THE CONFEDERATE CRUISERS.
THE "ALABAMA" SUNK BY THE "KEARSARGE"--THE "SUMTER" AND OTHER
CRUISERS--PROTEST OF OUR GOVERNMENT TO THE BRITISH
GOVERNMENT--SECRETARY SEWARD'S DESPATCHES--PRIVATEERING--WHY ENGLAND
DID NOT INTERFERE--ARBITRATION AND AMOUNT OF DAMAGE OBTAINED FROM THE
BRITISH GOVERNMENT.
While the Army of the Potomac was putting itself in fighting trim
after its change of base, a decisive battle of the war took place
three thousand miles away. A vessel known in the builders' yard as the
"290," and afterward famous as the _Alabama_, had been built for the
Confederate Government in 1862, at Birkenhead, opposite Liverpool. She
was of wood, a fast sailer, having both steam and canvas, was two
hundred and twenty feet long, and rated at one thousand and forty
tons. She was thoroughly fitted in every respect, and cost nearly a
quarter of a million dollars. The American minister at London notified
the British Government that such a ship was being built in an English
yard, in violation of the neutrality laws, and demanded that she be
prevented from leaving the Mersey. But, either through design or
stupidity, the Government moved too slowly, and the cruiser escaped to
sea. She went to Fayal, in the Azores, and there took on board her
guns and coal, sent out to her in a merchant ship from London. Her
commander was Raphael Semmes, who had served in the United States
navy. Her crew were mainly Englishmen. For nearly two years she roamed
the seas, traversing the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the Gulf of
Mexico, and captured sixty-nine American merchantmen, most of which
were burned at sea. Their crews were sent away on passing vessels, or
put ashore at some convenient port. Several war-vessels were sent out
in search of the _Alabama_, but they were at constant disadvantage
from the rule that when two hostile vessels are in a neutral port, the
first that leaves must have been gone twenty-four hours before the
other is permitted to follow. In French, and especially in British
ports, the _Alabama_ was always welcome, and enjoyed every possible
facility, because she was destroying American commerce.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN A. WINSLOW AND OFFICERS ON THE DECK OF THE
"KEARSARGE." (From a Government photograph.)]
In June, 1864, she was in the harbor of Cherbourg, France. The United
States man-of-war _Kearsarge_, commanded by John {372} A. Winslow,
found her there, and lay off the port, watching her. By not going into
the harbor, Winslow escaped the twenty-four-hour rule. Semmes sent a
note to Winslow, asking him not to go away, as he was coming out to
fight; but no such challenge was called for, as the _Kearsarge_ had
come for that purpose, and was patiently waiting for her prey. She was
almost exactly the size of the _Alabama_, and the armaments were so
nearly alike as to make a very fair match. But her crew were
altogether superior in gun-practice, and she had protected her boilers
by chains, "stoppered" up and down the side amidships, as had been
done in the fights at New Orleans and elsewhere. On Sunday morning,
June 19th, the _Alabama_ steamed out of the harbor amid the plaudits
of thousands of Englishmen and Frenchmen, who had not a doubt that she
was going to certain victory. The _Kearsarge_ steamed away as she
approached, and drew her off to a distance of seven or eight miles
from the coast. Winslow then turned and closed with his enemy. The two
vessels steamed around on opposite sides of a circle half a mile in
diameter, firing their starboard guns. The practice on the _Alabama_
was very bad; she began firing first, discharged her guns rapidly, and
produced little or no effect, though a dozen of her shots struck her
antagonist. But when the _Kearsarge_ began firing there was war in
earnest. Her guns were handled with great skill, and every shot told.
One of them cut the mizzenmast so that it fell. Another exploded a
shell among the crew of the _Alabama's_ pivot gun, killing half of
them and dismounting the piece. Balls rolled in at the port-holes and
swept away the gunners; and several pierced the hull below the water
line, making the ship tremble from stem to stern, and letting in
floods of water. The vessels had described seven circles, and the
_Alabama's_ deck was strewn with the dead, when at the end of an hour
she was found to be sinking, her colors were struck, and her officers,
with a keen sense of chivalry, threw into the sea the swords that were
no longer their own. The _Kearsarge_ lowered boats to take off the
crew; but suddenly the stern settled, the bow was thrown up into the
air, and down went the _Alabama_ to the bottom of the British Channel,
carrying an unknown number of her men. An English yacht picked up
Semmes and about forty sailors, and steamed away to Southampton with
them; others were rescued by the boats of the _Kearsarge_, and still
others were drowned.
In January, 1863, the _Alabama_ had fought the side-wheel steamer
_Hatteras_, of the United States Navy, off Galveston, Tex., and
injured her so that she sank soon after surrendering. The remainder of
the _Alabama's_ career, till she met the _Kearsarge_, had been spent
in capturing merchant vessels and either burning them or releasing
them under bonds. Before Captain Semmes received command of the
_Alabama_, he had cruised in the _Sumter_ on a similar mission,
capturing eighteen vessels, when her course was ended in the harbor of
Gibraltar, in February, 1862, where she was blockaded by the United
States steamers _Kearsarge_ and _Tuscarora_, and, as there was no
probability that she could escape to sea, her captain and crew
abandoned her.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN RAPHAEL SEMMES.]
[Illustration: CAPTAIN JOHN A. WINSLOW. (Afterward Rear-Admiral.)]
A score of other Confederate cruisers roamed the seas, to prey upon
United States commerce, but none of them became quite so famous as the
_Sumter_ and the _Alabama_. They included the _Shenandoah_, which made
thirty-eight captures; the _Florida_, which made thirty-six; the
_Tallahassee_, which made twenty-seven; the _Tacony_, which made
fifteen; and the _Georgia_, which made ten. The _Florida_ was captured
in the harbor of Bahia, Brazil, in October, 1864, by a United States
man-of-war, in violation of the neutrality of the port. For this the
United States Government apologized to Brazil, and ordered the
restoration of the _Florida_ to the harbor where she was captured. But
in Hampton Roads she met with an accident and sank. It was generally
believed that the apparent accident was contrived with the connivance,
if not by direct order, of the Government.
Most of these cruisers were built in British shipyards; and whenever
they touched at British ports, to obtain supplies and land prisoners,
their commanders were ostentatiously welcomed and lionized by the
British merchants and officials.
[Illustration: OPENING OF THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE "KEARSARGE" AND THE
"ALABAMA."]
The English builders were proceeding to construct several swift
iron-clad cruisers for the Confederate Government, when the United
States Government protested so vigorously that the British Government
prevented them from leaving port. One or two passages from Secretary
Seward's despatches to Charles Francis Adams, the American minister at
London, contain the whole argument that was afterward elaborated
before a high court of arbitration, and secured a verdict against
England. More than this, these passages contain what probably was the
controlling reason that determined England not to try the experiment
of intervention. Secretary Seward wrote, under date of October 5-6,
1863:
"I have had the honor to receive and submit to the President your
despatch of the 17th of September, which relates to the iron-clad
vessels built at Laird's shipyards for war against the United States,
which is accompanied by a very interesting correspondence between
yourself and Earl Russell. The positions you have taken in this
correspondence are approved. It is indeed a cause of profound concern,
that, notwithstanding an engagement which the President has accepted
as final, there still remains a doubt whether those vessels will be
prevented from coming out, according to the original hostile purposes
of the enemies of the United States residing in Great Britain.
"Earl Russell remarks that her Majesty's Government, having {373}
proclaimed neutrality, have in good faith exerted themselves to
maintain it. I have not to say now for the first time, that, however
satisfactory that position may be to the British nation, it does not
at all relieve the gravity of the question in the United States. The
proclamation of neutrality was a concession of belligerent rights to
the insurgents, and was deemed by this Government as unnecessary, and
in effect as unfriendly, as it has since proved injurious, to this
country. The successive preparations of hostile naval expeditions in
Great Britain are regarded here as fruits of that injurious
proclamation.... It is hardly necessary to say that the United States
stand upon what they think impregnable ground, when they refuse to be
derogated, by any act of British Government, from their position as a
sovereign nation in amity with Great Britain, and placed upon a
footing of equality with domestic insurgents who have risen up in
resistance against their authority.
"It does not remain for us even to indicate to Great Britain the
serious consequences which must ensue if the iron-clads shall come
forth upon their work of destruction. They have been fully revealed to
yourself, and you have made them known to Earl Russell, within the
restraints which an honest and habitual respect for the Government and
the people of Great Britain imposes. It seems to me that her Majesty's
Government might be expected to perceive and appreciate them, even if
we were henceforth silent upon the subject. When our unhappy civil war
broke out, we distinctly confessed that we knew what great temptations
it offered to foreign intervention and aggression, and that in no
event could such intervention or aggression be endured. It was
apparent that such aggression, if it should come, must travel over the
seas, and therefore must be met and encountered, if at all, by
maritime resistance. We addressed ourselves to prepare the means of
such resistance. We have now a navy, not, indeed, as ample as we
proposed, but yet one which we feel assured is not altogether
inadequate to the purposes of self-defence, and it is yet rapidly
increasing in men, material, and engines of war. Besides this regular
naval force, the President has asked, and Congress has given him,
authority to convert the mercantile marine into armed squadrons, by
the issue of letters of marque and reprisal. All the world might see,
if it would, that the great arm of naval defence has not been thus
invigorated for the mere purpose of maintaining a blockade, or
enforcing our authority against the insurgents; for practically they
have never had an open port, or built and armed, nor could they from
their own resources build and arm, a single ship-of-war.
"Thus the world is left free to understand that our measures of
maritime war are intended to resist maritime aggression, which is
constantly threatened from abroad and even more constantly apprehended
at home. That it would be employed for that purpose, if such
aggression should be attempted, would {374} seem certain, unless,
indeed, there should be reason to suppose that the people do not in
this respect approve of the policy and sympathize with the sentiments
of the executive Government. But the resistance of foreign aggression
by all the means in our power, and at the hazard, if need be, of the
National life itself, is the one point of policy on which the American
people seem to be unanimous and in complete harmony with the
President.
"The United States understand that the _Alabama_ is a pirate
ship-of-war, roving over the seas, capturing, burning, sinking, and
destroying American vessels, without any lawful authority from the
British Government or from any other sovereign power, in violation of
the law of nations, and contemptuously defying all judicial tribunals
equally of Great Britain and all other states. The United States
understand that she was purposely built for war against the United
States, by British subjects, in a British port, and prepared there to
be armed and equipped with a specified armament adapted to her
construction for the very piratical career which she is now pursuing;
that her armament and equipment, duly adapted to this ship-of-war and
no other, were simultaneously prepared by the same British subjects,
in a British port, to be placed on board to complete her preparation
for that career; that when she was ready, and her armament and
equipment were equally ready, she was clandestinely and by connivance
sent by her British holders, and the armament and equipment were at
the same time clandestinely sent through the same connivance by the
British subjects who had prepared them, to a common port outside of
British waters, and there the armament and equipment of the _Alabama_
as a ship-of-war were completed, and she was sent forth on her work of
destruction with a crew chiefly of British subjects, enlisted in and
proceeding from a British port, in fraud of the laws of Great Britain
and in violation of the peace and sovereignty of the United States.
"The United States understand that the purpose of the building,
armament and equipment, and expedition of the vessel was one single
criminal intent, running equally through the building and the
equipment and the expedition, and fully completed and executed when
the _Alabama_ was finally despatched; and that this intent brought the
whole transaction of building, armament, and equipment within the
lawful jurisdiction of Great Britain, where the main features of the
crime were executed. The United States understand that they gave
sufficient and adequate notice to the British Government that this
wrongful enterprise was begun and was being carried out to its
completion; and that upon receiving this notice her Majesty's
Government were bound by treaty obligations and by the law of nations
to prevent its execution, and that if the diligence which was due had
been exercised by the British Government the expedition of the
_Alabama_ would have been prevented, and the wrongful enterprise of
British subjects would have been defeated. The United States confess
that some effort was made by her Majesty's Government, but it was put
forth too late and was too soon abandoned. Upon these principles of
law and these assumptions of fact, the United States do insist, and
must continue to insist, that the British Government is justly
responsible for the damages which the peaceful, law-abiding citizens
of the United States sustain by the depredations of the _Alabama_.
"Though indulging a confident belief in the correctness of our
positions in regard to the claims in question, and others, we shall be
willing at all times hereafter, as well as now, to consider the
evidence and the arguments which her Majesty's Government may offer,
to show that they are invalid; and if we shall not be convinced, there
is no fair and just form of conventional arbitrament or reference to
which we shall not be willing to submit them."
In 1856 the great powers of Europe signed at Paris a treaty by which
they relinquished the right of privateering, and some of the lesser
powers afterward accepted a general invitation to join in it. The
United States offered to sign it, on condition that a clause be
inserted declaring that private property on the high seas, if not
contraband of war, should be exempt from seizure by the public armed
vessels of an enemy, as well as by private ones. The powers that had
negotiated the treaty declined to make this amendment, and therefore
the United States did not become a party to it. When the war of
secession began, and the Confederate authorities proclaimed their
readiness to issue letters of marque for private vessels to prey upon
American commerce, the United States Government offered to accept the
treaty without amendment; but England and France declined to permit
our Government to join in the treaty then, if its provisions against
privateering were to be understood as applying to vessels sent out
under Confederate authority. There the subject was dropped, and while
the insurgents were thus left at liberty to do whatever damage they
could upon the high seas, the United States Government was also left
free to send not only its own cruisers but an unlimited number of
privateers against the commerce of any nation with which it might
become involved in war. When at the beginning of President Lincoln's
administration Mr. Adams was sent out as minister at London, he
carried instructions that included this passage: "If, as the President
does not at all apprehend, you shall unhappily find her Majesty's
Government tolerating the application of the so-called seceding
States, or wavering about it, you will not leave them to suppose for a
moment that they can grant that application and remain the friends of
the United States. You may even assure them promptly, in that case,
that if they determine to recognize, they may at the same time prepare
to enter into alliance with the enemies of this Republic."
England had had a costly experience of American privateering under
sail in the war of 1812-15, and she now saw what privateering could
become under steam power. While she was rejoicing at the destruction
of American merchantmen, she knew what might happen to her own. Let
her become involved in war with the United States, and not only a
hundred war-ships but a vast fleet of privateers would at once set
sail from American ports, and in a few months her commerce would be
swept from every sea. The fisherman on the coast of Maine would carpet
his hut with Persian rugs, and the ship-carpenter's children would
play with baubles intended to decorate the Court of St. James.[1] The
navies of England and France combined could not blockade the harbors
of New England; and from those harbors, where every material is at
hand, might have sailed a fleet whose operations would not only have
impoverished the merchants of London, but called out the wail of
famine from her populace. Other considerations were discussed; but it
was doubtless this contingency that furnished the controlling reason
why the British Government resisted the tempting offers of cotton and
free trade, {375} resisted the importunities of Louis Napoleon,
resisted the clamor of its more reckless subjects, resisted its own
prejudice against republican institutions, and refused to recognize
the Southern Confederacy as an independent nation. It may have been
this consideration also that induced it, after the war was over, to
agree to exactly that settlement by arbitration which was suggested by
Secretary Seward in the despatch quoted above. In 1872 the
international court of arbitration, sitting in Geneva, Switzerland,
decided that the position taken by the United States Government in
regard to responsibility for the Confederate cruisers was right; and
that the British Government, for failing to prevent their escape from
its ports, must pay the United States fifteen and a half million
dollars. So far as settlement of the principle was concerned, the
award gave Americans all the satisfaction they could desire; but the
sum named fell far short of the damage that had been wrought. Charles
Sumner, speaking in his place in the Senate, had contended with great
force for the exaction of what were called "consequential damages,"
which would have swelled the amount to hundreds of millions; but in
this he was overruled.
[Footnote 1: See lists of goods captured by American privateers in the
war of 1812: "Eighteen bales of Turkish carpets, 43 bales of raw silk,
20 boxes of gums, 160 dozen swan-skins, 6 tons of ivory, $40,000 in
gold dust, $80,000 in specie, $20,000 worth of indigo, $60,000 in
bullion, $500,000 worth of dry goods, 700 tons of mahogany," etc. In
Coggeshall's "History of American Privateers."]