-SINKING OF THE TECUMSEH.-TORPEDOES.-FOUR BELLS.-THE RAM IS COMING.-FIGHT WITH THE TENNESSEE.-RAMMING THE RAM.-SAVE THE ADMIRAL-SURRENDER OF THE FORTS.

G

ENERAL GILLMORE, finding it impossible to do much more at Charleston without a larger force, determined to send an expedition to Florida. Early in February, 1864, a fleet of twenty steamers and eight schooners sailed from Port Royal, went up the St. John's River and occupied Jacksonville. From there the troops, about six thousand in number, marched westward on the railroad to Baldwin, when General Gillmore returned to Port Royal, leaving General Truman Seymour in command. On the 20th of February, Seymour had advanced to Olustee, where he fell into an ambuscade set for him by the Confederate General Finnegan, and was badly defeated with a loss of five guns and about fifteen hundred men, while that of the enemy was only about half as many. Seymour fell back to Jacksonville, burning large quantities of stores to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy, and this ended the Florida expedition.

In April, 1864, the Union General Henry W. Wessells was attacked in Plymouth, on the Roanoke River, North Carolina, by the Confederate General R. F. Hoke, with about seven thousand men. The place was well fortified and defended by twenty-four hundred men and three gunboats. Hoke first attacked Fort Warren, a small earthwork a little way up the river. He was aided in this by an iron-clad ram, named the Albemarle, which the Confederates had built up the Roanoke. The gunboat Bombshell went up to help the garrison, but the ram disabled and captured her. The Confederates next took Fort Wessells, a mile further down the river, and then laid siege to Plymouth, The Albemarle ran by Fort Warren, sunk

1864.]

RAID OF THE ALBEMARLE.

401

the Union gunboat Southfield and drove away the gunboat Miami, after killing her commander and wounding many of her crew. The ram then shelled the town, and the next day the Confederates assaulted it and the forts in such force that General Wessells was forced to surrender. Hoke took sixteen hundred prisoners, twenty-five cannons, and many valuable stores. The fall of Plymouth caused the evacuation of Little Washington by the Union troops, and Hoke then laid siege to New Berne.

In May the Albemarle, accompanied by the captured Bombshell and the steamboat Cotton Plant filled with sharpshooters, went down from Plymouth and attacked the Union gunboats doing blockade duty off

the mouth of the Roanoke River. The Cotton Plant soon went back, and the Bombshell, after receiving a broadside from the Sassacus, hauled down her flag. The Albemarle was hit many times, but the shot glanced from her sides as those of the Monitor had from the iron plates of the Merrimac. The Sassacus finally rammed her, striking her so heavy a blow as to nearly

WILLIAM B. CUSHING.

force her under water. At length the Albemarle put a shot through one of the boilers of the Sassacus, killing three men and wounding six. In a minute the vessel was filled with scalding steam, and the Sassacus became unmanageable. The Albemarle then retreated slowly to Plymouth, firing as she went, leaving the Bombshell in the hands of the Unionists. Hoke had expected the iron-clad to help him to capture New Berne, but she did not appear again, and he soon had to give up the siege and go to Virginia to aid in the defence of Petersburg.

After this but little was done in North Carolina for several months; but the Albemarle still lay at Plymouth, and there was danger of her making another attack on the Union fleet. She

was finally destroyed by a brave young lieutenant, William B. Cushing, who blew her up with a torpedo. Though only twenty years old, he was one of the most daring officers in the navy, and he had become noted for his fearlessness in the expeditions in the sounds and rivers of North Carolina.

FIRE-BALL.

One dark night (Oct. 27) he set out from the fleet in a steam launch-a long open boat used by naval vessels-with a crew of thirteen officers and men. The launch was fitted with a torpedo, which could be run out forward on the end of a long boom so as to be thrust under the vessel to be attacked. Cushing got within sixty feet of the Albemarle before his boat was seen. The guards then shouted the alarm, rang the boat's bell, and began firing their muskets at the launch. There was a raft of logs thirty feet wide around the Albemarle to protect her from just such attacks, but Cushing ran the bow of the launch upon the logs, lowered the boom so that the torpedo came right under the side of the vessel, and fired it. At the same moment a shot from one of the great guns of the ram crashed through the launch, and it was overwhelmed by a flood of water thrown up by the explosion of the torpedo. The Confederates called out to Cushing to surrender, but he refused, and ordering his men to save themselves as they best could, he sprang into the water amid a shower of musket balls and swam down the river. He succeeded in reaching the shore, almost exhausted, and hid himself during the next day in a swamp, where he was cared for by some negroes. From them he heard that the Albemarle had been sunk by his torpedo. The next night he found a small boat in a creek, paddled in it down the river, and before midnight was safe on board one of the vessels of the fleet. Only one other man of the party escaped, all the rest being either drowned or captured. The Albemarle being thus put out of the way, Plymouth was recaptured a few days afterward.

GREEK-FIRE SHELL.

We must now go upon the high seas and watch the doings of the Confederate privateers. Some of the earlier of these are told about in Chapter XI.; but the Confederates, with the aid of British ship-builders, soon sent out four more powerful vessels which drove American commerce from the ocean. These ships