The following story was told me by the veteran blockade runner George
C. McDougal:
"When the Yankees ran the _Kate_ out of New Smyrna, Fla., we had to
run across light and leave Capt. Thomas Lockwood, who had gone to
Charleston, behind. The command devolved on Mr. Carlin, first officer.
We got the ship into Nassau Saturday night. On the following day,
Sunday, the British mail steamer appeared off Nassau with the new
Governor of the Bahamas on board, but owing to a heavy sea on the bar
she could not cross, and accordingly ran down to the west end of the
island and to smoother water in order to land the Governor. During the
day a number of prominent inhabitants of Nassau came aboard the _Kate_
and asked if the captain would go down to the west end and bring the
Governor up. Captain Carlin told them that they were quite welcome to
the ship if she could be got ready in time, which would depend upon
the chief engineer. He immediately consulted with me and we decided
that as the people of Nassau had been very kind to us, the _Kate_
being a favorite, we would try to accommodate them at once. As we had
arrived after midnight on Saturday, and, not wishing to work on Sunday,
we had not blown the boilers out. The water was hot, and I told the
captain I would be ready in an hour's time or less. I started the fires
immediately and in a few minutes the committee went on shore to gather
their friends and to send off refreshments. In a short time gunboats
began to crowd alongside with the aforesaid refreshments, both solid
and liquid, the latter as usual predominating in the shape of cases of
champagne, brandy, etc.
"When the guests were all on board we hove up the anchor and faced
the bar. A tremendous sea was running, and at times our topgallant
forecastle was under water. We worked out, however, and hauled down the
coast for the west end. In a short time the refreshments began to work
on the company, especially on the mate. Captain Carlin being afraid
that the small anchor would not hold the ship, ordered the mate to get
the large anchor from between decks to the gangway, carry the chain
from the hawse pipe along the side of the ship by tricing lines and
shackle it to the anchor. I noticed that the mate was almost incapable
from the aforesaid refreshments, and I said to him, 'You will lose
that anchor,' to which he replied, 'I know what I am about.' Presently
the ship took a roll down into the trough of the sea, and overboard
went the anchor. When it struck bottom the ship was going twelve or
fourteen miles an hour and the sudden jerk started the chain around the
windlass, and the way that seventy fathoms of chain flew around the
windlass and out of the hawse pipe made the fire fly. It looked as if
half a dozen flashes of lightning were playing hide and seek between
the decks. With a crack like a pistol shot the weather bitting parted
and the end of the chain went out of the hawse pipe to look for the
anchor.
"We soon made the bay at the west end and ran alongside the mail
steamer and let go our anchor, but found to our disappointment that the
Governor had gone to town in a carriage sent for him by the officials.
After spending a pleasant hour in exchanging visits between the
officers of the two steamers, our guests in the meantime partaking of
refreshments, we hove up the anchor and started back toward Nassau.
"Among our passengers was the gallant Capt. John N. Maffitt, who
was then waiting at Nassau to get the _Oreto_, afterwards named the
_Florida_, out of irons. We had also Captain Whiting, the American
consul at Nassau, who asked permission to go down to the steamer to
get his dispatches, which was not denied him, although this man was
greatly disliked not only by Confederate sympathizers but by the
natives, having, as the Irishman said, winning ways to make everybody
hate him. During the run back the consul, overcome by his numerous
potations, lay down with his dispatches and was soon asleep. When we
aroused him at our destination the dispatches were missing, whereupon
he accused Maffitt of stealing them, resulting in a grand row all
round. The dispatches were restored to him on the following day, their
disappearance being caused by a practical joke on the part of the
Confederates. We delivered our passengers in a very shaky condition.
"On Monday morning, having turned out bright and early to start work,
our attention was attracted to the shore by a noisy and excited group
of negroes gathered around the flagstaff of the American consul,
gesticulating and pointing to the top of the flagstaff, from which,
to my astonishment, was flying a brand new Confederate flag. It soon
appeared that some one, said to be a Confederate sympathizer, and whom
every one believed to be Maffitt, who was always ready for a joke,
had climbed the flagstaff during the night, carrying up with him a
Confederate flag and a bucket of slush. The halyards were first unrove,
next the Confederate flag was nailed to the staff, and last of all as
the joker descended, he slushed the staff all the way to the ground,
making it impossible for any one to ascend to remove the ensign which
was so hateful to our friend the consul. When Whiting came down to the
consulate after breakfast and took in the situation, he performed a war
dance around that pole which was one of the most interesting spectacles
ever witnessed by the Confederates in Nassau. He then employed a number
of Her Majesty's colored subjects with cans of concentrated lye to
remove the slush, and, after great difficulty, one of them succeeded
in reaching the top of the staff and removed the Confederate flag,
replacing the halyards as before; but this was not the last of it.
On the following morning a United States man-of-war appeared off the
harbor, and when the consul in full official rig took his seat in the
stern of his gig he found on reaching the cruiser that he was hard and
fast by the nether extremities, some North Carolina tar having been
previously applied by the aforesaid Confederate sympathizer to the
seat of his gig. Of course these annoyances created a great deal of
feeling, and a down-east shipmaster, desiring to show his spite, made
a fool of himself by hoisting the American flag over the British flag,
the latter being union down, intending it as an insult, of course,
which was immediately noticed on shore, and in a short time several
thousand shouting, howling British negroes were lining the water front
looking for boats and threatening to drown the American captain who
had taken such a liberty with their beloved flag. Before they could
carry out their purpose, however, a man-of-war's launch shot out from
the British gunboat _Bulldog_ with a file of marines, and, boarding
the brig, ordered the flags hauled down and the English flag detached,
took the captain in the launch and pulled to the government wharf and
immediately shoved him into the calaboose, from which confinement he
was not released until the next day, with the admonition that if he
remained on board his ship he would have no need of a surgeon. He took
the hint and was seen no more on shore.
"On Thursday we were bound for the northwest channel with our
regulation cargo of 1,000 barrels of gunpowder and arms and
accouterments for 10,000 men. We ran into Charleston on Saturday night
and on Sunday morning the Confederate quartermaster pressed every horse
and dray in Charleston to haul the cargo to the railroad station. The
congregations of the churches along Meeting and King Streets probably
derived very little benefit from the sermons delivered that sacred
day, as the roar of the drays and wagons was incessant all day Sunday
and Sunday night. As fast as a train was loaded it was started out for
Johnston's army, and a conductor of a train told me afterwards that the
soldiers broke open the cases of rifles on the cars and distributed
the firearms and accouterments from the car doors. It may be said
that the _Kate_ was a most important factor in the battle of Shiloh.
Johnston's army was a mass of undisciplined men with single and double
barrel shotguns, old time rifles, and anything else in the way of
firearms that they could bring from home. They had nothing suitable to
fight with. The three cargoes of war stores, therefore, carried in by
the _Kate_, one by the _Mary Celeste_ to Smyrna and the fourth cargo
carried by the _Kate_ into Charleston, actually equipped Johnston's
army, immediately after which came the battle of Shiloh. One thousand
barrels of gunpowder was a dangerous shipment to run through the
Federal blockade, and it was a great relief to us when the Confederacy
established powder mills in Georgia, and our powder cargoes were
changed to niter for the mills."