It is not surprising that the Federal blockading fleet so often failed
to refloat blockade runners after they were stranded on the beach,
because the runners always timed their attempt to pass the fleet at
high tide, the depth of water on the bar being only 10 to 12 feet and
the channel beset with shoals and obstructions, so that before the
Federals could prepare for hauling off these vessels and thereby secure
for themselves large sums of prize money, the tide would have fallen,
leaving the stranded ships more firmly embedded in the sand, and when
in daylight another high tide would come the Federals had to deal
with the Confederate guns, which kept them at a distance. There were,
however, several instances which I recall of the rescue of stranded
ships by the Confederates, notably that of the _Kate_ and of the _Night
Hawk_. The latter was a most spectacular, exciting affair, which I will
relate in Mr. Thomas Taylor's words:
"It was on my second trip to Bermuda that one of the finest boats we
ever possessed, called the _Night Hawk_, came out, and I concluded to
run in with her. She was a new side-wheel steamer of some 600 tons
gross, rigged as a fore-and-aft schooner, with two funnels, 220 feet
long, 21-1/2 feet beam, and 11 feet in depth; a capital boat for the
work, fast, strong, of light draught, and a splendid sea boat--a great
merit in a blockade runner, which sometimes has to be forced in all
weathers. The _Night Hawk's_ career was a very eventful one, and she
passed an unusually lively night off Fort Fisher on her first attempt.
"Soon after getting under way our troubles began. We ran ashore outside
Hamilton, one of the harbors of Bermuda, and hung on a coral reef for
a couple of hours. There loomed before us the dismal prospect of
delay for repairs, or, still worse, the chance of springing a leak and
experiencing such difficulties and dangers as we had undergone on the
_Will-o'-the-Wisp_, but fortunately we came off without damage and were
able to proceed on our voyage.
"Another anxiety now engrossed my mind: the captain was an entirely
new hand, and nearly all the crew were green at the work; moreover,
the Wilmington pilot was quite unknown to me, and I could see from the
outset that he was very nervous and badly wanting in confidence. What
would I not have given for our trusty pilot Tom Burriss! However, we
had to make the best of it, as, owing to the demand, the supply of
competent pilots was not nearly sufficient, and toward the close of the
blockade the so-called pilots were no more than boatmen or men who had
been trading in and out of Wilmington or Charleston in coasters.
"Notwithstanding my fears, all went well on the way across, and the
_Night Hawk_ proved to be everything that could be desired in speed
and seaworthiness. We had sighted unusually few craft, and nothing
eventful occurred until the third night. Soon after midnight we found
ourselves uncomfortably near a large vessel. It was evident that we
had been seen, as we heard them beating to quarters and were hailed.
We promptly sheered off and went full speed ahead, greeted by a
broadside which went across our stern. When we arrived within striking
distance of Wilmington Bar, the pilot was anxious to go in by Smith's
Inlet, but as he acknowledged that he knew very little about it, I
concluded it was better to keep to the New Inlet passage, where, at
all events, we should have the advantage of our good friend Lamb to
protect us; and I felt that as I myself knew the place so well, this
was the safest course to pursue. We were comparatively well through
the fleet, although heavily fired at, and arrived near to the bar,
passing close by two Northern launches which were lying almost upon
it. Unfortunately, it was dead low water, and although I pressed the
pilot to give our boat a turn around, keeping under way, and to wait
awhile until the tide made, he was so demoralized by the firing we had
gone through and the nearness of the launches, which were constantly
throwing up rockets, that he insisted upon putting her at the bar, and,
as I feared, we grounded on it forward and with the strong flood tide
quickly broached to, broadside on to the northern breakers. We kept
our engines going for some time, but to no purpose, as we found we
were only being forced by the tide more on to the breakers. Therefore
we stopped, and all at once found our friends, the two launches, close
aboard; they had discovered we were ashore, and had made up their minds
to attack us.
"At once all was in confusion; the pilot and signalman rushed to the
dinghy, lowered it, and made good their escape; the captain lost his
head and disappeared; and the crews of the launches, after firing
several volleys, one of which slightly wounded me, rowed in to board
us on each sponson. Just at this moment I suddenly recollected that
our private dispatches, which ought to have been thrown overboard,
were still in the starboard lifeboat. I rushed to it, but found the
lanyard to which the sinking weight was attached was foul of one of
the thwarts; I tugged and tugged, but to no purpose, so I sung out for
a knife, which was handed to me by a fireman, and I cut the line and
pitched the bag overboard as the Northerners jumped on board. Eighteen
months afterwards that fireman accosted me in the Liverpool streets,
saying, 'Mr. Taylor, do you remember my lending you a knife?' 'Of
course I do,' I replied, giving him a tip at which he was mightily
pleased. Poor fellow! he had been thirteen months in a Northern prison.
"When the Northerners jumped on board they were terribly excited. I
don't know whether they expected resistance or not, but they acted more
like maniacs than sane men, firing their revolvers and cutting right
and left with their cutlasses. I stood in front of the men on the poop
and said that we surrendered, but all the reply I received from the
lieutenant commanding was, 'Oh, you surrender, do you?' accompanied by
a string of the choicest Yankee oaths and sundry reflections upon my
parentage; whereupon he fired his revolver twice point blank at me not
two yards distant; it was a miracle he did not kill me, as I heard the
bullets whiz past my head. This roused my wrath, and I expostulated
in the strongest terms upon his firing on unarmed men; he then cooled
down, giving me into charge of two of his men, one of whom speedily
possessed himself of my binocular. Fortunately, as I had no guard to my
watch, they didn't discover it, and I have it still.
"Finding they could not get the ship off, and afraid, I presume, of
Lamb and his men coming to our rescue, the Federate commenced putting
the captain (who had been discovered behind a boat!) and the crew
into the boats; they then set the ship on fire fore and aft, and she
soon began to blaze merrily. At this moment one of our firemen, an
Irishman, sang out, 'Begorra, we shall all be in the air in a minute;
the ship is full of gunpowder!' No sooner did the Northern sailors
hear this than a panic seized them, and they rushed to their boats,
threatening to leave their officers behind if they did not come along.
The men who were holding me dropped me like a hot potato, and to my
great delight jumped into their boat, and away they rowed as fast as
they could, taking all our crew, with the exception of the second
officer, one of the engineers, four seamen, and myself, as prisoners.
"We chuckled at our lucky escape, but we were not out of the woods yet,
as we had only a boat half stove in in which to reach the shore through
some three hundred yards of surf, and we were afraid at any moment that
our enemies, finding there was no powder on board, might return. We
made a feeble effort to put the fire out, but it had gained too much
headway, and although I offered the men with me £50 apiece to stand
by me and persevere, they were too demoralized and began to lower the
shattered boat, swearing they would leave me behind if I didn't come
with them. There was nothing for it but to go, yet the passage through
the boiling surf seemed more dangerous to my mind than remaining on
the burning ship. The blockaders immediately opened fire when they
knew their own men had left the _Night Hawk_ and that she was burning;
and Lamb's great shells hurtling over our heads, and those from the
blockading fleet bursting all around us, formed a weird picture. In
spite of the hail of shot and shell and the dangers of the boiling
surf, we reached the shore in safety, wet through, and glad I was, in
my state of exhaustion from loss of blood and fatigue, to be welcomed
by Lamb's orderly officer.
"The poor _Night Hawk_ was now a sheet of flame, and I thought it was
all up with her; and indeed it would have been had it not been for
Lamb, who, calling for volunteers from his garrison, sent off two or
three boat loads of men to her, and when I came down to the beach,
after having my wound dressed and a short rest, I was delighted to find
the fire had visibly decreased. I went on board, and after some hours
of hard work the fire was extinguished. But what a wreck she was!
"Luckily, with the rising tide she had bumped over the bank, and was
now lying on the main beach much more accessible and sheltered. Still
it seemed an almost hopeless task to save her; but we were not going to
be beaten without a try, so, having ascertained how she lay and the
condition she was in, I resolved to have an attempt made to get her
dry, and telegraphed to Wilmington for assistance.
"Our agent sent me down about three hundred negroes to assist in
bailing and pumping, and I set them to work at once. As good luck would
have it, my finest steamer, _Banshee No. 2_, which had just been sent
out, ran in the next night. She was a great improvement on the first
_Banshee_, having a sea speed of 15-1/2 knots, which was considered
very fast in those days; her length was 252 feet, beam 31 feet, depth
11 feet, her registered tonnage 439 tons, and her crew consisted of
fifty-three in all. I at once requisitioned her for aid in the shape
of engineers and men, so that now I had everything I could want in the
way of hands. Our great difficulty was that the _Night Hawk's_ anchors
would not hold for us to get a fair haul at her.
"But here again I was to be in luck. For the very next night the
_Condor_, commanded by poor Hewett, in attempting to run in stuck
fast upon the bank over which we had bumped, not one hundred yards to
windward of us, and broke in two. It is an ill wind that blows nobody
good, and Hewett's mischance proved the saving of our ship. Now we had
a hold for our chain cables by making them fast to the wreck, and were
able gradually to haul her off by them a little during each tide, until
on the seventh day we had her afloat in a gut between the bank and the
shore, and at high water we steamed under our own steam gaily up the
river to Wilmington.
"Considering the appliances we had and the circumstances under which
we were working, the saving of that steamer was certainly a wonderful
performance, as we were under fire almost the whole time. The
Northerners, irritated, no doubt, by their failure to destroy the ship,
used to shell us by day and send in boats by night; Lamb, however, put
a stop to the latter annoyance by lending us a couple of companies to
defend us, and one night, when our enemies rowed close up with the
intention of boarding us, they were glad to sheer off with the loss of
a lieutenant and several men. In spite of all the shot and shell by day
and the repeated attacks by night, we triumphed in the end, and, after
having the _Night Hawk_ repaired at a huge cost and getting together a
crew, I gave May, a friend of mine, command of her, and he ran her out
successfully with a valuable cargo, which made her pay, notwithstanding
all her bad luck and the amount spent upon her. Poor May! he was
afterwards governor of Perth gaol, and is dead now--a high-toned,
sensitive gentleman, mightily proud of his ship, lame duck as she was.
"When she was burning, our utmost efforts were of course directed
toward keeping her engine room and boilers amidships intact, and
confining the flames to both ends; in this we were successful, mainly
owing to the fact of her having thwartship bunkers; but as regards
the rest of the steamer she was a complete wreck; her sides were all
corrugated with the heat, and her stern so twisted that her starboard
quarter was some two feet higher than her port quarter, and not a
particle of wood work was left unconsumed. Owing to the limited
resources of Wilmington as regards repairs, I found it impossible to
have this put right, so her sides were left as they were, and the new
deck put on the slope I have described, and caulked with cotton, as no
oakum was procurable. When completed she certainly was a queer looking
craft, but as tight as a bottle and as seaworthy as ever, although I
doubt if any Lloyd's surveyor would have passed her. But as a matter
of fact she came across the Atlantic, deeply immersed with her coal
supply, through some very bad weather, without damage, and was sold
for a mere song, to be repaired and made into a passenger boat for
service on the East Coast, where she ran for many years with success.
"It had been a hard week for me, as I had no clothes except what I had
on when we were boarded, my servant very cleverly, as he imagined,
having thrown my portmanteau into the man-of-war's boat when he thought
I was going to be captured, and all I had in the world was the old
serge suit in which I stood. Being without a change and wet through
every day and night for six days consecutively, it is little wonder
that I caught fever and ague, of which I nearly died in Richmond,
and which distressing complaint stuck to me for more than eighteen
months. I shall never forget, on going to a store in Wilmington for a
new rig-out (which by the by cost $1,200), the look of horror on the
storekeeper's face when I told him the coat I had purchased would do if
he cut a foot off it; he thought it such a waste of expensive material."
The Three-Funnel Boats.
In the latter part of the War between the States, the experience of
the blockade runners evolved a superior type of construction for great
speed, shallow depth of hold, and increased furnace draught, for which
three funnels were provided. A very interesting and unusual sight were
these three-funnel boats. I recall their names, _Falcon_, _Flamingo_,
_Condor_, _Ptarmigan_, _Vulture_. Mr. Taylor in his book says that
Admiral Hewett commanded the _Falcon_ on an ill-fated voyage, but I
remember it was the _Condor_ and also that one of the passengers was
the celebrated and unfortunate lady Mrs. "Greenhow" or "Greenough," who
lost her life when the _Condor_ ran aground near the bar. The _Condor_
went to pieces when she was stranded, the crew escaping to the shore.