THE WAR MAKER
BEING THE
TRUE STORY OF CAPTAIN GEORGE B. BOYNTON
[Illustration: Photo by Pirie MacDonald]
THE
WAR MAKER
BEING THE TRUE STORY OF
CAPTAIN GEORGE B. BOYNTON
By
HORACE SMITH
WITH PORTRAIT
[Illustration]
CHICAGO
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1911
Copyright
A. C. McCLURG & CO.
1911
Published March, 1911
W. F. Hall Printing Company
Chicago
NOTE
The hero of this book was a real man, though he has carried to his
grave the secret of his true name. It was not Boynton, although it is
known that he was born in Fifth Avenue, near Fourteenth Street, New
York, May 1, 1842, and that his father was a distinguished surgeon,
with an estate on Lake Champlain. He rarely talked of his remarkable
life, and recounted in detail to the author of this volume the facts of
his career of adventure, only in the closing months of his life.
Captain Boynton was of the type of filibuster that is read of so
often, but rarely met with in life. He was a tall, bronzed, athletic,
broad-shouldered man, one of the most picturesque and daring of the
many soldiers of fortune who have sought adventures over the world.
From Hongkong to Valparaiso fighters of all races knew the name of
Boynton. From Cape Horn to New York he did not permit himself to be
forgotten. Whether exploring the sources of the Orinoco, or hunting
elusive supporters for a deserted American President, or battling in
the Haytian army, or spying out court secrets in Venezuela, or running
a distillery in Brooklyn with Jim Fisk as partner, he was invariably
master of himself and continually a personality to be reckoned with.
Captain Boynton was the original of the “Soldier of Fortune” in Richard
Harding Davis’s story of that name, and gave to Guy Boothby the facts
of his novel “The Beautiful White Devil,” with which dashing heroine
Captain Boynton was on terms of intimacy. In the account of his life
given in this volume fictitious names have in two or three instances
been used for persons still living who figured in business deals with
him. Otherwise the story is told almost identically as Captain Boynton
narrated it to the author.
After escaping death in scores of forms, including a Chinese pirate’s
cutlass, an assassin’s dagger, the fire of a file of soldiers at
sunrise, and war’s guns, this utterly fearless, cheerfully arrogant
retired blockade runner, revolutionist, and hunter of pirates died
peacefully in his bed, at a ripe age, on January 19, 1911, in New York
City, where he had led a quiet life since 1905, when he voluntarily
left Venezuela, after withstanding repeated efforts by President Castro
to drive him from the country.
H. S.
New York,
_Jan. 25, 1911_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
A Soldier of Fortune’s Creed 9
I Under Fire the First Time 13
II Filibustering for the Cubans 34
III In League with the Spanish Pretender 54
IV Lawless Latin America 78
V The Marooning of a Traitor 102
VI A Swift Vengeance 121
VII Preying on Pirates 140
VIII “The Beautiful White Devil” 165
IX A Death Duel with a Pirate King 193
X The Burial of the “Leckwith” 217
XI Stealing a British Ship 243
XII A Land of Mystery and Murder 264
XIII Adventures on the Nile 289
XIV Rapid-Fire Revolts 327
XV Revolution as a Fine Art 357
XVI At War with Castro 387
A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE’S CREED
Throughout my life I have sought adventure over the face of the
world and its waters as other men have hunted and fought for gold or
struggled for fame. The love of it, whether through the outcropping
of a strain of buccaneer blood that had been held in subjection by
generations of placid propriety or as a result of some freak of
prenatal suggestion, was born in me, deep-planted and long-rooted.
Excitement is as essential to my existence as air and food. Through
it my life has been prolonged in activity and my soul perpetuated in
youth; when I can no longer enjoy its electrification, Death, as it is
so spoken of, will, I hope, come quickly.
To get away from the flat, tiresome, beaten path and find conditions or
create situations to gratify the clamorous demand within me has ever
been my compelling passion. I have served, all told, under eighteen
flags and to each I gave the best that was in me, even though some of
them were disappointing in their failure to produce a pleasing amount
of excitement. In following my natural bent, which I was powerless, as
well as disinclined, to interfere with or alter, to the full length of
my capabilities, it perhaps will be considered by some people that
I have gone outside of written laws. To such a contention my answer
is that I have always been true to my own conscience, which is the
known and yet the unknown quantity we all must reckon with, and to my
country. In the transportation of arms with which to further fights
for freedom or fortune I have flown many flags I had no strictly legal
right to fly, over ships that were not what they pretended to be nor
what their papers indicated them to be, but never have I taken refuge
behind the Stars and Stripes, nor have I ever called on an American
minister or consular officer to get me out of the successive scrapes
with governments, but most often with misgovernments, into which my
warring wanderings have carried me. Red-blooded love of adventure, free
from any wanton spirit and with the prospect of financial reward always
subordinated, has been the driving force in all of my encounters with
good men and bad, with the latter class much in the majority. Therefore
I have only scorn for sympathy and contempt for criticism, nor am I
troubled with uncanny visions by night nor haunting recollections by
day.
There is just one point in my philosophy which I wish to make
clear before the Blue Peter is hoisted, and that is that most of
the so-called impossibilities we encounter are simply disguised
opportunities. Because they are regarded as impossible they are not
guarded against and are therefore comparatively easy of accomplishment
when they really are possible, as most of them are. Acceptance of this
theory, with which every student of the history of warfare will agree,
will help to explain my ability to do some of the things which will be
told of, that the thoughtless would promptly put down as impossible.
The name by which I am known is one of the contradictions of my
life. Save only for my father, who sympathized with my adventurous
disposition at the same time that he tried to curb it, I was at war
with my family almost from the time I could talk. I am a Republican
in politics from the fact that they were active supporters of James
Buchanan, and I became a Southern sympathizer simply because they were
bitterly opposed to slavery. When I left home to become an adventurer
around the globe I buried my real name and I do not propose to uncover
it, here or hereafter. I am proud, though, of the fact that my family
is descended from a King of Burgundy; for since reaching years of
discretion, though I have been as loyal to the United States as any man
since 1865, I never have believed in a republican form of government.
In the course of my activities I have used many names in many lands,
but that of Boynton, which had been in the family for years, stuck to
me until I finally adopted it, prefixing a “George” and a “B.,” which
really stands for “Boynton.” I made it my business to forget, as soon
as they had served my purpose, the different names I took in response
to the demand of expediency, but I remember that Kinnear and Henderson
were two under which I created some comment on opposite sides of the
world.
THE WAR MAKER
CHAPTER I
UNDER FIRE THE FIRST TIME
I was born on May 1, 1842, on Fifth Avenue, New York, not a long way
north of Washington Square. My father was a distinguished surgeon and
owned a large estate on Lake Champlain, where most of my youthful
summers were spent. I had three brothers and two sisters; but not for
many years have I known where they are, or whether alive or dead.
After having had a private tutor at home I was educated by jumps at
the Hinesburgh, Vermont, Academy; at the old Troy Conference Academy
at Poultney, Vermont, and at the Burlington, Vermont, Academy, where,
young as I was, I became deeply interested in the study of medicine,
for which I had inherited a pronounced liking; that was the one point
on which I seemed to fit in with the family. I did not stay a great
while at any institution because of my success in leading the other
students into all sorts of dare-devil pranks, to the detriment of
discipline and the despair of the dominies. As an evidence of the
inclining twig I remember, with still some feeling of pride, that
during one of my last summers on Lake Champlain I organized fifteen
boys of the neighborhood into an expedition against the Indians of the
far West. We were equipped with blankets stolen from our beds, three
flasks of powder, and nearly one hundred pounds of lead, which was to
be moulded into bullets for the extermination of the redskins of the
world. As Commander-in-Chief I carried the only pistol in the party but
we expected to seize additional arms on the way to the battlefields.
I had scouts ahead of us and on both flanks and by avoiding the roads
and the bank of the lake we managed to evade capture until the third
day, although the whole countryside was searching for us, in rather
hysterical fashion.
After a somewhat scattered series of escapades, which increased
the ire of the family and intensified my dislike of their prosaic
protestations, my father solemnly declared his intention of sending me
to the United States Naval Academy. It was his idea, as he expressed
it, that the discipline which prevailed there would be sufficient to
restrain me and at the same time my active imagination would find a
vent in my inborn love of the sea. I was delighted with this promised
realization of my boyhood dream, for it seemed to me that the career
of a naval officer presented greater possibilities of adventure than
any other. Former Congressman George P. Marsh, of Burlington, Vermont,
an old friend of the family, who afterward was sent to Italy as
American Minister and died there, arranged to secure my appointment
to Annapolis, and I entered a preparatory school to brush up on the
studies required by the entrance examination. The machinery to procure
my appointment had been set in motion and I was ready to take the
examination when the opening gun of the Civil War was fired at Fort
Sumter, on April 12, 1861.
I was immediately seized with a wild desire to be in the fight, but my
father would not consent to it, on account of my age. He would not hear
to my going into the army as a private but promised that if I would
wait a year, and was still of the same mind, he would try to get me a
commission. As I have said, my sympathies were with the South but it
was more convenient for me to take the other side, and at that moment
I was not particular about principles. The family were duly horrified
one evening when I went home, after some things I needed, and told them
I had enlisted. The next day my father bought my discharge and hustled
me out to the little town of Woodstock, Illinois, where I was placed
in charge of an uncle who was abjured to keep me from going to war,
without regard to anything else that might happen. He prevented me from
joining an infantry regiment which was then forming but I got away
with a cavalry regiment which was raised in that section some months
later, and was made one of its officers. We went to Cairo, Illinois,
and from there by transport to Pittsburg Landing, where we arrived just
in time to take part in the battle which was fought on April 6 and 7,
1862. My regiment was pitted against the famous Black Horse Cavalry of
Mississippi and we came together at the gallop. I was riding a demon of
a black horse and, with the bit in his teeth, he charged into the line
two or three lengths ahead of the rest. A Confederate officer came at
me with his sabre raised. I ducked my head behind my horse’s neck and
shot him between the eyes, but just as my pistol cracked his sword cut
through my horse’s head to the brain and the point of it laid open my
right cheek, from the ear almost to the chin. The horse fell on my leg
and held me there, unconscious. In the evening I was picked up and sent
to the general hospital, where I stayed for three weeks.
When I was discharged from the hospital I was too weak for active
service so I was sent into the Tennessee mountains in charge of a
detachment to intercept contraband which was being sent into the South
from Cincinnati. We had been there about ten days when, early in the
morning, one of the patrols brought in a fine-looking young man, who
had been arrested as a spy. There was a refinement about the prisoner
that aroused my suspicions, and during the day I satisfied myself that
“he” was a woman. While she would not acknowledge her identity, I had
reason to believe, and always have been sure in my own mind, that she
was none other than Belle Boyd, the famous Confederate spy. I was
born with a fondness for women, which then was strong within me, and
besides, my heart was with her cause. Therefore it is without apology
that I say I arranged things so that she escaped the next night through
a window in the shed in which she was confined.
Soon after my return to headquarters I contracted a bad case of
malaria and was sent home, which meant back to Woodstock, where I had
eloped with a banker’s daughter just before going to the front. I was
disgusted with the war and I expressed myself so freely, and was so
outspoken in my sympathy for the South, that I made myself extremely
unpopular in a very short time. It probably is true, too, as was
charged against me, that I swaggered around a lot and presumed on
the reputation I had made. At any rate the people set their hearts on
hanging me for being a “damned copperhead,” and they might have done it
if old man Wellburn, the proprietor of the hotel at which my wife and I
were staying, had not helped me to stand off a mob that came after me.
I met them at the door with a revolver in each hand and Wellburn was
right behind me with quite an arsenal. They suggested that I come out
and renounce my principles and make certain promises, or be hanged at
the liberty pole. I told them I would renounce nothing and promise less.
“If I am a copperhead,” I told them, “I am a fighting copperhead, while
you are neither kind. If you want a fight why don’t you go to the front
and get it, instead of staying home and making trouble for a better
man, who has fought and bled for the cause you are shouting about? If
you prefer a fight here, come on and get it. I’ve got twelve shots here
and there will be just thirteen of us in hell or heaven if you try to
make good your threat.”
Old Wellburn was known as a fighter and the sight of his weapons added
weight to my words, so the crowd concluded to let me have my way about
it, and dispersed. That experience intensified my dissatisfaction with
the whole business and I sent in my resignation. It was accepted, and
when I had thought it all over I considered that I was lucky to have
escaped a court-martial. It was fortunate for me that Governor “Dick”
Yates and my father were warm friends. The Governor was thoroughly
disgusted with the way I had conducted myself, but he stood by me.
I then moved to Chicago, with my wife. She had a small fortune and I
had come into considerable money on my twentieth birthday, so we were
in easy circumstances. I bought a vinegar works on Kinzie Street; but
the dull routine of business was repulsive to me and I sold it in less
than a year, after having operated it at a handsome profit, and went on
to New York. We stopped at the old St. Nicholas, at Broadway and Spring
Street, which was the fashionable hotel in those days.
I was looking for anything that promised excitement. I had heard that
Carlos Manuel de Cespedes was fomenting a revolt in Cuba,--afterward
known as the “Ten Years’ War,”--and had conceived the idea of taking
a hand in it. To my disappointment, I found that no Junta had been
established in this country, nor, so far as I could discover, were
there any responsible men in New York who were connected with the
revolution. While I was wondering how I could get into communication
with Cespedes my interest was aroused by a newspaper story of the
new blockade runner “Letter B,” which had made one round trip from
Bermuda to Beaufort, North Carolina, and was being looked for again
by the Federal fleet. The “Letter B”--its name a play on words--was a
long, low, powerful, schooner-rigged steamship, built by Laird on the
Mersey. Though classed as a fifteen-knot ship she could do sixteen
or seventeen, fast going at that time. The story which attracted my
attention told all about her and said there was so much money in
blockade running that the owners could well afford to lose her after
she had made three successful trips.
In five minutes I decided to become a blockade runner and to buy the
new and already famous ship, if she was to be had at any price within
reason. I bought a letter of credit and took the next ship for Bermuda.
On my arrival there I found that the “Letter B” had been expected in
for several days from her second trip and that there was considerable
anxiety about her. I also learned that her owner was building a second
ship on the same lines and for the same trade. A fresh cargo of
munitions of war was awaiting the “Letter B,” and a ship was ready to
take to England the cotton she would bring. I got acquainted with the
agent for the blockade runner and, after making sure that he had an
ample power of attorney from her owner, offered to buy her and take
the chance that she might never come in. He was not disposed to sell,
at first, and wanted me to wait until the arrival of her owner, Joseph
Berry, who was daily expected from England.
After waiting and talking with the agent for several days I said to him
one morning: “It looks as though your ship has been captured or sunk.
I’ll take a gambler’s chance that she hasn’t and will give you fifty
thousand dollars for her and twenty-five thousand dollars for the cargo
that is waiting for her; you to take the cargo she brings in. I’ll give
you three hours to think it over.”
I figured that the waiting cargo of arms was worth a couple of thousand
dollars more than my offer but it looked as though I was taking a
long chance with my offer for the ship. However, I had a “hunch,” or
whatever you want to call it, that she was all right, and I never have
had a well-defined “hunch” steer me in anything but a safe course,
wherefore I invariably heed them. At the expiration of the time limit
there was not a sign of smoke in any direction and the agent accepted
my proposition. In half an hour I had a bill of sale for the ship and
the warehouse receipts for the cargo of war supplies. At sunset that
day a ship came in from England with the former owner. He criticised
his agent sharply at first, but found some consolation in the fact that
the vessel he was building would soon go into commission. When two more
days passed with no sign of the anxiously looked for ship Mr. Berry
concluded that he had all the best of the bargain and complimented his
agent on his shrewdness.
On the third day the “Letter B” came tearing in, pursued at long range
by the U. S. S. “Powhatan,” which proceeded to stand guard over the
harbor, keeping well offshore on account of the reefs and shoals that
were under her lee. The “Letter B” discharged a full cargo of cotton
and was turned over to me. While her cargo of arms was going in I went
over her carefully and found her in excellent condition and ready to go
right back. She was unloaded in twelve hours and all of her cargo was
safely stowed in another forty-eight hours. I took command of her, with
John B. Williams, her old captain, as sailing master, and determined to
put to sea at once. I knew the “Powhatan” would not be looking for us
so soon and planned to catch her off her guard.
There was then no man-of-war entrance to the harbor and it was
necessary to enter and leave by daylight. With the sun just high enough
to let us get clear of the reefs before dark, and with the “Powhatan”
well offshore and at the farthest end of the course she was lazily
patrolling, we put to sea. The “Powhatan” saw us sooner than I had
expected she would and started to head us off, but she was not quick
enough. The moment she swung around I increased our speed to a point
which the pilot loudly swore would pile us up on the rocks, but it
didn’t, and when we cleared the passage we were all of four miles in
the lead. As I had figured, the “Powhatan” did not suppose we would
come out for at least a week and was cruising slowly about with fires
banked, so it took her some time to get up a full head of steam. She
fired three or four shots at us but they fell far short. As soon as it
was dark, with all of our lights doused, we turned and headed a little
south of west so as to come up to Charleston, South Carolina, which
was my objective point, from the south. At sunrise we had the ocean to
ourselves.
I started in at once to master practical navigation, the theory of
which I knew, and to familiarize myself with the handling of a ship.
I stood at the wheel for hours at a time and almost wore out the
instruments taking reckonings by the sun and the stars. Navigation came
to me naturally, for I loved it, and in three days I would have been
willing to undertake a cruise around the world with a Chinese crew.
We arrived off Charleston late in the afternoon and steamed up close
inshore until we could make out the smoke of the blockading fleet,
standing well out, in a semicircle. Then we dropped back a bit and
anchored. All of the conditions shaped themselves to favor us. It was a
murky night with a hard blow, which came up late in the afternoon, and
when we got under way at midnight a good bit of a sea was running. With
the engines held down to about half speed, but ready to do their best
in a twinkling, we headed for the harbor, standing as close inshore as
we dared go. We passed so close to the blockading ship stationed at the
lower end of the crescent that she could not have depressed her guns
enough to hit us even if we had been discovered in time, but she did
not see us until we had passed her. Then she let go at us with her bow
guns and while they did no damage, we were at such close quarters that
their flash gave the other ships a glimpse of us as we darted away at
full speed. They immediately opened on us but, after the first minute
or two, it was a case of haphazard shooting with all of them. They
knew how they bore from the channel and, making a guess at the proper
allowance for our speed, they blazed away, hoping for the best but
fearing the worst. The first shells exploded close around us and some
of the fragments came aboard but no one was injured. When I saw where
they were firing I threw my ship farther over toward Sullivan’s Island,
where she could go on account of her light draft, and sailed quietly
along into the harbor at reduced speed. At daylight we went up to the
dock and were warmly welcomed.
Before the second night was half over we had everything out of her and
a full cargo of cotton aboard and we steamed out at once. I knew the
blockaders would not expect us for at least four days and we surprised
them just as we had surprised the “Powhatan” at Bermuda. It was a thick
night and we sailed right through the fleet, at half speed so as better
to avoid detection, but prepared to break and run for it at the crack
of a gun, without a shot being fired or an extra light shown. As soon
as we were clear of the line we put on full speed and three days later
we were safe at Turk’s Island, the most southerly and easterly of the
Bahama Islands, off the coast of Florida, which I had selected as a
base of operations. Though these islands ought long ago to have come
under the Stars and Stripes, as they eventually must, they are still
owned by England, and in those days they were a haven and a clearing
house for the outsiders who were actively aiding the Confederacy--for a
very substantial consideration. Most of the blockade runners, including
the “Banshee,” “Siren,” “Robert E. Lee,” “Lady Stirling” and other
famous ships, were operating out of Nassau, which had the advantage of
closer proximity to the chief Southern ports, being within six hundred
miles of Charleston and Wilmington. Turk’s Island was nine hundred
miles away, but I never have believed in following the crowd. It is my
rule to do things alone and in my own way, as must be the practice of
every man who expects to succeed in any dangerous business. It is no
part of my philosophy to become a party to a situation in which I may
suffer from the mistakes of others or in which others are likely to
get into trouble through any fault of mine. The popularity of Nassau
caused it to be closely watched by the Federal cruisers that patrolled
the Gulf Stream, while the less important islands to the south and east
were practically unguarded.
Though precarious for the men who made them so, those were plenteous
days for the Bahamas, compared with which the rich tourist toll since
levied on the then hated Yankees is but small change. The fortunes
yielded by blockade running seemed made by magic, so quick was the
process. Cotton that was bought in Charleston or Wilmington for ten
cents a pound sold for ten times as much in the Bahamas and there
were enormous profits in the return cargoes of military supplies.
The captains and crews shared in the proceeds and the health of the
Confederacy was drunk continuously, and often riotously. By the time I
projected myself temporarily into this golden atmosphere of abnormal
activity, running the blockade had become more of a business and less
of a romance than it was in the reckless early days of the war. The
fleet was made up of fast ships of light draft, especially built to
meet the needs and dangers of the trade, and they were so much faster
than the warships which hunted them that the percentage captured was
relatively very small.
Before leaving Bermuda I had ordered a cargo of munitions of war sent
to Turk’s Island. We had to wait nearly a month for this shipment to
arrive but the time was well spent in overhauling the engines and
putting the “Letter B” in perfect condition.
My second trip to Charleston furnished a degree of excitement that
exalted my soul. While we were held up at Turk’s Island the blockading
fleet had been strengthened and supplemented by several small and fast
boats which cruised around outside of the line. Without knowing this
I had decided--it must have been in response to a “hunch”--to make a
dash straight through the line and into the harbor. It was fortunate
that we followed this plan for they were expecting us to come up from
the south, hugging the shore as we had done before, and if we had taken
that course they certainly would have sunk us or forced us aground.
We were proceeding cautiously but did not think we were close to the
danger zone when suddenly one of the patrol ships picked us up and
opened fire. Her guns were no better than peashooters but they gave the
signal to the fleet and instantly lights popped up all along the line
ahead of us. When caught in such a trap, if I had not been thirsting
for thrills, I would have shown them our heels, for we could have
gotten away without any trouble; but the demon of dare-deviltry seized
and gripped me.
In the flashing lights ahead I saw all of the excitement I had been
longing for, and with an exultant yell to the helmsman to “tell the
engineer to give her hell,” I pushed him aside and seized the wheel.
I fondled the spokes lovingly and leaned over them in a tumult of
joy. It was the great moment of which I had dreamed from boyhood. I
had anticipated that when it came I would be considerably excited
and forgetful of all my carefully thought out plans for meeting an
emergency, but to my surprise I found that I was as cool as though
we were riding at anchor in New York Bay. In the first flash I felt
myself grow cold all over and then a gentle current of electricity
began running through me, as though my heart had been transformed into
a dynamo and my veins into fine wires. The opening gun cleared my mind
of all its anxieties and intensified its action. I remember that I took
time to analyze my feelings to make sure that I was calm and collected
and not stunned and stolid, and that I was silent from choice and not
through anything of fear. I counted the blockading ships as their
hidden lights flashed out and wondered how their officers and crews
enjoyed being dragged out of their first sound sleep by my impertinent
little vessel. I measured the distance we would have to go to clear
their line and tried to figure out, from a rough calculation as to the
number of their guns and the accuracy of their fire, the mathematical
probability of our being sunk. Strange though it may seem, the
possibility of our capture never occurred to me. We might be sent to
the bottom, and would be if it were so decreed by Fate, but otherwise
we would get away, and the only other question was as to the nature and
extent of our injuries. When we were fairly under their spiteful guns
I thought of what great sport it would be if we could only return their
fire on something like even terms. I compared the wide, individualistic
opportunity of naval warfare with routine battles on land, which are
fought by rules laid down for every condition that can arise, and
unhesitatingly decided in favor of the sea, with its long-nursed
passion for the man who dares its fury, and its despotism over him who
fears it.
As though spurred by a human impulse the good little ship sprang
forward as she felt the full force of her engines, and never did she
make such another race of it as she did that night. In the sea then
running and at the speed we were going we would ordinarily have had two
men at the wheel, but I found it so easy and so delightful to handle
the ship alone that I declined the assistance of Captain Williams,
who stood just behind me. Though I am not tall, being not much over
five feet and eight inches, nature was kind in giving me a well set up
frame and a powerful constitution, devoid of nerves but with muscles
of steel,--in those days and for many years after,--and with a reserve
supply of strength that made me marvel at its source. Through all of
my active life I kept myself in as perfect condition as a trained
athlete, despite occasional dissipations ashore, and I never got into a
close corner without feeling myself possessed of the strength of half
a dozen ordinary men. Consequently the tugs of the wheel as we tore
through the water toward Charleston seemed like a child’s pulls on a
string.
The widest opening in the already closing line was, luckily, directly
in front of us, and I headed for it. The sparks that were streaming
from our smokestack and the lights of the patrol which was trying to
follow us, gave the blockaders our course as plainly as though it
had been noonday, and they closed in from both sides to head us off.
Evidently they considered that time was also fleeting for they lost not
a moment in getting their guns to going, and shot and shell screamed
and sang all around the undaunted “Letter B.” First the mainmast and
then the foremast came down with a crash, littering the decks with
their gear. A shell carried death into the forecastle. One shot tore
away the two forward stanchions of the pilot house and another one
smashed through the roof but neither Captain Williams nor I was injured
by so much as a splinter. All of our boats and most of our upper works
were literally shot to pieces. That we were not sent to the bottom on
the run was no tribute to the skill of the Yankee gunners. They could
not have been more than half awake when they began firing on us and we
were flying so fast that it appeared to disconcert them, even after
they got their bearings. If they had taken time to depress their guns
the race would have been a short one, but they all wanted to sink us at
once, with the result that only one shot struck us below the main deck,
and that did very little damage to the ship.
From first to last we must have been under that terrific fire for half
an hour but it seemed not more than a few minutes, and it really was
with something of regret that I found the shots were falling astern,
for I had enjoyed the experience immensely. When we got up to the dock
we found that five of our men had been killed and a dozen more or
less seriously injured. The ship had not been damaged at all so far
as speed and seaworthiness in ordinary weather were concerned, though
she looked a wreck. The blockaders thought we were much more seriously
injured than was actually the case but their mistake was one that could
easily be pardoned. They expected we would be laid up for a month.
Consequently when we steamed out on the fourth night, after making only
temporary repairs, they were not looking for us and we got through
their line without much trouble. A few shots were fired at us when
we were almost clear but not one of them came aboard and we were not
pursued; they had come to have great respect for our speed. We refitted
at Turk’s Island, where we laid up for three weeks.
I made two more trips to Charleston without any very exciting
experiences, though we were fired on both times, and then sold the ship
to an enterprising Englishman who was waiting for me at Turk’s Island.
I had made a comfortable fortune with her and sold her for more than I
paid for her. She was in almost as good condition as when I bought her,
but I have made it a rule never to overplay my luck, and I knew I had
run about as many trips with her as I could expect to make without a
change of fortune. I am under the impression that the ship and her new
owner were captured on her next trip to Charleston, but am not sure as
to that.