WAR AND THE WHALERS
If we had come across a northern whaler in the early Victorian days,
we should have found she was a full-rigged ship of not more than 450
tons; and if we had come across her at sea with her maintopsails backed
and her courses clewed up and a number of birds swooping around her, we
should know even from a distance that she was just cutting up the whale
which had been recently caught. And as you came nearer you would have
heard the men at the capstan heaving away to an old whaling chantey:
’Tis well nigh sixty years ago,
On March the twentieth day,
When we set sail from Yarmouth Roads,
And bore due North away.
And, after a few narrative verses concerning the whaling operations,
there would come the final cheery words:
Singing “Aye, lads, give way, lads,”
We’re bound to the north countree,
Where icebergs grow and whales do blow,
And sunsets you never see.
Dreadful doggerel it all seems to the modern sailor, with his extra
master’s ticket and scientific knowledge: but those were the days of
simple ships and plain seamen. So you would hear the song end abruptly
as that long strip of blubber was hauled up from the whale’s carcase
alongside. The “blanket-piece” they used to call it. And then you
would be able to watch those busy men on the whale’s back working away
with their spades and cutting another piece. That was before the days
of steam affected these vessels. But even those Arctic whalers of
about 1870 were still fully rigged, their engines were of very small
horse-power, and just useful for getting the ship out of some awkward
surrounding ice. Otherwise they were sailing ships and practically did
all their passages under canvas. They went out with coal in their oil
tanks, which were cleaned out on reaching the grounds and then filled
with the whale produce. But their fuel consumption was very small.
As one examines the lines of such a vessel, one notices that this
three-master has not a straight stem, but a moderately rounded forefoot
with a straight keel and a very short counter. Her sides were about as
solid as one of Nelson’s wooden walls, and her bows were protected with
sheets of iron to resist the ice. The total complement was about fifty,
the men being berthed forward and the officers aft. The single funnel
was immediately abaft the mainmast, and as you walked along the raised
poop deck you would have noted the engine-room skylight, sometimes
a light flying bridge, then the companion-way to the saloon and the
officers’ cabins leading out of it. The steering wheel was right aft,
there was a pump wheel just behind the mainmast; while forward there
were the capstan and fo’c’sle hatch, and then came the big hold for
the whale produce. In lieu of a figure-head you would notice that she
carried a carved harpoon.
The Norwegian whalers of this period were small and built of their
native fir with a few sheets of iron sheathing, hoping to avoid being
seriously caught in the ice. The Norwegian steam-whalers were both
ancient and slow; but there were also some ketch-rigged craft of about
40 tons with a crew which varied from nine to seventeen. This smaller
type sometimes used her squaresail for driving the ship astern, if she
got caught in the ice and saw an opening clear astern.
But during the American Civil War there came an additional peril to
those whalers which used to sail from the western coast through the
Bering Straits into the Arctic. And the destruction of whaling ships
by those Confederate cruisers _Shenandoah_, _Alabama_ and _Florida_
was one of the biggest shocks that ever came to the industry. “The
whaling industry of New England,” says Mr. Arthur C. Watson, “saw
the handwriting on the wall during the Civil War. Petroleum had
been discovered, and the ship merchants and captains knew what the
consequences were to be. They realized that the decline in their
business was permanent, and that, as the years came on, more and more
of their craft would be forced out of the running. It was merely a
coincidence that the war and the mineral oil discovery should be
contemporary events, but the war had a part of its own to play in the
decay of the industry--a dramatic part, in fact, which made the port
of New Bedford shudder for its future far more than did the news about
petroleum.”
When the _Shenandoah_ in June 1865 came up the Bering Straits she
was rewarded for her trouble by capturing and burning five whaling
vessels. But on the next day she captured at anchor quite a fleet of
whalers, with the exception of the _Favorite_, commanded by Captain
Young, who resisted the Confederate’s officer coming on board not
merely with words, but with a display of guns and fire-arms. But the
_Favorite’s_ crew got frightened and deserted, so that after removing
the ship’s ammunition they took to the boats and left Captain Young by
himself. The latter, when the _Shenandoah’s_ next boat came off, had
no alternative but to surrender when he found there was nothing for his
guns to fire, and on being taken prisoner he was put in irons. On that
day nine whaling ships were lost to their enemy.
But during that same month the _Shenandoah_ made numerous other attacks
on whaling fleets, burned thirty-four fine ships, and employed four
others for taking the captured whaling crews back to the shore. These
losses to this section of seafaring were such that ship-owners were
pretty well ruined. Nor were these by any means all. Everyone knows
the daring story of the _Alabama_, how she was built by Messrs. Laird
of Birkenhead as a wooden barquentine-rigged screw steamer of 1,040
tons under her yard designation as “No. 290,” and that on July 29,
1862, under the pretence of doing her trial trip she slipped down the
Mersey out to sea and made for the Azores, where she was met by two
other vessels which brought her armament. But many readers will have
forgotten the blows she struck at the American whaling ships.
Her commanding officer was Captain Raphael Semmes, and she at once
began to show what she could do. “I resolved to strike a blow at the
enemy’s whale-fishery, off the Azores,” he wrote. “There is a curious
and beautiful problem--that of Providence feeding the whale--connected
with this fishery.... It is because of that problem that the Azores are
a whaling station. The food which attracts the whale to these islands
is not produced in their vicinity, but is carried thither by the
currents--the currents of the ocean performing the same functions for
the finny tribe that the atmosphere does for the plants. The fishes of
the sea, in their kingdom beneath the waters, have thus their highways
and byways, as well as the animals upon the land, and are always to be
found congregated where their great food-bearers, the currents, make
the deposits.”
The American whalers had been fond of this ground and found it
profitable, the season usually ending about the beginning of October,
when the first gales began to blow and the whales migrated to other
feeding grounds. But here was the _Alabama_ off here by the beginning
of September, so she had several weeks in which she could hope for
success. It was that old area, of course, where English ships in the
sixteenth century used to lie in wait for the richly laden carracks
making for Spain and Portugal. And so on the night of September 4
we find the _Alabama_ hove-to off Fayal under her topsails, and the
next day the light easterly weather with a cloudy sky came as ideal
conditions for the cruiser to begin.
She had not long to wait, for a ship was sighted lying to, and then the
cruiser made sail, hoisted United States colours and ran down to within
a few hundred yards of her. The strange ship also hoisted United States
colours and revealed herself a whaler. She had that very day harpooned
a whale, and a big one at that. She had just got the animal alongside
and the yard tackles in the usual way were hoisting him partially out
of the water to be flensed, when the _Alabama_ sprang a ripe surprise
by now hoisting true Confederate colours.
The name of the whaler was the _Ocmulgee_, of Edgartown, Massachusetts,
whose master Semmes described as “a genuine specimen of the Yankee
whaling skipper; long and lean, and as elastic, apparently, as the
whalebone he dealt in. Nothing could exceed the blank stare of
astonishment that sat on his face, as the change of flags took place
on board the _Alabama_. He had been engaged, up to the last moment,
with his men, securing the rich spoil alongside. The whale was a fine
‘sperm,’ and was a ‘big strike,’ and had already been denuded of
much of its blubber when we got alongside. He naturally concluded, he
said, when he saw the United States colours at our peak, that we were
one of the new gunboats sent out by Mr. Welles to protect the whale
fishery. It was indeed remarkable that no protection should have been
given to these men by their Government. Unlike the ships of commerce,
the whalers are obliged to congregate within small well-known spaces
of ocean, and remain there for weeks at a time, whilst the whaling
season lasts. It was the most obvious thing in the world that these
vessels, thus clustered together, should attract the attention of the
Confederate cruisers and be struck at.”
For at that time there were not more than half a dozen important
whaling stations in the world, and as already mentioned, the
_Shenandoah_ was able in the North Pacific to repeat the successes of
the _Alabama_ in the Atlantic. During the Great War it became necessary
latterly to send armed craft to protect the British fishing fleets in
the North Sea, but, as Semmes says, “the whalers, like the commerce
of the United States generally, were abandoned to their fate.” It
thus became perfectly easy to strike a blow at American whaling with
such force that it never recovered. It has been estimated that these
cruisers did damage to the extent of £310,000, including £100,000 worth
of oil lost. In addition to that sum must be reckoned the loss of
twenty-three fine New Bedford whaling ships which were intentionally
sunk at the entrances to Confederate harbours in order to block them
up. Thus the unfortunate owners and fishermen seemed to have been dealt
blows right and left. Who could expect that with such circumstances
whaling could ever become again what it once was?
But to return to the _Alabama_: there were taken out of the _Ocmulgee_
not merely the thirty-seven unhappy people but meat and stores, by
which time night had come on. It was too late to think of burning her,
for the flames against the nocturnal sky would only scare the other
whalers somewhere in the vicinity. “I had now become too old a hunter
to commit such an indiscretion,” remarked Semmes humorously. “With a
little management and caution, I might hope to uncover the birds no
faster than I could bag them. And so, hoisting a light at the peak of
the prize, I permitted her to remain anchored to the whale, and we lay
by her until the next morning, when we burned her; the smoke of the
conflagration being, no doubt, mistaken by vessels at a distance for
that of some passing steamer.”
Later on, after capturing a Boston schooner, the _Alabama_ chased a
whaling brig, which by her number of boats and other characteristics
showed her occupation unmistakably. But she was eventually allowed to
go, for she proved herself a genuine Portuguese; and this was the only
foreign whaler that the _Alabama_ came across, for the whaling monopoly
was so thoroughly in American hands by this date. But in that same
afternoon Semmes gave chase to a vessel in the north-west and came up
to her about sunset. She was flying American colours and her master
unsuspectingly presumed the steamer had been sent to act as escort. The
American vessel was found to be the New Bedford whaler _Ocean Rover_,
and already she had been cruising about the world, true to her name,
for three years and four months, and had sent home one or two cargoes
of oil, but was now going back there with eleven hundred barrels after
her long voyaging, having determined to visit the Azores grounds in
order to fill up what empty casks remained. But the _Ocean Rover_
was now to end her last voyage of all. Semmes had her hove-to until
morning about four miles from the land, and the whaler’s captain asked
permission to land in his own boats. Semmes suggested that this was
rather a long distance to pull, to which the Yankee skipper replied,
“Oh! That’s nothing. We whalers sometimes chase a whale, on the broad
sea, until our ships are hull-down, and think nothing of it.”
So, the sea being smooth, the six whaleboats were allowed alongside
the _Ocean Rover_, and for two hours the men worked hard transferring
provisions, personal effects and whaling gear as well as the ship’s cat
and parrot. The whaler’s skipper declined Semmes’s suggestion that the
boats were too heavily laden to be safe. “No,” insisted the whaler,
“they’re as buoyant as ducks, and we shan’t ship a drop of water.” And
he was right, for they got to the Flores shore all right.
By morning the _Alabama_ had captured the _Alert_ of New London, whose
stores were extremely welcome as she was only sixteen days out of her
home port. And now after burning the schooner _Starlight_, the _Ocean
Rover_ and _Alert_, the _Alabama_ drew close to a large schooner which
had to have a blank cartridge fired before she would heave-to. She was
boarded and found to be the whaler _Weathergauge_ of Provincetown,
Massachusetts, six weeks out. Semmes said that American sailing ships
were notable for the whiteness of their canvas, which was made out of
American cotton, so the cut of the sails and the taper of the spars
usually showed the nationality: but on one occasion the _Alabama_ had a
good chase all for nothing, the vessel being a Dane although she seemed
a real Yankee.
After the _Weathergauge_ whaler had landed her crew in the ship’s
boats, she was burned, and presently steering off to the north-west
the _Alabama_ tried fresh ground, and sighted the New Bedford whaler
_Altamaha_, five months out. She had not had much whaling luck and
was comparatively “clean.” She was now burned, but owing to absence
of oil did not burn so furiously. It was now the middle of September,
and on the night after the capture of _Altamaha_ there was an exciting
chase. About half-past eleven a large sailing ship passed to windward,
and visible in the bright moonlight. Both ships were close-hauled on
the starboard tack, the strange vessel being about three points on the
_Alabama’s_ weather bow, and evidently realized that the _Alabama_ was
now pursuing, for the stranger set both her royals and flying jib. This
suited the Confederate perfectly, as her best sailing was when she
was on a wind, and few ships could beat her under that condition. The
stranger had got a good start, but the _Alabama_ was footing so quickly
that within a couple of hours she was on the other’s weather quarter,
having both fore-reached and got to windward of the stranger. When the
range came down to a mile, Semmes had a blank fired to cause the fleer
to heave-to. But the latter now bore away a little, eased her sheets
and began getting out her stuns’l booms preparatory to setting more
canvas.
The _Alabama_ therefore eased sheets also, and was so well handled that
before the pursued could get her foretopmast stuns’l set, she was at
point-blank range. Semmes fired a second blank and then the stranger
hauled up her courses and steered up into the wind. Was she a neutral
or a prize, after all? Semmes sent his boarding officer to her with
instructions that if she were the latter he was to hoist a light as
soon as he got aboard her. Followed a brief lull as the oars quickly
rowed the boat away from the cruiser. But now up went a light to the
stranger’s peak, and so the two vessels remained near to each other
till morning. She was found to be yet another whaler, the _Benjamin
Tucker_, eight months out of New Bedford, with 340 barrels of oil.
After her crew had been taken off and some of her stores salved, such
as tobacco, she was set on fire.
And so matters went on, for the next vessel to be caught was the
whaling schooner _Courser_ of Provincetown, Massachusetts, with a young
man as skipper. The difficulty now was exactly that which confronted
the German raiders during the Great War: in fact, Semmes’ tactics
are so similar to those of such ships as the _Moewe_ and _Seeadler_
that one can only suppose that German naval officers must have paid
considerable study to the Confederate _Alabama’s_ operations. When the
auxiliary sailing ship _Seeadler_ in the South Atlantic had sunk so
many vessels away from land she found all those survivors a nuisance:
for they had to be fed and they took up a great deal of space. Von
Luckner, her commanding officer, got over this difficulty by capturing
one more ship and sending the other crews away in her with strict
orders to make for the nearest South American port. Semmes now ran
back towards the Azores, anxious to get rid of all this crowd, which
was seriously inconveniencing the ship, for he had the crews of three
vessels. Towing eight whaleboats he approached Flores and sent seventy
shipless seamen in the oared craft to the land, and as they pulled
away from the cruiser it seemed as if a regatta were being held in the
Atlantic. After they had gone, and just before the _Courser_ was set on
fire, Semmes used her as a target, and gave his men practice in gunnery.
Resuming now her north-west course, which had been interrupted, the
_Alabama_ with a fine south-west wind sighted, chased and overcame
a large ship which turned out to be the whaler _Virginia_, twenty
days out from New Bedford. After three and a half hours the contest
was over. Semmes says the master of the ship was greatly surprised
at the _Alabama’s_ speed. Fortunately there still exists in America
the statement of Captain Shadrach R. Tilton, then in command of this
whaling ship, and Mr. Arthur C. Watson, who has had access to it, says
that Tilton told of Semmes with his heavy black moustache waxed by a
servant every morning and of how the Confederate’s captain always wore
white kid gloves. These little touches of personal pride exactly agree
with Semmes’s somewhat bombastic tone of writing, very much after the
manner of certain German naval officers who published their experiences
of the Great War.
Tilton stated that “the pirate ship overtook us in latitude 39° 10′;
longitude 34° 20′. She first showed British colors, but when a quarter
of a mile from the _Virginia_ she set Confederate colors and sent an
armed boat’s crew aboard. I was informed the vessel was a prize to the
_Alabama_, and ordered to take my papers and go aboard the steamer.
The pirates then stripped the ship of all valuable articles, and at 4
p.m. set fire to her. I went on the quarterdeck of the _Alabama_ with
my son, when they sent us into the lee waist with the crew. All were
ironed except two boys, the cook, and the steward. I asked if I was
to be ironed, and the reply was that the vessel’s purser had been in
irons aboard the United States vessel, and his head shaved. He proposed
to retaliate. We were put in the lee waist with an old mattress and a
few blankets upon which to lie. The steamer’s guns were run out, the
side and the ports could not be shut. So when the sea was rough and
the vessel rolled, the water washed the decks and we were wet all the
time. Often we would wake at night with a sea pouring over us. Our food
consisted of beef, pork, rice, ham, tea, coffee, and bread. Only one
of our irons was taken off at a time. We were always under guard. On
October 3rd we fell in with the schooner _Emily Farnham_, to which we
were transferred, after signing a parole.”
Semmes as a matter of fact had the torch applied to _Virginia_ rather
late in the afternoon, so the wreck was still visible whilst she burned
after nightfall. But a still more exciting chase was to take place the
next day when it was blowing hard. The look-out man at _Alabama’s_
masthead reported a barque in sight. The latter saw that the cruiser
wore round and thereupon made off at once under all sail. Running down
before the wind, _Alabama_ held on to t’gallant sails although the
masts whipped as if they would go over the side; and it was the same
with the other ship. There was a nasty sea running, but the cruiser
leaped along so quickly that within three hours the barque was within
range. The cruiser was employing that ancient and perfectly legal ruse
of flying false colours, but Semmes does not explain whether he lowered
these English colours down before opening fire, as he unquestionably
should.
After _Alabama_ fired, the barque hoisted her flag and clewed up her
t’gallant sails, hauled up her courses and waited. The former took in
his t’gallants, furled his courses and reefed his topsails. It was
blowing so hard now and the sea was so bad that Semmes even hesitated
to lower his boats: but it was evident that presently the wind would be
of gale force, and unless the barque were captured at once she would
be able to escape in the darkness and tempest of the night. Therefore
he ordered two of his best boats to be lowered, whilst the cruiser
lay hove-to but to windward of the prize, so that the boats could row
down to leeward. The _Alabama_ would then run down to leeward so that
the boats could again have a favourable chance. This, of course, is
the recognised manœuvre approved by every expert in seamanship, and it
was accomplished successfully. The boats with their human loads of
prisoners went rushing down the sea valleys and over the crests, came
under the lee of _Alabama_, who threw them a rope, and so the captors
and captives got aboard. The ship had been set on fire before shoving
off and was found to be the whaler _Elisha Dunbar_, twenty-four days
out from New Bedford.
But the wind and sea prevented Semmes from sailing this crew back to
the Azores, where quite a Yankee population was now being congregated.
Under close-reefed topsails the _Alabama_ remained for several days,
and the wind coming north she drifted some distance south. It may be
mentioned here that Captain Gifford of the _Elisha Dunbar_ afterwards
stated quite definitely that the _Alabama_ had “fired a gun under our
stern, with the St. George’s cross flying at the time. Our colours were
set, when she displayed the Confederate flag ... there were sixty-five
barrels of sperm oil on deck.”
The break-up of the weather had put an end to the whaling season rather
sooner than would ordinarily have been the case, so Semmes resolved to
change his cruising ground and make towards the Newfoundland Banks.
After capturing other merchant ships he came up with the New Bedford
whaler _Levi Starbuck_, bound on a thirty months’ voyage to the
Pacific, and she, too, was captured and then burnt. In like manner,
too, the Confederate cruiser _Florida_ in 1864 was operating in the
Atlantic, and among others she sank the New Bedford whaler _Golconda_.
For the latter it was particularly hard lines as she had been away
from home for most of five years, she was just ending her cruise, and
had even thrown overboard the previous day her “try-works” used for
boiling the last whale down, and there was no intention now but to sail
home as quickly as possible with the oil cargo. It was just as the
whaler was passing through the Gulf Stream that she was caught by the
Confederate, whose officer came aboard, took a few barrels of sperm
oil, set her on fire in the cabin, at the main hatchway and forecastle,
and left her to burn. The unfortunate crew were subsequently put aboard
a schooner.
Thus in this Civil War those American whalers which had built up such
an interesting section of history, and brought so much wealth into
North America, received a terrible setback. We may well sympathize
with owners and skippers and crew, for it was the breaking of a fine
tradition which will ever be remembered. But all over the world whaling
was, with the advent of steam and the diminishing of the sperm whale,
now to undergo a change from those days when long voyages of several
years were the rule, and the ship was the floating peregrinating
factory and open boats were the whale-catchers. Those ancient methods
have gone never to return.