THE CONFEDERATE CRUISERS
From the beginning of the war the Federals had enjoyed the very great
advantage of having possession of a navy, and of shipyards in which
that navy could be increased almost at will, while the Confederates
had neither ships nor shipyards. On the Federal side it was easily
possible to increase the naval force by drawing into the service
available vessels of every kind--steamers, merchantmen, tugs, and even
double-ender ferry boats from New York Harbor. The guns with which to
arm these vessels were at hand, and they were quickly made ready for
service by slight alterations which the shipbuilders of the North were
prepared to make at exceedingly short notice. On the Southern side
there was next to nothing in this way. For a time the Norfolk navy
yard was in the possession of the Confederates, and as we have seen in
a former chapter they availed themselves of its working resources so
far as to prepare the _Merrimac_ or _Virginia_, and send her out into
Hampton Roads, upon her mission of destruction. But presently a change
in the military situation made it necessary for them to blow up that
ironclad ship, and they had no means of providing another to take her
place. At Charleston two or three ironclad gunboats were constructed,
together with several torpedo boats that did more or less execution;
but so inadequate were the means of construction on the southern side
that these boats accomplished very little. On the Mississippi some rams
were created out of old hulks, which did some execution, but which were
speedily destroyed.
On the open sea the Confederacy had no ships of its own afloat, except
the _Sumter_, a sailing craft heavily sparred, and commanded by Raphael
Semmes, perhaps the most expert sailor and daring fighter among all the
men who had resigned from the Federal navy to engage in the Confederate
service. That ship, daringly commanded and daringly maneuvered, wrought
havoc for a time in the early part of the war, but the days of her
usefulness as against steam craft were easily numbered.
Somewhat later a steam vessel, the _Alabama_, was built at Birkenhead
in England for the use of Captain Semmes and his daring crew. She was a
little thing, only 220 feet long, and built of wood with no protection
whatever against an enemy's fire. But she was fleeter than any ship in
the American navy, and it was hoped by the Confederates that she might
destroy the commerce of the United States upon the high seas without
herself meeting with destruction. In spite of the protests of the
American minister in London, this ship, all unarmed, was permitted to
escape to sea, and at Fayal in the Azores her cannon and coal were put
on board of her.
For nearly two years she made herself a terror to American merchantmen,
and was the despair of the American navy, which had no ship capable
of steaming one half so fast as she could do. In effect she swept
American commerce from the seas, not so much by her captures of
American merchantmen as by her perpetual threat of capture which
rendered it a bad speculation for any American merchant to send a ship
to sea, and thus subject her to the possibility of capture by the
_Alabama_.
In June, 1864, the _Alabama_ put into the harbor of Cherbourg, France.
The _Kearsarge_, a United States war vessel under command of John A.
Winslow, lay off the harbor, waiting for the _Alabama_ to come out.
The one vessel could not attack the other in a neutral port, or within
three miles of the shore. But when the _Alabama_ steamed out to a
distance of perhaps eight miles, she was assailed by the _Kearsarge_,
and a fierce battle ensued. The two ships were substantially the same
in size, but the _Kearsarge_ was a chain protected vessel, stronger in
every way than her Confederate adversary, and on that Sunday morning of
June nineteenth, 1864, she made short work of the Confederate cruiser.
The _Alabama_ was quickly riddled, and went down stern foremost. Many
of her crew went down with her and perished in the sea. The remainder
of them were picked up by a British yacht and carried in safety to
England.
There were other Confederate cruisers like unto the _Alabama_,
including the _Shenandoah_, the _Florida_, the _Tallahassee_, the
_Tacony_, and the _Georgia_. These ships largely aided in that
destruction of American commerce in which the _Alabama_ had taken the
lead. But none of them had so picturesque a career as was that of the
_Alabama_, while the careers of all of them are fitly represented by
that of Admiral Semmes's ship.
The destructive activities of these ships were afterwards made the
subject of an international arbitration, and Great Britain was
condemned to pay to the United States an indemnity of $15,500,000 for
her neglect of international comity in permitting them to sail from her
ports.