About twenty-five years ago I wrote for the _Southport Leader_ a series
of stories of the Cape Fear blockade from my personal experiences as
a participant in the blockade runners _Advance_, _Eugénie_, _North
Heath_, _Lilian_, _Susan Beirne_, and finally in the _Alonzo_, which
greatly interested the Cape Fear pilots who had taken part with me
in this hazardous service and were found entertaining by some other
readers. Later, in the year 1901, I contributed at the request of Chief
Justice Walter Clark for his admirable _North Carolina Regimental
Histories_ an account of my personal adventures and observations in the
_North Heath_, _Lilian_, and _Susan Beirne_, in the capacity of purser,
or paymaster, at the age of seventeen and a half years, and as prisoner
of war on the _Keystone State_ and the _Glaucus_, Federal cruisers, and
later prisoner of war in Fort Macon and in Fortress Monroe.
Again, in 1914, I wrote in the _Cape Fear Chronicles_ at some length
on this interesting phase of Cape Fear history, in the form largely of
personal reminiscences, which have been most generously commented upon
by eminent writers and historians; and now, at the end of the skein, I
have endeavored, in this unpretentious little volume, to reveal some
secrets of old ocean which it has kept hidden in its bosom for more
than half a century. I have desired to refrain from repetition, but in
several instances it was unavoidable. This compilation of new stories
and twice-told tales is now presented in more portable form than in the
original bulky volumes. The title, _Derelicts_, is general, but much
space has been given to blockade runners destroyed or left as derelicts
along the Cape Fear coast during the War between the States. Some
space has also been given to a few sea tales not dealing directly with
derelict ships.
The Northern Navy doubtless contributed more than any other arm of the
Federal forces to the final defeat of the Southern Confederacy, and
this was because the South at the beginning of hostilities did not
possess a single ship of war.
A dozen such ships as the ironclad _Merrimac_, which type originated
in the South during the war and later revolutionized the navies of the
world, could probably have entirely destroyed the Federal fleet of
inefficient ships in the second year of the war, raised the blockade,
and compelled the recognition of the Great Powers. The errors of the
Confederacy were numerous, but its failure to buy or build promptly an
efficient navy proved irremediable and fatal. "Yet with its limited
resources," says Chief Justice Clark in concluding his history, "the
Confederacy was on the very eve of success, but some unexpected
fatality intervened. At Shiloh within half an hour of the capture of
the Federal Army with Grant and Sherman at its head, a single bullet,
which caused the death of Albert Sidney Johnston, changed the history
of the continent. At Chancellorsville, one scattering volley, fired
by mistake of his own men, took the life of Stonewall Jackson, when,
but for that fatality, the capture of Hooker and his whole army was
imminent. The unexpected humiliation of the Federal Government in
surrendering Mason and Slidell to British threats avoided a war with
that power, and, with it, the independence of the South, which would
have come with the command of the seas, within the power at that time
of Britain's fleet. If Stuart's cavalry had been on hand at Gettysburg,
or even a competent corps commander, to have held our gains of the
first two days, in all human probability the war would have ended in a
great Southern victory at that spot. Had Mr. Davis, when he sent his
commissioners to England to negotiate a loan of $15,000,000 acceded to
the pressure of foreign capitalists to make it $60,000,000, not only
would the Southern finances not have broken down (which was the real
cause of our defeat) and the Southern troops have been amply supplied,
but European Governments would have intervened in favor of Southern
independence ere they would have suffered their influential capitalists
to lose that sum."
Notwithstanding the increasing effectiveness of the blockade and the
serious reverses which followed Chancellorsville to Appomattox, a
buoyant optimism as to the ultimate triumph of the Southern cause
prevailed among the blockade runners; and it was not until the failure
of Wilkinson in the _Chameleon_, and Maffitt in the _Owl_, to enter
Charleston, which was captured after the fall of Wilmington, that
hope gave place to despair, for then, to quote Captain Wilkinson, "As
we turned away from the land, our hearts sank within us, while the
conviction forced itself upon us that the cause for which so much blood
had been shed, so many miseries bravely endured, and so many sacrifices
cheerfully made, was about to perish at last."
James Sprunt.
Wilmington, N.C., January 1, 1920.