Voyage to Madeira.--A Capital Sea-boat.--The Island Ponies.--Mr. B.
and his daughters.--Voyage to St. John's, Porto Rico.--Run across
the Bahama Banks.--Nassau during the War.--High Wages and Low
Characters.--Crew re-shipped.--Failure to enter Charleston.--The
"Lump."--A Narrow Escape.--The Scotch Lithographers and their
work.--Crossing the Bar.--Transfer of the Giraffe to the
Confederate Government.--She becomes the "R. E. Lee."--The Major
fulfills his promise, but fails in his object.
Our voyage to Madeira was uneventful with the exception of a heavy gale
of wind, during which the Giraffe showed her superb qualities as a sea
boat.
We were hospitably entertained during our three days' stay at Funchal.
The process of coaling ship there is a tedious one, the port being an
open roadstead, and there are no wharves. With a moderate breeze blowing
on or along shore, all communication is interrupted. Loading and
unloading ships is accomplished by lighters; and passengers are carried
to and fro in surf boats which are expertly managed by their crews. The
vines had failed for several years previous to our visit; but the
inhabitants had substituted the cultivation of vegetables for which they
found a market on the continent and in England; and the numerous
cultivated patches along the mountain sides presented a very pretty
appearance from the anchorage--laid out as they were with seemingly
geometrical precision. The hardy little horses could be hired very
cheaply, and the justly extolled natural beauties of the island in the
vicinity of Funchal were fully explored. The greater portion of it is
quite inaccessible except on foot, but the tough little native ponies
which are as sure footed as goats perform wonderful feats in the way of
climbing, and are quite equal to the double duty of carrying their
riders, and dragging along their owner who holds by one hand to the
pony's tail while he occasionally "progs" him with a sharp stick held in
the other hand. This island is, as every one knows, of volcanic origin;
although its volcanoes are now either dormant or extinct; and its lofty
vertical cliffs rise abruptly from the ocean. The highest peak in the
island is more than six thousand feet above the level of the sea. The
disintegrated lava forms the best soil in the world for the grape; and
the south side of the island, from its more favorable exposure to the
sun, is supposed to produce the more delicately flavored wine. Wonderful
stories are told of the exquisite sense of taste possessed by the
professional "tasters" who never swallow the wine. So soon as they
indulge in this luxury they lose the faculty of nice discrimination.
We slept securely under the "Stars and Stripes," our hotel being kept by
a "Yankee" who hoisted the flag upon his house-top every day, and was
not so cosmopolitan, perhaps I should say not so politic, as our St.
Thomas friend. He soothed his conscience for associating with "rebels,"
and avenged himself by charging us heavily, and, no doubt, congratulated
himself after our departure, upon having "spoiled the Egyptians."
We received many courtesies from Mr. B., an English gentleman, and his
family. Our susceptible young men lost their hearts with his _seven_
beautiful daughters, all of them fair, tall, and stately.
As soon as the Giraffe was coaled we took our departure for St. John's,
Porto Rico. A sea-voyage has elsewhere been described in two lines.
"Sometimes we ship a sea,
Sometimes we see a ship."
The monotony of our voyage was rarely disturbed by either of these
incidents.
After two days' detention at St. John's for the purpose of coaling we
got under way for that haven of blockade-runners, El Dorado of
adventurers, and paradise of wreckers and darkies--filthy Nassau. In
making our way to this port we had a foretaste of some of the risks and
dangers to be subsequently encountered. In order to economize coal and
to lessen the risk of capture I determined to approach Nassau by the
"Tongue of Ocean," a deep indentation in the sea bounded on the south by
the Bahama Banks; and to reach the "Tongue" it was necessary to cross
the whole extent of the "Banks" from Elbow Key light-house. On arriving
off the light-house we were disappointed in our hope of finding a pilot,
and no alternative was left but to attempt the transit without one, as
we had not a sufficient supply of coal to enable us to pursue any other
course. Our charts showed twelve feet water all over that portion of the
Banks and the Giraffe was drawing eleven feet; but the innumerable black
dots on the chart showed where the dangerous coral heads were nearly
"awash." On the other hand, we knew there could be no "swell" in such an
expanse of shallow water; so waving adieu to the keeper of the
light-house we pointed the Giraffe's bow for the Banks, which showed
ahead of us smooth as a lake, and almost milk white. It was early in the
morning when we started, and the distance to be run to the "Tongue" was
only sixty or seventy miles. Taking my station in the fore-rigging I
could easily direct the helmsman bow to avoid those treacherous black
spots. It was the Florida Reef over again, and my experience in
surveying that coast stood us in good stead here. We were so fortunate,
indeed, as never once to touch the bottom although the lead frequently
showed less than twelve feet; and about 3 o'clock in the afternoon the
welcome blue water showed itself ahead. It would have been impossible to
make the transit in cloudy weather; but the day was fortunately clear.
Occasionally when a "trade" cloud would approach the sun, we would slow
down or stop until it had passed by, when the black patches would again
be visible. The iron plates of the Giraffe would have been pierced as
completely as if made of pasteboard, if she had come into contact even
at low speed with those jagged coral heads. Before dark we were out of
danger, and next morning came to anchor in the harbor of Nassau.
Nassau was a busy place during the war; the chief depot of supplies for
the Confederacy, and the port to which most of the cotton was shipped.
Its proximity to the ports of Charleston and Wilmington gave it superior
advantages, while it was easily accessible to the swift, light draft
blockade-runners; all of which carried Bahama bank pilots who knew every
channel, while the United States cruisers having no Bank pilots and
drawing more water were compelled to keep the open sea. Occasionally one
of the latter would heave to outside the harbor and send in a boat to
communicate with the American Consul; but their usual cruising ground
was off Abaco Light. Nassau is situated upon the island of New
Providence, one of the Bahamas, and is the chief town and capital of the
group. All of the islands are surrounded by coral reefs and shoals,
through which are channels more or less intricate. That wonderful "River
in the Sea"--the Gulf Stream--which flows between the Florida coast and
the Bahama Banks is only forty miles broad between the nearest opposite
points; but there is no harbor on that part of the Florida coast. The
distance from Charleston to Nassau is about five hundred miles, and
from Wilmington about five hundred and fifty. Practically, however, they
were equi-distant because blockade-runners bound from either port, in
order to evade the cruisers lying in wait off Abaco, were compelled to
give that head-land a wide berth, by keeping well to the eastward of it.
But in avoiding Scylla they ran the risk of striking upon Charybdis; for
the dangerous reefs of Eleuthera were fatal to many vessels. The chief
industries of the islands before the war were the collection and
exportation of sponges, corals, etc., and wrecking, to which was added,
during the war, the lucrative trade of picking and stealing. The
inhabitants may be classed as "amphibious," and are known among sailors
by the generic name of "Conchs." The wharves of Nassau, during the war,
were always piled high with cotton, and huge warehouses were stored full
of supplies for the Confederacy. The harbor was crowded at times, with
lead-colored, short masted, rakish looking steamers; the streets alive
with bustle and activity during day time and swarming with drunken
revellers by night. Every nationality on earth, nearly, was represented
there; the high wages ashore and afloat, tempting adventurers of the
baser sort; and the prospect of enormous profits offering equally strong
inducements to capitalists of a speculative turn. The monthly wages of a
sailor on board a blockade-runner was one hundred dollars in gold, and
fifty dollars bounty at the end of a successful trip; and this could be
accomplished under favorable circumstances in seven days. The captains
and pilots sometimes received as much as five thousand dollars besides
perquisites. All of the cotton shipped on account of the Confederate
Government was landed and transferred to a mercantile firm in Nassau,
who received a commission for assuming ownership. It was then shipped
under the British or other neutral flag to Europe. The firm is reputed
to have made many thousands of dollars by these commissions. But,
besides the cotton shipped by the Confederate Government, many private
companies and individuals were engaged in the trade; and it was computed
(so large were the gains) that the owner could afford to lose a vessel
and cargo after two successful voyages. Three or four steamers were
wholly owned by the Confederate Government; a few more were owned by it
in part, and the balance were private property; but these last were
compelled to carry out, as portion of their cargo, cotton on government
account, and to bring in supplies. On board the government steamers, the
crew which was shipped abroad, and under the articles regulating the
"merchant marine," received the same wages as were paid on board the
other blockade-runners; but the captains and subordinate officers of the
government steamers who belonged to the Confederate States Navy, and the
pilots, who were detailed from the army for this service, received the
pay in gold of their respective grades.
As the Giraffe's crew was shipped only for the voyage to Nassau "and a
market," it was necessary to cancel the engagement of those who did not
wish to follow her fortunes further. A few of them preferring their
discharge were paid off, and provided with a passage to England; and the
balance signed articles for Havana "and a market." Everything being in
readiness, we sailed on December 26th, 1862. Having on board a
Charleston pilot, as well as one for Wilmington, I had not determined,
on sailing, which port to attempt; but having made the land near
Charleston bar during thick weather on the night of the 28th, our pilot
was afraid to venture further. We made an offing, therefore, before
daylight; and circumstances favoring Wilmington, we approached the
western bar on the night of December 29th. We had been biding our time
since twelve o'clock that day close in to the shore about forty miles
southwest of the bar and in the deep bay formed by the coast between
Wilmington and Charleston. The weather had been so clear and the sea so
smooth that we had communicated with the Confederate pickets at several
points along the coast; and no sail was visible even from aloft until
about three o'clock in the afternoon, when a cruiser hove in sight to
the north and east. As she was coasting along the land and approaching
us we turned the Giraffe's bow away from her, and got up more steam,
easily preserving our distance, as the stranger was steaming at a low
rate of speed. A little while before sunset the strange steamer wore
round, and we immediately followed her example, gradually lessening the
distance between us, and an hour or more after dark we had the pleasure
of passing inside of her at anchor off New River Inlet. She was
evidently blockading that harbor, and had run down the coast to
reconnoitre. Before approaching the bar I had adopted certain
precautions against disaster which I ever afterwards followed. Any one
who showed an open light when we were near the fleet was liable to the
penalty of death upon the spot; a cool, steady leadsman was stationed on
each quarter to give the soundings; a staunch old quartermaster took the
wheel and a kedge, bent to a stout hawser, was slung at each quarter.
All lights were extinguished; the fire-room hatch covered over with a
tarpaulin; and a hood fitted over the binnacle, with a small circular
opening for the helmsman to see the compass through the aperture.
About ten o'clock we passed inside the first ship of the blockading
fleet, about five miles outside the bar; and four or five others
appeared in quick succession as the Giraffe was cutting rapidly through
the smooth water. We were going at full speed when, with a shock that
threw nearly every one on board off his feet, the steamer was brought up
"all standing" and hard and fast aground! The nearest blockader was
fearfully close to us, and all seemed lost. We had struck upon "the
Lump," a small sandy knoll two or three miles outside the bar with deep
water on both sides of it. That knoll was the "rock ahead" during the
whole war, of the blockade-runners, for it was impossible in the
obscurity of night to judge accurately of the distance to the coast,
and there were no landmarks or bearings which would enable them to steer
clear of it. Many a ton of valuable freight has been launched overboard
there; and, indeed, all the approaches to Wilmington are paved as
thickly with valuables as a certain place is said to be with good
intentions.
The first order was to lower the two quarter boats: in one of them were
packed the Scotch lithographers who were safely landed; and a kedge was
lowered into the other with orders to the officer in charge to pull off
shore and drop the kedge. The risk, though imminent, was much reduced
after our panic stricken passengers had got fairly away from the ship;
and the spirits of officers and crew rose to meet the emergency. The
glimmer of a light, or an incautiously loud order would bring a
broadside from that frowning battery crashing through our bulwarks. So
near the goal (I thought) and now to fail! but I did not despair. To
execute the order to drop the kedge, it was necessary to directly
approach one of the blockaders, and so near to her did they let it go,
that the officer of the boat was afraid to call out that it had been
dropped; and muffled the oars as he returned to make his report.
Fortunately, the tide was rising. After twenty or thirty minutes of
trying suspense, the order was given "to set taut on the hawser," and
our pulses beat high as the stern of the Giraffe slowly and steadily
turned seaward. In fact, she swung round upon her stem as upon a pivot.
As soon as the hawser "trended" right astern, the engineer was ordered
to "back hard," and in a very few revolutions of the wheels the ship
slid rapidly off into deep water. The hawser was instantly cut, and we
headed directly for the bar channel. We were soon out of danger from the
blockading fleet; but as we drew in toward Fort Caswell, one of the
look-outs on the wheel-house (who, like the thief in Shakespeare,
"feared each bush an officer") would every now and then say to the
pilot, "that looks like a boat on the star-board bow, Mr. D." "There are
breakers on the port-bow, Mr. D." And at last "There is a rock right
ahead, Mr. D;" at which last remark, D., losing all patience, exclaimed,
"G----d A----y, man, there isn't a rock as big as my hat in the whole
d----d State of North Carolina." A too sweeping assertion, but quite true
as applied to the coast. We passed safely over the bar; and steaming up
the river, anchored off Smithville a little before midnight of the 29th
of December, 1862.
The Scotch lithographers found abundant employment in Richmond, as the
Government "paper mills" were running busily during the whole war; but
the style of their work was not altogether faultless, for it was said
that the counterfeit notes, made at the North, and extensively
circulated through the South, could be easily detected by the superior
execution of the engraving upon them!
The natural advantages of Wilmington for blockade-running were very
great, chiefly owing to the fact, that there are two separate and
distinct approaches to Cape Fear River, i. e., either by "New Inlet" to
the north of Smith's Island, or by the "western bar" to the south of it.
This island is ten or eleven miles in length; but the Frying Pan Shoals
extend ten or twelve miles further south, making the distance by sea
between the two bars thirty miles or more, although the direct distance
between them is only six or seven miles. From Smithville, a little
village nearly equi-distant from either bar, both blockading fleets
could be distinctly seen, and the outward bound blockade-runners could
take their choice through which of them to run the gauntlet. The inward
bound blockade-runners, too, were guided by circumstances of wind and
weather; selecting that bar over which they would cross, after they had
passed the Gulf Stream; and shaping their course accordingly. The
approaches to both bars were clear of danger, with the single exception
of the "Lump" before mentioned; and so regular are the soundings that
the shore can be coasted for miles within a stone's throw of the
breakers.
These facts explain why the United States fleet were unable wholly to
stop blockade-running. It was, indeed, impossible to do so; the result
to the very close of the war proves this assertion; for in spite of the
vigilance of the fleet, many blockade-runners were afloat when Fort
Fisher was captured. In truth the passage through the fleet was little
dreaded; for although the blockade-runner might receive a shot or two,
she was rarely disabled; and in proportion to the increase of the fleet,
the greater would be the danger (we knew,) of their firing into each
other. As the boys before the deluge used to say, they would be very apt
"to miss the cow and kill the calf." The chief danger was upon the open
sea; many of the light cruisers having great speed. As soon as one of
them discovered a blockade-runner during daylight she would attract
other cruisers in the vicinity by sending up a dense column of smoke,
visible for many miles in clear weather. A "cordon" of fast steamers
stationed ten or fifteen miles apart _inside the Gulf Stream_, and in
the course from Nassau and Bermuda to Wilmington and Charleston, would
have been more effectual in stopping blockade-running than the whole
United States Navy concentrated off those ports; and it was
unaccountable to us why such a plan did not occur to good Mr. Welles;
but it was not our place to suggest it. I have no doubt, however, that
the fraternity to which I then belonged would have unanimously voted
thanks and a service of plate to the Hon. Secretary of the United States
Navy for this oversight. I say _inside the Gulf Stream_, because every
experienced captain of a blockade-runner made a point to cross "the
stream" early enough in the afternoon, if possible, to establish the
ship's position by chronometer so as to escape the influence of that
current upon his dead reckoning. The lead always gave indication of our
distance from the land, but not, of course, of our position; and the
numerous salt works along the coast, where evaporation was produced by
fire, and which were at work night and day were visible long before the
low coast could be seen. Occasionally the whole inward voyage would be
made under adverse conditions. Cloudy, thick weather and heavy gales
would prevail so as to prevent any solar or lunar observations, and
reduce the dead reckoning to mere guess work. In these cases the
nautical knowledge and judgment of the captain would be taxed to the
utmost. The current of the Gulf Stream varies in velocity and (within
certain limits) in direction; and the stream, itself almost as well
defined as a river within its banks under ordinary circumstances, is
impelled by a strong gale toward the direction in which the wind is
blowing, overflowing its banks as it were. The counter current, too,
inside of the Gulf Stream is much influenced by the prevailing winds.
Upon one occasion, while in command of the R. E. Lee, we had experienced
very heavy and thick weather; and had crossed the Stream and struck
soundings about midday. The weather then clearing so that we could
obtain an altitude near meridian we found ourselves at least forty miles
north of our supposed position and near the shoals which extend in a
southerly direction off Cape Lookout. It would be more perilous to run
out to sea than to continue on our course, for we had passed through
the off shore line of blockaders, and the sky had become perfectly
clear. I determined to personate a transport bound to Beaufort, which
was in the possession of the United States forces, and the coaling
station of the fleet blockading Wilmington. The risk of detection was
not very great, for many of the captured blockade-runners were used as
transports and dispatch vessels. Shaping our course for Beaufort, and
slowing down, as we were in no haste to get there, we passed several
vessels, showing United States colors to them all. Just as we were
crossing through the ripple of shallow water off the "tail" of the
shoals, we dipped our colors to a sloop of war which passed three or
four miles to the south of us. The courtesy was promptly responded to;
but I have no doubt her captain thought me a lubberly and careless
seaman to shave the shoals so closely. We stopped the engines when no
vessel was in sight; and I was relieved from a heavy burden of anxiety
as the sun sank below the horizon; and the course was shaped at full
speed for Masonboro' Inlet.
A few days after our arrival at Wilmington the Giraffe was transferred
to the Confederate Government, and named the R. E. Lee; and
thenceforward carried the Confederate flag. Our friend the Major
fulfilled his promise of meeting me in Richmond, having made his way
across the Potomac. He made a gallant effort to get possession of the
ship; but Mr. Seddon, who had succeeded Mr. Randolph as Secretary of War
during our absence, contended that the Government had a juster claim;
and the facts of the case were too stubborn even for the Major's
determined persistence.
"The best laid plans of mice and men
Gang aft agley."
The Secretary of War having carried his point, the Major directed his
efforts towards another quarter, and more successfully. Indeed he rarely
failed in any enterprise requiring nerve, perseverance, tact, and
ability; and it may well be added that he seemed to accumulate wealth to
enjoy the pleasure of spending it worthily. His unostentatious charities
during the war were almost boundless; and hundreds of widows and orphans
blessed him for the relief which he extended to them in those dark days,
when even medicines were contraband of war, and the simplest necessaries
of life were beyond the reach of nearly every one in the Confederacy.