[Illustration: RAPHAEL SEMMES.]
THE CRUISE OF THE ALABAMA AND THE SUMTER.
FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS AND OTHER PAPERS OF COMMANDER R. SEMMES,
C.S.N. AND OTHER OFFICERS.
Two Volumes in One.
NEW YORK:
MDCCCLXIV.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
GEO. W. CARLETON,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the
Southern District of New York.
ADVERTISEMENT
_TO THE LONDON EDITION._
The following account of the cruise of the two Confederate States
steamers--Sumter and Alabama--is taken from the private journals and
other papers of Captain Semmes. It has been found necessary occasionally
to adopt a narrative form, but the endeavour has been throughout to
adhere as closely as possible to that officer's own words.
Information has also been most kindly afforded by other officers of the
two vessels, and especially Lieutenant R.F. Armstrong, and Master's Mate
G. Townley Fullam, from whose private journals and other papers much
valuable assistance has been obtained.
A good deal of controversy has arisen respecting the legality of the
course pursued by the Alabama, in the case of certain vessels claiming
to carry a neutral cargo. In all these cases, however, great care was
taken by Captain Semmes to enter in his journal full particulars of the
claims, and of the grounds on which it was refused admission. These
cases will be found quoted in full in the following volumes.
CRUISE OF
THE ALABAMA AND THE SUMTER.
CHAPTER I.
_The Question at issue--An unexpected point of attack--Captain
Semmes--The President's instructions--Creating a navy--From the old to
the new--An important mission--Appointed to the Sumter--True character
of the Confederate "pirate."_
The President of the American States in Confederation was gathering an
army for the defence of Southern liberty. Where valour is a national
inheritance, and an enthusiastic unanimity prevails, this will not prove
a difficult task. It is otherwise with the formation of a navy. Soldiers
of Southern blood had thrown up their commissions in a body; but sailors
love their ships as well as their country, and appear to owe some
allegiance to them likewise. Nevertheless, if Mr. Davis had not a great
choice of officers, he had eminent men to serve him, as the young
history of the South has abundantly shown. To obtain experienced and
trusty seamen was easier to him in such a crisis than to give them a
command. The Atlantic and the ports of America were ruled at that time
absolutely by President Lincoln. The South had not a voice upon the sea.
The merchants of New York and Boston looked upon the war as something
which concerned them very little. Not a dream of any damage possibly to
be inflicted on them, disturbed the serenity of their votes for the
invasion of the South. Their fleets entered harbour proudly; their
marine swam the ocean unmolested. Though there was war imminent, the
insurance offices were content to maintain their terms upon a peace
standard. What, indeed, was to be feared? The South had not a single
vessel. Here and there a packet-steamer might be caught up and armed,
but what would they avail against such fleet and powerful ships as the
Brooklyn, the Powhattan, and dozens of others? There was, then, a
condition of perfect security, according to the ideas of all American
commercial men. The arrangement, as they understood it, was that they
were to strike the blow, and that no one was to give them the value in
return.
It happened that Mr. Davis was of another mind. He perceived where a
blow could be struck, on his part, with terrible emphasis, and how. The
obstacles in his way were colossal; but we have learnt that obstacles do
not appal his indomitable genius. On the 14th February, 1861, Captain
Semmes, being then at his residence in the city of Washington, a
Commander in the Federal navy, received the following telegram from
Montgomery:--
SIR,--On behalf of the Committee on Naval Affairs, I beg
leave to request that you will repair to this place at your earliest
convenience.
Your obedient servant,
C.M. CONRAD, _Chairman_.
The selection of Captain Semmes for the first hazardous service,
whatsoever it might be, was due to his reputation and patriotism, as
well as to the sagacity of the Confederate chief. He had already, in a
letter to the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, expressed his willingness to
fight for the South: "his judgment, his inclinations, and his
affections," all hurrying him, as he says, to link his fate with the
first movement of the South. "My fate," he pursues, "is cast with the
South; but I should be unwilling, unless invited, to appear to thrust
myself upon the new Government _until my own State_ has moved." This was
at that time the feeling of many border statesmen. In another letter to
Mr. Curry he had exposed sound practical views of the situation of the
Confederates, as regards their marine, for defence and means of
inflicting damage on their opponents.
Captain Semmes at once replied that he would attend upon the committee
immediately. His next act was respectfully to resign his commission as
Commander in the Navy of the United States; which resignation was
accepted in the same terms. He ceased similarly to be a member of the
Lighthouse Board. These matters concluded, he telegraphed to the Hon.
J.L.M. Curry, in Montgomery, where the Confederate States' Congress was
sitting, that he was now a free man to serve his struggling country.
Forthwith he was deputed by President Davis to return to the Northern
States, and make large purchases and contracts "for machinery and
munitions, or for the manufacture of arms and munitions of war;" as also
to obtain "cannon and musket-powder, the former of the coarsest grain,"
and to engage with a certain proprietor of powder-mills for the
"establishment of a powder-mill at some point in the limits of our
territory." This letter gives a good idea of the business-like qualities
brought by Mr. Davis to his high office. "At the arsenal at Washington,"
he writes, "you will find an artificer named Wright, who has brought the
cap-making machine to its present state of efficiency, and who might
furnish a cap-machine, and accompany it, to explain its operations."
Throughout the letter, which is full of minute instructions and weighty
commissions, Mr. Davis shows the fullest confidence in the loyalty and
fitness of the man in whom he placed trust.
Captain Semmes was engaged in the performance of these immediate duties,
when a confidential communication from Mr. S.R. Mallory, of the Navy
department, gave him warning of two or more steamers, of a class desired
for present service, which might be purchased at or near New
York--"steamers of speed, light draught, and strength sufficient for at
least one heavy gun."
"The steamers are designed to navigate the waters and enter the bays and
inlets of the coast from Charleston to the St. Mary's, and from Key West
to the Rio Grande, for coast defences;" and Captain Semmes' judgment
will need no further guide when he is told that "their speed should be
sufficient to give them at all times the ability to engage or to evade
an engagement, and that an 8 or 10-inch gun, with, perhaps, two 32, or,
if not, two of smaller calibre, should constitute their battery."
The Captain's appointment as Commander in the Navy of the Confederate
States, and taking of the oaths, followed in April. On the 18th of that
month, Mr. Mallory detached him from the post he held, by appointment
from the President, of Chief of the Lighthouse Bureau, with orders that
he should proceed to New Orleans and take command of the steamer Sumter.
Captain Semmes saw clearly that war was coming. He perceived, at the
same time, the means by which he could serve his country best. He set
forth for New Orleans without delay.
Our readers will see, by-and-by, from the quotations we shall make from
the Captain's Log, that he is as little the hungry fire-eater which many
of his admirers suppose him to be, as he is the Black Pirate of the New
York press. Captain Semmes is a native of Charles county, in Maryland, a
State that has furnished numerous patriotic citizens to the South.
Before accepting his new service he had taken honourable farewell of his
old. The Federals had no charge to bring against him before the day when
he stepped on the deck of the then unknown and insignificant Sumter
steam-vessel. What they may have said later is of no particular
consequence; nor can it be thought to be greatly to the discredit of
Captain Semmes that they have cried out loudly, and as men in pain.