The home squadron numbered 12 vessels, carrying Chap. IV. 187 guns. The available force was subsequently reduced by the loss of the ships destroyed at Norfolk, and of a steamer seized by the Confederates at Pensacola. This small marine was utterly out of proportion to the demands about to be made on it, and no exertion was spared to increase it as rapidly as possible. The East India, Mediterranean, Brazil, and African squadrons were brought home, ships unfinished were pressed on to completion, a great number of vessels, from first-class steamers to ferry-boats and tugboats, were bought or chartered, and such as could be made serviceable for enforcing the blockade were manned, armed, and sent with all speed to the South.1 The naval force employed on this service was divided into two squadrons, one for the Atlantic and the other for the Gulf of Mexico.

Of the blockade itself I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. Here it is enough to say

1. That it was set on foot, as regards the ports of Virginia, on the 30th April, and was extended to the principal ports of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts before the end of May.

2. That it was enforced from first to last as international blockades are enforced. The rules of international, not of municipal, law were invoked and applied. Neutral ships and cargoes were captured, not only at the mouths of blockaded ports, but on the high seas— an exercise of force which no municipal law can possibly warrant, and which international law permits only in time of war, and to belligerent Powers. And this exercise of power was sustained by the Courts of the

1 The total number of vessels purchased for the naval service in 1861 was 137; the total number of steamers built and contracted for was 52, of which three were iron-clads. At the close of 1863 the naval force of the United States numbered 588 vessels, complete or in course of completion. Of these 75 were iron-clads.

G

Chap. IV. United States against the complaints of neutral shipowners and merchants, on the express ground that it was a belligerent right, and that the United States were a belligerent Power.1

If at the beginning of the war the naval force at the disposal of the Federal Government was insignificant, compared with the work expected of it and the dimen- . sions it afterwards assumed, it must be added that the revolted States had at the same time no naval force at all. They had, as we have seen, a Naval Department, and had made considerable appropriations for the support of a navy and the purchase of gun-boats, and they had at their command many capable officers who were eager for employment. But they had not a single ship constructed for war, nor had they a large mercantile marine to draw upon. The Southerners were not a seafaring race. Their carrying trade had been divided between foreign shipowners and those of the North; and though their forests yielded ship-timber in abundance, few ships were either built or owned in Southern seaports. All that the Confederate Government could do was to arm as many vessels as it could find, capable of being employed in that predatory warfare which has

1 See Note I at the end of this Chapter.

2 Between the 11th November and the 4th March 56 officers of the United States' Navy resigned their commissions. The number of those who resigned or were dismissed between the 4th March and the 4th June was 259.

3 The tonnage built in Southern ports in 1854 was as follows

The total was less than was built in the small State of New Hampshire

alone.

11603

hitherto been sanctioned by the law and practice of Chap. IV. nations, and send them to sea as fast as means and

opportunity would allow.

A long pivot-gun, or a

fighting crew, was
Before the end of

couple of 8-inch columbiads, with a
armament enough for this purpose.
May several of these troublesome insects were on the
wing, and not fewer than twenty prizes had been
brought into New Orleans.1 From thirty to forty armed
ships appear to have been fitted out in Confederate ports
during the year, of which six or seven had been United
States' revenue-cutters, and two or three had been
slavers. Some sailed with letters of marque, but many,
perhaps the greater number, were owned and commis-
sioned by the Confederate Government. The most
powerful was the paddle-wheel steamer Calhoun, of
1,058 tons, commanded by Captain Hollins, an officer of
some repute in the United States' navy. The smallest,
probably, was the tiny Savannah, of 54 tons, converted
from a Charleston pilot-boat into a privateer. She ran
out from Charleston early in June, and succeeded in
making one prize; but, closing her career immediately
afterwards by mistaking a Federal brig-of-war for a
merchantman, was the first Confederate craft that fell
into the hands of the enemy.

1 On the 1st May Mr. Seward wrote to Lord Lyons: "The so-called Confederate States have waged an insurrectionary war against this Government. They are buying, and even seizing, vessels in several places for the purpose of furnishing themselves with a naval force, and they are issuing letters of marque to privateers to be employed in preying upon the commerce of this country. You are aware that the President has proclaimed a blockade of the ports included within the insurgent States. All these circumstances are known to the world."-Mr. Seward to Lord Lyons, 1st May, 1861.

66

When the Confederate authorities proposed to issue letters of marque but little attention was paid to it, under the supposition that they had neither the facilities to equip vessels, nor the power to break the blockade. The appearance of the vessels on the ocean soon dispelled such illusions, and the Powers of Europe were called upon immediately to define their policy."-American Annual Cyclopædia for 1861, p. 589..

Chap. IV.

The Jeff. Davis, a brig which had formerly been engaged in the slave trade, was more successful in her audacity. She ran northwards early in June, stood in towards shore as near as Nantucket Shoals, took many valuable prizes (one within 200 miles of New York), escaped capture, and in August ran aground and was lost in trying to cross the bar off a little port in Florida. The Sumter obtained greater celebrity, and her performances afford us an example of what may be done in this sort of warfare by a ship which has neither strength nor speed, but is in the hands of an officer of daring and resource. She was mentioned by Mr. Davis in his Message of the 29th April, 1861,1 as being then in preparation; her officers had been appointed to her on the 18th of that month; on the 18th June she was ready for sea, and on the 30th she steamed out of one of the passes of the Mississippi and ran away from the blockading war-steamer Brooklyn. She cruised for some time in the West India seas, and afterwards crossed the Atlantic, visiting successively Cienfuegos, Curaçoa, Puerto Cabello in Venezuela, Trinidad, Paramaribo in Dutch Guiana, Maranham in Brazil, Martinique, Cadiz, and Gibraltar, where she was sold, and afterwards came to Liverpool as a merchantman. She cruised for six months and captured seventeen prizes, and succeeded in spreading an alarm which, before November, had raised the rate of insurance on United States' ships. Like the Calhoun and Nashville, she never was a privateer,

1 "The operations of the Navy Department have been necessarily restricted by the fact that sufficient time has not yet elapsed for the purchase or construction of more than a limited number of vessels adapted for the public service. Two vessels have been purchased and manned, the Sumter and McRae, and are now being prepared for sea at New Orleans with all possible despatch. Contracts have also been made at that city with two different establishments for the casting of ordnance, canuon, shot, and shell, with the view to encourage the manufacture of these articles, so indispensable for our defence, at as many points within our territory as possible."

and, like them, was commanded by an officer who had Chap. IV. held rank in the navy of the United States.

The events of the war in America do not enter into
the course of this narrative. I shall merely glance at
them. Mr. Lincoln was not long in discovering that in
his Proclamation of the 15th April he had taken a
very inadequate measure of the resistance with which
he had to deal. On the 4th May he issued a second
call, asking for forty additional regiments of volunteers,
making a maximum aggregate of 42,034 men, to serve
for three years, and for 18,000 seamen.
He gave

orders, at the same time, for an increase of the regular
army by ten regiments and a maximum aggregate of
22,714 soldiers. "So patriotic and enthusiastic were
the people in favour of preserving the Union that under
this call 208 regiments had been accepted by July 1st.
A number of other regiments were also accepted on
condition of being mustered into service within a
specified time." Thus by the 1st July the Govern-
ment was computed to have at its command not less.
than 307,875 troops, of whom, however, 77,875 had
enlisted for three months, and nearly completed their
term of service. From 70,000 to 80,000 men, collected
on the line of the Potomac, formed an army destined for
the defence of the capital and the invasion of Virginia.
But the raw levies which had flocked so fast to
Washington needed training in the rudiments of soldier-
ship; means of transport were required, and the other
appliances for an army in the field; and during many
weeks the Federal forces remained almost inactive
within easy distance of the enemy. Towards the end
of May, McDowell, under the orders of Scott, began to
feel his way into Virginia, and occupied the town of
Alexandria, eight miles from Washington, and on the
verge
of the Federal district; but two months more were

1 American Annual Cyclopædia for 1861, p. 27.