THE ALABAMA AND THE FLORIDA.

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If it be gravely held that Great Bri- | after vieing with her consort, the tain was nowise responsible for the Alabama-a new British vessel henceravages of these marauders, then it forth commanded by Semmes-and must be confessed that the letter of with other such from time to time existing international law does no fitted out, in their predatory career. justice to its spirit and purpose, but Each of these habitually approached stands in need of prompt and thor- her intended prey under her proper ough revision. (British) colors, but hoisted the Confederate so soon as the prize was securely within her grasp. Occasionally, a vessel of little value was released on condition of taking to port the crews of several of the most recently burned; a few were bonded, mainly because they carried British cargoes or were insured in British offices; but the great majority were simply robbed of their money, food, &c., and burnt. Among those bonded by the Alabama was the steamship Ariel, on her way from New York to Aspinwall, with the California passengers and freight; but the $250,000 which was to have been her ransom, being expressly "payable six months after the recognition [by the United States] of the independence of the Southern Confederacy," has not yet fallen due. Such was the just alarm caused by this capture, while several National vessels were anxiously looking for the Alabama, that the Ariel dared not bring the specie from California that met her at Aspinwall, but left it there, until a gunboat was sent for it by the Government; and the specie continued to be so transmitted for some months thereafter.

The career of the Sumter, Capt. Raphael Semmes, came to an early and inglorious end, as has already been narrated.' But another and superior cruiser was promptly constructed at Birkenhead to replace her; which our Embassador, Hon. Charles F. Adams, tried earnestly, but in vain, to have seized and detained at the outset by the British Government. Escaping from Liverpool under the name of Oreto, she was twice seized at Nassau, but to no purpose: that island being the focus of blockade-running, and, of course, violently sympathetic with the Rebellion-as was, in fact, nearly every officer in the British naval or military service. Released from duress, she put to sea, and soon appeared as a British ship of war off the harbor of Mobile, then blockaded by Com'r Geo. H. Preble, who hesitated to fire on her lest she should be what she seemed; and in a few minutes she had passed him, and run up to Mobile, showing herself the Rebel corsair she actually was. Preble was promptly dismissed from the service -an act of justice which needed but a few repetitions to have prevented such mistakes in future. Running out' again under cover of darkness, the Oreto, now commanded by John N.Maffitt,' became the Florida, there'Vol. I., pp. 602-3. 2 Dec. 27, 1862. 'Of Texas: son of a once noted Methodist

career, was treated as though we had asked Great Britain to aid us against the Confederates, when we had only required that she cease to aid unwarrantably our domestic foes, the popular sense of dishonesty and wrong was with difficulty restrained from expressing itself in deeds rather than words.

But the damage thus inflicted was | vateers, not only in their construcnot limited to this destruction-far tion, but throughout their subsequent from it. The paralysis of commerce -the transfer (at a sacrifice) of hundreds of valuable ships to British owners (real or simulated) in order that they might be allowed to keep the seas with impunity-with the waste of money and service involved in sending many costly and formidable steamships to every ocean and almost every port in quest of some corsair, which was plundering and burning, perhaps on one side of a petty island, while the Vanderbilt or Tuscarora was vainly seeking it on the other-which was sure to be anywhere but where it was awaited or sought-and which would drop into the neutral harbor whither its pursuer had repaired for coal, or food, or information, and lie there by his side, bearding him with impunity; taking its own time to depart in peace and safety, because no pursuit was allowed for the next 24 hours such are the bare outlines of a system of maritime injury and annoyance which for years sickened the hearts of stanch upholders of the Union. That the officers of the Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and their confrères, were greeted in every British port with shouts and acclamations, receptions and dinners, as though they had been avowed Britons engaged in honorable warfare with their country's deadly foe, was observed by loyal Americans with a stinging consciousness of the hollowness and fraud of British neutrality which will not soon be effaced. And, when every remonstrance made by our Government or its representative against the favor shown to these pri'June 12, 1863.

Early in May, 1863, the Florida, while dodging our gunboats among the innumerable straits and passages surrounding the several West Indies, captured the brig Clarence, which was fitted out as a privateer and provided with a crew, under Lt. C. W. Read, late a midshipman in our navy. This new buccaneer immediately steered northward, and, sweeping up our southern coast, captured some valuable prizes; among them, when near Cape Henry, the bark Tacony," to which Read transferred his men, and stood on up the coast; passing along off the mouths of the Chesapeake, Delaware, New York, and Massachusetts bays, seizing and destroying merchant and fishing ves sels utterly unsuspicious of danger; until, at length, learning that swift cruisers were on his track, he burned the Tacony (in which he would have been easily recognized), and in the prize schooner Archer, to which he had transferred his armament and crew, stood boldly in for the harbor of Portland; casting anchor at sunset at its entrance, and sending at midnight two armed boats with muffled oars up nearly to the city, to seize the steam revenue cutter Cushing and bring her out for his future use. This was done; but, no sooner

⚫ June 24.

CAPTURE OF THE FLORIDA IN BAHIA HARBOR.

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had the Cushing left, under her new | by Rebel captures were 193 vesmasters, than she was missed, and sels; valued, with their cargoes, at two merchant steamers were armed and manned (by volunteers) and started after her. She was soon overhauled, and, having no guns to cope with her armament, the pursuers were about to board, when her captors took to their boats, firing half-adozen shots at her and blowing her up. The Portland boys kept on till they captured first the boats, then the Archer, towed them up to their city in triumph, and lodged Read and his freebooters snugly in prison.

The merchant steamer Chesapeake, plying between New York and Portland, was seized' by 16 of her passengers, who, suddenly producing arms, proclaimed themselves Confederates, and demanded her surrender; seizing the captain and putting him in irons, wounding the mate, and killing and throwing overboard one of the engineers. After a time, they set the crew and passengers ashore in a boat, and, putting the steamer on an easterly course, ran her into Sambro harbor, Nova Scotia, where she was seized' by the Union gunboat Ella and Anna, taken, with a portion of her crew, to Halifax, and handed over to the civil authorities. The prisoners were here rescued by a mob; but the steamboat was soon, by a judicial decision, restored to her

$13,455,000. All but 17 of these vessels were burned. But now the Tallahassee, in August, swept along the Atlantic coast of the loyal States, destroying in ten days 33 vessels; while the Chickamauga, in a short cruise, burned vessels valued in all at $500,000. The Florida likewise darted along our coast, doing great damage there and thereafter; finally running into the Brazilian port of Bahia;' having just captured and burnt the bark Mondamon off that port. Here she met the U. S. steamer Wachusett, Capt. Collins, and came to anchor, as a precaution, in the midst of the Brazilian fleet and directly under the guns of the principal fort; and here, after ascertaining that he could not provoke her to fight him outside the harbor, Capt. Collins bore down upon her, at 3 A. M.," while part of her crew were ashore; running at her under a full head of steam with intent to crush in her side and sink her; but, not striking her fairly, he only damaged, but did not cripple her. A few small-arm shots were fired on either side, but at random, and without effect. Capt. Collins now demanded her surrender, with which the lieutenant in command-(Capt. Morris, with half his crew, being ashore)—taken completely by surprise and at disadvantagehad no choice but to comply. In an instant, the Florida was boarded from the Wachusett, a hawser made fast to her, and the captor, crowding all steam, put out to sea; making no reply to a challenge from the Brazilian fleet, and unharmed by three shots fired at her from the fort; all

which passed over her. The Brazilian naval commander tried to chase; but was not fast enough, and soon desisted. The Wachusett and her prize soon appeared in Hampton roads; where the latter was sunk by a collision a few days afterward.

There can be no reasonable doubt that, if the Florida was a fair, honest vessel, her capture was a foul one. Our consul at Bahia, Mr. T. F. Wilson, had seasonably protested against the hospitality accorded to her in that port, but without effect. As he was known to be implicated in the capture, his official recognition as consul was revoked. On a representation of the case by the Brazilian Minister, Gov. Seward, in behalf of President Lincoln, disavowed the acts of Collins and Wilson, dismissed the latter from office, suspended the former from command, and ordered him to answer for his act before a courtmartial. He further announced that the persons captured on board the Florida should be set at liberty. But he took care to place this reparation wholly on the ground of the unlawfulness of any unauthorized exercise of force by this country within a Brazilian harbor-no matter if against a conceded pirate-saying:

"The Government disallows your assumption that the insurgents of this country are a lawful naval belligerent; on the contrary, it maintains that the ascription of that character by the Government of Brazil to insurgent citizens of the United States, who have hitherto been, and who still are,

the Alabama, was a pirate, belonging to no that the harboring and supplying of these nation or lawful belligerent, and, therefore, piratical ships and their crews in Brazilian ports were wrongs and injuries for which Brazil justly owes reparation to the United States, as ample as the reparation which she now receives from them. They hope and confidently expect this reciprocity in good time, to restore the harmony and friendship which are so essential to the welfare and safety of the two countries."

The Georgia was a Glasgow-built iron steamboat, which had left Greenock, as the Japan, in April, 1863; receiving her armament when off the coast of France, and at once getting to work as a beast of prey. Having destroyed a number of large and valuable merchant ships, she put in at Cherbourg, and afterward at Bourdeaux; whence she slipped over to England, and was sold (as was said) to a Liverpool merchant for £15,000. She now set out for Lisbon, having been chartered, it was given out, by the Portuguese Government; but, when 20 miles from her port of destination, she was stopped" by the U.S. steam-frigate Niagara, Capt. Craven, who made her his prize; returning with her directly to England, and landing her captain and crew at Dover. Her seizure provoked some newspaper discussion, but its rightfulness was not officially questioned.

The Alabama had already come to grief. After a long and prosperous cruise in the South Atlantic and Indian oceans, she had returned to European waters, taking refuge in the French port of Cherbourg; when the U. S. gunboat KEARSARGE," which was lying in the Dutch harbor of Flushing, being notified by telegraph, came around at once to look after her. Semmes, however, seems to have been quite ready for the en12 So named after a mountain in New Hampshire.

destitute of naval forces, ports, and courts, is an act of intervention, in derogation of the law of nations, and unfriendly and wrongful, as it is manifestly injurious, to the United States.

'So, also, this Government disallows your assumption that the Florida belonged to the aforementioned insurgents, and maintains, on the contrary, that that vessel, like "Aug. 15.

THE ALABAMA SUNK BY THE KEARSARGE.

counter; as he dispatched" to Capt. Winslow a request that he would not leave, as he (Semmes) purposed to fight him. Winslow was glad to find their views so accordant, and was careful to heed Semmes's reasonable, courteous request.

The two vessels were very fairly matched their dimensions and armaments being respectively as follows:

Horse power, two engines of 300 each. Tonnage.. Armament of the Alabama-One 7-inch Blakely rifle, one 8-inch smooth-bore 68-pounder, six 82-pounders. Armament of the Kearsarge-Two 11-inch smoothbore guns, one 30-pounder rifle, four 82-pounders.

647

|ners had been trained on board Her Majesty's ship Excellent in Portsmouth harbor. Several had recently come on board, as if on purpose to take part in the expected fight.

Firing and steaming on, the combatants described seven circles; the Kearsarge steadily closing, and having diminished, by fully half, the distance at which the Alabama opened fire; when, after a mutual cannonade of an hour, the Kearsarge, at 121 P. M., was just in position to fire grape, and her adversary, having received several 11-inch shells, one of which disabled a gun and killed or wounded 18 men, as another, entering her

NOTE--The Kearsarge used but 5 guns; the Alabama 7. Coal-bunkers, and exploding, had

The Kearsarge had 162 officers and men; the Alabama about 150.

Having made all imaginable preparations in a friendly port, where he was surrounded by British as well as French sympathizers, Semmeshaving first providently deposited on shore his chest of coin, his 62 captured chronometers, the relics of so many burned merchantmen-at his own chosen time, " steamed out of the harbor, followed by his British friend Lancaster in his steam-yacht Deerhound, and made for the Kearsarge, which was quietly expecting but not hurrying him, seven miles outside. When still more than a mile distant, the Alabama gave tongue; firing three broadsides before the Kearsarge opened in reply. Winslow endeavored to close and board: but his cautious adversary sheered off and steamed ahead, firing rapidly and wildly; while the Kearsarge, moving parallel with her, fired slowly and with deliberate aim. The badness of the Alabama's practice was notable from the fact that her British gun

13 June 15, 1864.

completely blocked up the engineroom, compelling her to resort to sails, while large holes were torn in her sides, at length attempted to make for the protection of the neutral shore; but she was too far gone to reach it, being badly crippled and rapidly filling with water. Semmes and his crew appear to have had an understanding that she should beat the Kearsarge or sink with all on board; but, when she began to sink in good earnest, he hauled down his flag, and sent a boat to the Kearsarge to accelerate their rescue from the wreck as prisoners.

Semmes, in his letter to envoy J. M. Mason, adds:

"Although we were now but 400 yards from each other, the enemy fired upon me five times after my colors had been struck. It is charitable to suppose that a ship of war of a Christian nation could not have done

this intentionally."

Capt. Winslow does not "suppose," but states, as follows:

"I saw now that she was at our mercy; and a few more guns, well directed, brought down her flag. I was unable to ascertain

14 Sunday, June 19, 10 A. M.