FARRAGUT AND THE NAVY: 1863-4
The Navy's task in '63 was complicated by the many foreign vessels
that ran only between two neutral ports but broke bulk into
blockade-runners at their own port of destination. For instance,
a neutral vessel, with neutral crew and cargo, would leave a port
in Europe for a neutral port in America, say, Nassau in the Bahamas
or Matamoras on the Rio Grande. She could not be touched of course
at either port or anywhere inside the three-mile limit. But
international law accepted the doctrine of continuous voyage, by
which contraband could be taken anywhere on the high seas, provided,
of course, that the blockader could prove his case. If, for example,
there were ten times as many goods going into Matamoras as could
possibly be used through that port by Mexico, then the presumption
was that nine-tenths were contraband. Presumption becoming proof
by further evidence, the doctrine of continuous voyage could be
used in favor of the blockaders who stopped the contraband at sea
between the neutral ports. The blockade therefore required a double
line of operation: one, the old line along the Southern coast,
the other, the new line out at sea, and preferably just beyond
the three-mile limit outside the original port of departure, so
as to kill the evil at its source. Nassau and Matamoras gave the
coast blockade plenty of harassing work; Nassau because it was
"handy to" the Atlantic ports, Matamoras because it was at the
mouth of the Rio Grande, over the shoals of which the Union warships
could not go to prevent contraband crossing into Texas, thence up
to the Red River, down to the Mississippi (between the Confederate
strongholds of Vicksburg and Port Hudson) and on to any other part
of the South. But what may be called the high-seas blockade was no
less harassing, complicated as it was by the work of Confederate
raiders.
The coast blockade of '63 was marked by two notable ship duels and
three fights round Charleston, then, as always, a great storm center
of the war. At the end of January two Confederate gunboats under
Commodore Ingraham attacked the blockading flotilla of Charleston,
forced the _Mercedita_ to surrender, badly mauled the _Keystone
State_, and damaged the _Quaker City_. But, though some foreign
consuls and all Charleston thought the blockade had been raised
for the time being, it was only bent, not broken.
At the end of February the Union monitor _Montauk_ destroyed the
Confederate privateer _Nashville_ near Fort McAllister on the Ogeechee
River in Georgia. In April nine Union monitors steamed in to test the
strength of Charleston; but, as they got back more than they could
give, Admiral Du Pont wisely decided not to try the fight-to-a-finish
he had meant to make next morning. Wassaw Sound in Georgia was
the scene of a desperate duel on the seventeenth of June, when
the Union monitor _Weehawken_ captured the old blockade-runner
_Fingal_, which had been converted into the new Confederate ram
_Atlanta_. The third week in August witnessed another bombardment
of Charleston, this time on a larger scale, for a longer time,
and by military as well as naval means. But Charleston remained
defiant and unconquered both this year and the next.
Confederate raiders were at work along the trade routes of the
world in '63, doing much harm by capture and destruction, and even
more by shaking the security of the American mercantile marine.
American crews were hard to get when so many hands were wanted
for other war work; and American vessels were increasingly apt to
seek the safety of a neutral flag.
Slowly, and with much perverse interference to overcome in the
course of its harassing duties, the Union navy was getting the
strangle-hold that killed the sea-girt South. By '64 the North had
secured this strangle-hold; and nothing but foreign intervention
or the political death of the Northern War Party could possibly
shake it off. The South was feeling its practical enislement as
never before. The strong right arm of the Union navy held it fast
at every point but three--Wilmington, Charleston, and Mobile; and
round these three the stern blockaders grew stronger every day.
The Sabine Pass and Galveston also remained in Southern hands;
and the border town of Matamoras still imported contraband. But
these other three points were closely watched; and the greatly
lessened contraband that did get through them now only served the
western South, which had been completely severed from the eastern
South by the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. The left arm of
the Union navy now held the whole line of the Mississippi, while
the gripping hand held all the tributary streams--Ohio, Cumberland,
and Tennessee--from which the Union armies were to invade, divide,
and devastate the eastern South this year.
Several Southern raiders were still at large in '64. But the most
famous or notorious three have each their own year of glory. The
_Florida_ belongs to '63, the _Shenandoah_ to '65. So the one great
raiding story we have now to tell is that of the _Alabama_, the
greatest of them all.
The _Alabama_ was a beautiful thousand-ton wooden barkentine, built
by the Lairds at Birkenhead in '62, with standing rigging of wire,
a single screw driven by two horizontal three-hundred horse power
engines, coal room for three hundred and fifty tons, eight good
guns, the heaviest a hundred-pound rifle, and a maximum crew of
one hundred and forty-nine--all ranks and ratings--under Captain
Raphael Semmes, late U. S. N. Semmes was not only a very able officer
but an accomplished lawyer, well posted on belligerent and neutral
rights at sea.
For nearly two years the _Alabama_ roved the oceans of the Old
World and the New, taking sixty-six Union vessels valued at seven
million dollars, spreading the terror of her name among all the
merchantmen that flew the Stars and Stripes, and infuriating the
Navy by the wonderful way in which she contrived to escape every
trap it set for her. She was designed for speed rather than for
fighting, and, with her great spread of canvas, could sometimes
work large areas under sail. But, even so, her runs, captures,
and escapes formed a series of adventures that no mere luck could
have possibly performed with a fluctuating foreign crew commanded
by ex-officers of the Navy. Her wanderings took her through nearly
a hundred degrees of latitude, from the coast of Scotland to St.
Paul Island, south of the Indian Ocean, also through more than
two hundred degrees of longitude, from the Gulf of Mexico to the
China Sea. She captured "Yankees" within one day's steaming of
the New York Navy Yard as well as in the Straits of Sunda. West
of the Azores and off the coast of Brazil her captures came so
thick and fast that they might have almost been a flock of sheep
run down there by a wolf. Finally, to fill the cup of wrath against
her, she had sunk a blockader off the coast of Texas, given the
slip to a Union man-of-war at the Cape of Good Hope, and kept the
Navy guessing her unanswered riddles for two whole years.
Imagine, then, the keen elation with which all hands aboard the
U. S. S. _Kearsarge_ heard at their berth off Flushing that the
_Alabama_ was in port at Cherbourg on the Channel coast of France,
only one day's sail southwest! And there she was when the _Kearsarge_
came to anchor; and every Northern eye was turned to see the ship
of which the world had heard so much. The Kearsarges hardly dared
to hope that there would be a fight; for they had the stronger
vessel, and now the faster one as well. The _Alabama_ had been
built for speed; but she had knocked about so much without a proper
overhaul that her copper sheathing was in rags, while she was more
or less strained in nearly every other part. The _Kearsarge_, on
the other hand, was in good order, with mantlets of chain cable
protecting her vitals, with one-third greater horse power, with
fourteen more men in her crew, and with two big pivot guns throwing
eleven inch shells with great force at short ranges. Moreover,
the _Kearsarge_, with her superior speed and stronger hull, could
choose the range and risk close quarters. The Alabamas were also
keen to estimate respective strengths. But the French authorities
naturally kept the two ships pretty far apart; so the Alabamas
never saw the chain mantlets which the Kearsarges had cleverly
hidden under a covering of wood that appeared to be flush with the
hull.
The Kearsarges had a second and still more elating surprise when they
heard the _Alabama_ was coming out to fight. Semmes was apparently
anxious to show that his raider could be as gallant in fighting a
man-of-war as she was effective in sinking merchant vessels; so
he wrote his challenge to the Confederate Consul at Cherbourg, who
passed it on to the U. S. Consul, who handed it to Captain Winslow,
commanding the _Kearsarge_. Still, four days passed without the
_Alabama_; and the Kearsarges were giving up hope, when, suddenly,
on Sunday morning, the nineteenth of June, just as they had rigged
church and fallen in for prayers, out came the _Alabama_. The
_Kearsarge_ thereupon drew off, so that the _Alabama_ could not easily
escape to neutral waters if the duel went against her. Cherbourg,
of course, was all agog to see the fight; and many thousands of
people, some from as far as Paris, watched every move. An English
yacht, the _Deerhound_, kept an offing of about a mile, ready to
rescue survivors from a watery grave. Its owner, with his wife
and family, had intended to stay ashore and go to church. But,
when they heard the _Alabama_ was really going out, he put the
question to the vote around the breakfast-table, whereupon it was
carried unanimously that the _Deerhound_ should go too.
When the deck-officer of the _Kearsarge_ sang out, "_Alabama!_"
Captain Winslow put down his prayer-book, seized his speaking-trumpet,
and turned to gain a proper offing, while the drum beat to general
quarters and the ship was cleared for action, with pivot-guns to
starboard. The weather was fine, with a slight haze, little sea,
and a light west breeze. Having drawn the _Alabama_ far enough to
sea, the _Kearsarge_ turned toward her again, showing the starboard
bow. When at a mile the _Alabama_ fired her hundred-pounder. For
nearly the whole hour this famous duel lasted the ships continued
fighting in the same way--starboard to starboard, round and round
a circle from half to a quarter mile across. Each captain stood
on the horse-block abreast the mizzen-mast to direct the fight.
Semmes presently called to his executive officer: "Mr. Kell, use
solid shot! Our shell strike the enemy's side and fall into the
water" (after bounding off the iron mantlets Winslow had so cleverly
concealed). The _Kearsarge's_ gunnery was magnificent, especially
from the after-pivot, which Quartermaster William Smith fired with
deadly aim, even when three of his gun's crew had been wounded by
a shell. These three, strange to say, were the only casualties
that occurred aboard the _Kearsarge_. But at sea the stronger side
usually suffers much less and the weaker much more than on land.
The _Alabama_ lost forty: killed, drowned, and wounded.
The Kearsarges soon saw how the fight was going and began to cheer
each first-rate shot. "That's a good one! Now we have her! Give her
another like the last!" The big eleven-inchers got home repeatedly
as the range decreased; so much so that Semmes ordered Kell to keep
the _Alabama_ headed for the coast the next time the circling brought
her bow that way. This would bring her port side into action, which
was just what Semmes wanted now, because she had a dangerous list
to starboard, where the water was pouring through the shot-holes.
Kell changed her course with perfect skill, righting the helm,
hoisting the head-sails, hauling the fore-try-sail-sheet well aft,
and pivoting to port for a broadside delivered almost as quickly
as if there had not been a change at all. But at this moment the
engineer came up to say the water had put his fires out and that
the ship was sinking. At the same time a strange thing happened.
An early shot from the _Kearsarge_ had carried away the _Alabama's_
colors; and now the _Alabama's_ own last broadside actually announced
her own defeat by "breaking out" the special Stars and Stripes
that Winslow had run up his mizzenmast on purpose to break out
in case of victory. A cannon ball had twitched the cord that held
the flag rolled up "in stops."
Semmes sent his one remaining boat to announce his surrender; threw
his sword into the sea; and jumped in with the survivors. The
_Deerhound_, on authority from Winslow, had already closed in to
the rescue, followed by two French pilot boats and two from the
_Kearsarge_; when suddenly the _Alabama_, rearing like a stricken
horse, plunged to her doom.
Long before the _Alabama's_ end the Navy had been preparing for the
finishing blows against the Southern ports. Farragut had returned
to New Orleans in January, '64, hoping for immediate action. But
vexatious delays at Washington postponed his great attack till
August, when he crowned his whole career by his master-stroke against
Mobile. Grant was equally annoyed by this absurd delay, which was
caused by the eccentric, and therefore entirely wasteful, Red River
Expedition of '64, an expedition we shall ignore otherwise than
by pointing out, in this and the succeeding chapters, that it not
only postponed the overdue attack on Mobile but spoilt Sherman's
grand strategy as well as Farragut's and Grant's. Banks commanded
it. But by this time even he had learnt enough of war to know that
it was a totally false move. So he boldly protested against it.
But Halleck's orders, dictated by the Government, were positive.
So there was nothing for it but to suffer a well-deserved defeat
while trying to kill the dead and withering branches of Confederate
power beyond the Mississippi, in order to "show the flag in Texas"
and say "hands off!" to Mexico and France in the least effective
way of all.
During this delay the Confederate ram _Albemarle_ came down the
Roanoke River, hoping to break through the local blockade in Albemarle
Sound and so give North Carolina an outlet to the sea. Two attempts
against Newbern, which closed the way out to Pamlico Sound, had
failed; but now (the fifth of May) great hopes were set upon the
_Albemarle_. At first she seemed impregnable; and the Federal shot
and shell glanced harmlessly off her iron sides. But presently
Commander Roe of the _Sassacus_ (a light-draft, pair-paddle,
double-ender gunboat) getting at right angles to her, ordered his
engineer to stuff the fires with oiled waste and keep the throttle
open. "All hands, lie down!" shouted Roe, as the throbbing engines
drove his vessel to the charge. Then came an earthquake shock: the
_Sassacus_ crashed her bronze beak into the _Albemarle's_ side.
Both vessels were disabled; a shell from the _Albemarle_ burst the
boilers of the _Sassacus_, scalding the engineers. But the rest
fought off the attempt made by the Albemarles to board. Presently
the furious opponents drifted apart; and the _Albemarle_, unable
to face her other enemies, took refuge upstream. There, on the
twenty-seventh of October, she was heroically attacked and sunk by
Lieutenant W. B. Cushing, U. S. N., with a spar torpedo projecting
from a little steam launch. Cushing himself swam off through a
hail of bullets, worked his way through the woods, seized a skiff
belonging to one of the enemy's outposts, and reached the flagship
half dead but wholly triumphant.
Between the _Albemarle's_ two fights Farragut took Mobile after
a magnificent action on the fifth of August. There were batteries
ashore, torpedoes across the channel, the _Tennessee_ ram and other
Confederate vessels waiting on the flank: three kinds of danger to
the Union fleet if one false movement had been made. But Farragut's
touch was sure. He sent his ironclads through next to the batteries,
which were only really dangerous on one side. This protected the
wooden ships against the batteries and the ironclads against the
torpedoes; for the Confederates had to leave part of the fairway
clear in order to use it themselves. Through this narrow channel
the four strongly armored monitors led the desperate way, a little
ahead and to starboard of the wooden vessels, which followed in
pairs, each pair lashed together, with the stronger on the starboard
side, next to Fort Morgan.
The Confederates in Fort Morgan, and in the small and distant Fort
Powell on the other side, hardly reached a thousand men. Their force
afloat was also comparatively small: the ironclad ram _Tennessee_
and three side-wheeler gunboats. But the great strength of their
position and the many dangers to a hostile fleet combined to make
Farragut's attack a very serious operation, even with his four
monitors, eight screw sloops, and four smaller vessels. The Union
army, which took no part in this great attack, was over five thousand
strong, and lost only seven men in the land bombardment later on.
Farragut crossed the bar in the _Hartford_ at ten past six in the
morning with the young flood tide and a westerly breeze to blow
the smoke against Fort Morgan. All his ships ran up the Stars and
Stripes not only at the peak, as usual, but at each mast-head as
well. Farragut himself at first took post in the port main rigging.
But as the smoke of battle rose around him he climbed higher and
higher till he got close under the maintop, where a seaman, sent
up by Captain Drayton, lashed him on securely.
All went well amid the furious cannonade till the monitor _Tecumseh_,
taking the wrong side of the channel buoy in her anxiety to ram
the _Tennessee_, ran over the torpedoes, was horribly holed by the
explosion, and plunged headforemost to the bottom, her screw madly
whirling in the air. Nor was this the worst; for the _Tecumseh's_
mistake had thrown the other monitors out of their proper line-ahead,
athwart the wooden ships, which began to slow and swing about in
some confusion. The Confederates redoubled their fire. Ahead lay
the fatal torpedoes. For a moment Farragut could not decide whether
to risk an advance at all costs or to turn back beaten. He was
a very devout as well as a most determined man; and his simple
prayer, "O God, shall I go on?" seemed answered by the echo of
his soul, "Go on!" So on he went, not in unreflecting exaltation,
but in exaltation based on knowledge and on skill. Like Cromwell,
he might well have said, "Trust in the Lord and keep your powder
dry!" For he had done all that naval foresight could have done
to ensure success. And now, in one lightning flash of genius, he
reviewed the situation. He knew the torpedoes of his day were often
unreliable, that they exploded only on a special kind of shock,
that those which did explode could not be replaced in action, that
they were all fixed to their own spots, and that if one ship was
blown up her next-astern would get through safely.
The _Brooklyn_, his next-ahead, was in his way. So he ordered the
flagship _Hartford_ and her lashed-together consort, the double-ender
_Metacomet_, to use, the one her screw, the other her paddles, in
opposite directions, till he had cleared the _Brooklyn's_ stern.
As he drew clear and headed for the danger-channel a shout went up
from the _Brooklyn's_ deck--"'ware torpedoes!" But Farragut, his
mind made up, instantly roared back--"Damn the torpedoes!" Then,
turning to the _Hartford's_ and _Metacomet's_ decks, he called
his orders down: "Four bells! Captain Drayton, go ahead! Captain
Jouett, full speed!" In answer to the order of "four bells" the
engines worked their very utmost and the two vessels dashed ahead.
Torpedoes knocked against the bottom and some of the primers actually
snapped. But nothing exploded; and Farragut won through.
Inside the harbor the _Tennessee_ fought hard against the overwhelming
Union fleet. But her low-powered engines gave her no chance at
quick maneuvers. Three vessels rammed her in succession; and she
was forced to surrender.
After this purely naval victory on the fifth of August, General
Granger's troops invested Fort Morgan, which, becoming the target
of an irresistible converging fire from both land and sea on the
twenty-second, surrendered on the twenty-third.
The next objective of a joint expedition was Fort Fisher, which
stood at the end of a long, low tongue of land between the sea and
Cape Fear River. Fort Fisher guarded the entrance to Wilmington
in North Carolina, the port, above all others, from which the
Confederate armies drew their oversea supplies. Lee wrote to Colonel
Lamb, its commandant, saying that he could not subsist if it was
taken. Lamb had less than two thousand men in the fort; but there
were six thousand more forming an army of support outside. The
Confederates, however, had no naval force to speak of, while the
Union fleet, commanded by Admiral Porter, was the largest that
had ever yet assembled under the Stars and Stripes. There were
nearly sixty fighting vessels of all kinds, including five new
ironclads and the three finest new frigates. The guns that were
carried exceeded six hundred.
There was also a mine ship, the old _Louisiana_, stuffed chock-a-block
with powder to blow in the side of the fort. The Washington wiseacres
set great store on this new mine of theirs. It was, of course, to
end the war. But naval and military experts on the spot were more
than doubtful. On the night of the twenty-third of December the
_Louisiana_ was safely worked in near the fort by brave Commander
Rhind, who fired the slow match and escaped unhurt with his devoted
crew of volunteers. A tremendous explosion followed. But, as there
was nothing to drive the force of it against the walls, it simply
resulted in an enormous flurry of water, mud, sand, earth, and
bits of flaming wreckage.
Next morning the fleet bombarded with such success as to silence
many of the guns opposed to them. But on Christmas Day General
Weitzel reported that an assault would fail; whereupon General
Butler concurred and retreated, much to the rage of the fleet, which
thought quite otherwise.
In a few days General Terry arrived with the same white troops
reinforced by two small colored brigades, making a total of eight
thousand men. To these Porter, strongly reinforced, added a naval
brigade, two thousand strong, that volunteered to storm the sea
face of Fort Fisher. These gallant men had only cutlasses and
pistols--except the four hundred marines, who carried bayonets and
rifles. They were a scratch lot, from the soldier's point of view,
never having been landed together as a single unit till called upon
to assault the most dangerous features of the fort. Yet, though
they were repulsed with considerable loss, they greatly helped
to win the day by obliging the defenders to divide their forces.
As Terry's army was, by itself, four or five times stronger than
Lamb's entire command the military stormers succeeded in fighting
their way through every line of defense and compelling a surrender.
They did exceedingly well. But their rear was safe, because Bragg
had withdrawn the supporting army for service elsewhere; while,
in their front, the enemy defenses had been almost torn out by
the roots in many places under the terrific converging fire of six
hundred naval guns for three successive days.
When Fort Fisher surrendered on the fifteenth of January (1865)
the exhausted South had only one good port and one good raider
left: Charleston and the _Shenandoah_.