Naval Battles

The Confederate Cruisers

The United States in 1861 held the second place among commercial nations, and the South was quick to appreciate that the most vulnerable point of the North lay in her merchant marine. In a warfare waged against the commerce of the enemy the Confederacy had nothing to lose and everything to gain. What little commerce the seceded states possessed before the war was soon stifled, but they could wage relentless and successful warfare against the merchant fleet of the United States, and in the conduct of this kind of offensive operations it was found necessary to employ only comparatively weak and inexpensive means of warfare. On Page 317 April 17, 1861, at the very beginning of the war, Jefferson Davis issued his proclamation, wherein he gave notice to the world of his intention to issue letters-of-marque. As the United States had not subscribed to the declaration of the Congress of Paris, both the North and the South were at liberty to send forth privateers, though the nations generally had placed the seal of their disapproval on the practice. Only a few indifferent vessels were available to the South to serve as privateers. These were chiefly "old slavers, tugs, fishing-schooners, revenue cutters and small coasters of all descriptions." During the early period of the war quite a number of these vessels were fitted out by private parties under the authority of Davis' proclamation, but the practice of privateering soon died out. The sailing-vessels of the U. S. navy drove off and captured most of the privateers, but the blockade, as the lines became tightly drawn really killed the practice. Privateering is based upon gain, and as none of the captured prizes could be taken into Southern ports on account of the strict blockade, it failed to prove lucrative. Patriotic motives alone would not suffice to maintain the privateers, hence the owners of the vessels soon turned their attention to the much more profitable employment of running the blockade, and many of them gained fortunes in the contraband trade. The naval officers of the Confederacy thereupon took up the business of commerce-destroying as part of their regular duties. The Confederate navy commissioned a number of cruisers —regular men-of-war—which should not be confounded with privateers. These vessels played havoc with the commerce of the United States, and "the art of commerce-destroying, as systematized and applied by Semmes," excelled any previous efforts in this species of warfare.

As the operations of these regularly commissioned Confederate cruisers have so often been characterized as piratical Page 31 and barbarous, and as their status has so often been confused with that of the privately owned privateer, the statement of the eminent naval authority, Prof. James Russell Soley, will prove illuminating. He says: "It is common to speak of the Alabama and the other Confederate cruisers as privateers. It is hard to find a suitable designation for them, but privateers they certainly were not. The essence of a privateer lies in its private ownership; its officers are persons in private employment; and the authority under which it acts is a letter-of-marque. To call the cruisers pirates is merely to make use of invective. Most of them answered all the legal requirements of ships-of-war. They were owned by the government, and they were commanded by naval officers acting under a genuine commission. Some of them were put in commission at sea or in foreign waters, and never saw the country of their adoption, but their commission could not thereby be invalidated. There is no rule of law which prescribes the place where a government shall commission its ships, or which requires the ceremony to take place, like the sessions of prize courts, within the belligerent territory."

The status of these cruisers as public vessels, entitled to all the privileges accorded such vessels by the rules of international law, was somewhat impaired by the manner in which many of them were procured, as well as by the subsequent changes in their character. For instance the Alabama and the Florida went to sea in violation of English neutrality, and yet were neither excluded from, nor detained within, British ports, when they afterwards repeatedly entered them during the progress of their belligerent operations. Other vessels sailed sometimes under the British flag, with British papers, and sometimes as Confederate cruisers. Again they would be fitted out as ships-of-war, then as merchant vessels, as the particular occasion best served, and these changes Page 319 were often bewildering in their suddenness. The blockade-runner Edith entered the port of Wilmington in her usual character in October, 1864, then suddenly emerged as the "C. S. Steamer Chickamauga," destroyed several merchant vessels, returned to port and resumed her former status. But certainly none of these cruisers were pirates. Soley says: "A great deal of uncalled-for abuse has been heaped upon the South for the work of the Confederate cruisers, and their mode of warfare has been repeatedly denounced as barbarous and piratical in official and unofficial publications. But neither the privateers, like the Petrel and Savannah, nor the commissioned cruisers, like the Alabama and Florida, were guilty of any practices which, as against their enemies, were contrary to the laws of war."

The Confederate cruisers were few in number and only the following are worthy of any especial mention: The Sumter, the Alabama, the Florida, the Shenandoah, the Nashville, the Georgia, the Tallahassee, the Chickamauga, the Clarence, the Tacony and the Stonewall. The Sumter was practically the first of the regularly commissioned Confederate cruisers to get to sea. She was a small screw-steamer of 500 tons; had formerly been the Spanish steamer Marquis de Habana, engaged in the Havana trade; was provided with cabins for passengers on deck; had a coal-carrying capacity equal to only 5 days at sea, and a hull so frail that it had been condemned by a Confederate board of survey who examined her. Nevertheless Commander Raphael Semmes was glad to take hold of her, and was assigned to command her on April 18, 1861. He strengthened her by a system of woodwork and iron bars about the engine, which was partly above the water-line, put in a berth-deck, removed the spar-deck cabins, overhauled her sails and rigging, provided a magazine and additional coalbunkers, and armed her with an 8-inch pivot and four 32- Page 320 pounders in broadside. Semmes was unable to complete his preparations before the blockade began at the mouth of the Mississippi, but nevertheless he got fairly to sea June 30, although he was given an exciting chase by the Brooklyn. He cruised along the south shore of the Island of Cuba, taking 8 prizes, thence went to Cienfuegos, from there he cruised down the Spanish Main, and on November 13 ran into the port of St. Pierre, Martinique. Here he was blockaded by the Iroquois for 9 days, but adroitly made his escape on the 23d, crossing the Atlantic to Cadiz, where he arrived January 4, 1862, taking several prizes on the way. Unable to coal he went to Gibraltar January 19, and was there blockaded by the Tuscarora, Kearsarge and Chippewa, and it was decided to lay the ship up.

Semmes thus sums up the career of the cruiser Sumter: "She cruised six months, leaving out the time she was blockaded in Gibraltar. She captured 18 ships, as follows: the Golden Rocket, Cuba, Machias, Ben, Dunning, Albert Adams, Naiad, Louisa Kilham, West Wind, Abby Bradford, Joseph Maxwell, Joseph Parke, D. Trowbridge, Montmorency, Arcade Vigilant, Eben Dodge, Neapolitan and Investigator. It is impossible to estimate the damage done to the enemy's commerce. The property actually destroyed formed a very small proportion of it. The fact alone of the Sumter being upon the seas, during these six months, gave such an alarm to neutral and belligerent shippers, that the enemy's carrying trade began to be paralyzed, and already his ships were being laid up, or sold under neutral flags—some of these sales being bona fide, and others fraudulent. In addition to this, the enemy kept 5 or 6 of his best ships of war constantly in pursuit of her, which necessarily weakened his blockade, for which, at this time, he was much pressed for ships. The expense to my government of running the ship was next to nothing, being Page 321 only about $28,000, or about the price of one of the least valuable of her prizes. The Sumter was sold in the course of a month or two after being laid up, and being put under the English flag as a merchant-ship, made one voyage to the coast of the Confederate States, as a blockade-runner, entering the port of Charleston. Her new owner changed her name to that of Gibraltar. She was lost afterward in the North Sea."

Very early in the war the Confederate government realized that it would be unable to build the suitable cruisers at home, and arrangements were therefore made for procuring them abroad. The first of the foreign-built commerce-destroyers was the Florida. She was built at Liverpool in the fall of 1861. "The American officials learned while she was building, that she was of the same model and scantling as the best British gunboats of the day. She had ports for 4 guns. On February 18, 1862, complaint was made to the British government by the American representative charging that she was building for use as a Confederate cruiser, whereat orders were given that she be vigilantly watched. On March 3d she was registered in the name of a member of a Sicilian firm, then in Liverpool, and cleared for Palermo, the Mediterranean and Jamaica in ballast."

She sailed under the name of the Oreto March 22 with a crew of 50 men, and went directly to Nassau, where she appeared on April 28 as a merchant ship consigned by Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool, the noted Confederate agents, to their Nassau house. While at Nassau she was delivered to Captain John N. Maffitt, C. S. N., formerly of the American navy, and an exceedingly popular officer. On August 2 she cleared for Havana under the name of the Florida, having shipped a new crew of 22 men of the blockade-running class. Proceeding to a little desolate island named Green Key, she Page 322 was met by a vessel Who brought her an English armament of two 7-inch rifles and six 6-inch guns. Maffitt then went to Cuba, where he and many of his men were stricken with the yellow fever. He found himself unable to obtain the necessary officers, men and ordnance stores at Havana, and resolved on the desperate expedient of running into Mobile. He ran by the blockading squadron under English colors and anchored under the guns of Fort Morgan, September 4, 1862. The Florida was here thoroughly overhauled and manned with a good crew. Maffitt came out with his vessel at 2 a. m., January 16, 1863, and successfully evaded the blockading vessels once more. She was chased by the Cuyler until the succeeding night, when the Florida changed her course and escaped. Maffitt first cruised in the West Indies and then made his way to the coast of Brazil, commissioning one of his prizes, the brig Clarence, Lieutenant C. W. Read, while en route. The Clarence was fitted with light guns and engaged in a cruise on her own account under Read, who was as brave and dashing as Maffitt himself. "Between May 6 and 10, 1863, he took five prizes, shifting his flag to the 5th, the Tacony, and burning the Clarence. Then he took ten prizes, including the Archer, to which he made another shift. With the Archer he came to off Portland, Me., and with small boats rowed in and cut out the revenue cutter Caleb Cushing. The Archer was a sailing ship. Read burned the Cushing, but steamers overhauled him next day and he was captured."

Maffitt anchored at Bermuda July 16, having captured 17 prizes, 14 of which he burned. From Bermuda he went to Brest, where his health being broken, he was relieved by Captain Charles M. Morris, who got to sea in January, 1864, first going to the West Indies and the coast of the United States, capturing many prizes. In the summer of that year he crossed the ocean to Teneriffe, and then went to Bahia, Brazil, where he Page 323 anchored October 4, and where he was found by the Wachusett, Captain Napoleon Collins. Morris, trusting in the neutrality of the port, went ashore with half of his crew, and before daybreak on the morning of the 7th Collins attacked and captured the Florida, and notwithstanding the protests of the Brazilian authorities, towed his prize out of the harbor. She was taken to Hampton Roads where, by what was officially termed an "unforeseen accident," she collided with an army transport and was sunk. She had made 37 prizes. Says Soley: "The capture of the Florida was as gross and deliberate a violation of the rights of neutrals as was ever committed in any age or country. It is idle to attempt to apologize for it or to explain it. The circumstances were such that the question does not admit of discussion."

The most celebrated of the Confederate cruisers was the Alabama. She was built by the Lairds and was known as No. 290, being the 290th ship built by that firm. She was also the second cruiser built in England for the Confederates. The British government was well aware of her character, its attention having been called to the matter by Mr. Adams as early as June 23, 1862. A mass of evidence was also furnished the government at a later date. This information, chiefly in the form of depositions, showed that she was destined for the Confederate service, was being built under the supervision of Commander James D. Bullock of the Confederate navy, and that Bullock was shipping a crew of British subjects. There was ample basis for the subsequent "Alabama Award." Ignoring the information furnished them, the British authorities permitted the 290 to sail from Liverpool July 29, on a "trial trip," from which she never returned. As the 290 she arrived at Port Praya, in the Azores, August 10, and was here joined by the bark Agrippina of London, bringing her guns, ammunition, coal and stores. Semmes, on account of his success with Page 324 the Sumter, had been ordered to the new cruiser and arrived two days later with the rest of his crew in the steamer Bahama from Liverpool. The No. 290 met the Bahama at Terceira, a Portugese island, where Semmes complied with the formalities of putting his ship in commission, a marine league from land, on Sunday, August 24, 1862, and the No. 290 became the Confederate cruiser, Alabama.

The Alabama was admirably adapted to her work; she "was a perfect cruiser for her day—long, lean, and shoal of draught. She was 230 feet long, only 32 wide, and she drew but 15 feet of water. She had the rig of a barkentine, with long lower masts to give her plenty of fore and aft sail, so that she could lie closer to the wind than any ordinary square-rigged ship. She had also a steam power able to drive her 10 knots an hour, and her screw propeller could be detached and hoisted out of the water whenever it was desirable to work with sails only. She carried 8 guns, of which 1 was a 100-pounder Blakely rifle, mounted on a pivot forward; 1 an 8-inch smooth-bore on a pivot aft, and 6 were 32s in broadside."

Semmes cruised the first two months in the North Atlantic, taking and burning 20 prizes. All doubts as to the hostile ownership of the captured cargoes were resolved by Semmes himself, sitting as a prize court. Certainly the British government proved strangely tolerant toward the acts of Semmes— its attitude being in marked contrast to the one assumed toward the United States in the case of the Trent, where captured property was not even involved. After cruising as far as the Banks and being short of coal, the Alabama proceeded south in order to meet certain vessels carrying supplies in accordance with previous arrangements. She then went to Martinique, where the American warship San Jacinto found her. But Semmes eluded his enemy with his usual skill on the night of October 20, 1862, went to Blanquilla, where he coaled Page 325 from the Agrippina, and then cruised among the islands of the West Indies, waiting for the mail steamers. On December 7 he captured the mail steamer Ariel of the Panama line. He had hoped to land her numerous passengers at Kingston, but yellow fever prevailed and he could not carry out his plan, so he released his prize under heavy ransom-bonds. He next went to Galveston to intercept the transports of .the Banks expedition, of which he had read in papers captured. Arriving off that port he decoyed the Hatteras away from the blockading fleet and engaged and sunk her in 15 minutes, as related in another chapter. Proceeding to Port Royal, Jamaica, with his prisoners, he next cruised down the Brazilian coast, and in July went to the Cape of Good Hope. The hearty welcome he received at Cape Town has been thus described by Semmes, who was much addicted to the pen: "During my entire stay, my table was loaded with flowers, and the most luscious grapes and other fruits, sent off to me every morning, by the ladies of the Cape, sometimes with, and sometimes without, a name. Something has been said before about the capacity of the heart of a sailor. My own was carried by storm on the present occasion. I simply surrendered at discretion, and whilst Kell was explaining the virtues of his guns to his male visitors, and answering the many questions that were put to him about our cruisers and captures, I found it as much as I could do, to write autographs, and answer the pretty little perfumed billets that came off to me."

Before entering the harbor at the Cape, the Tuscaloosa, one of the prizes taken by the Alabama, received a prize crew and on entering the harbor claimed all the privileges of a ship-of-war, simply because Semmes so characterized the vessel. This, too, when the prize still had her captured cargo aboard. She was actually accorded the privileges asked for and later carried her cargo of wool to Angra Pequena, where Page 326 it was sold. But all this afterward made a good basis for augmenting the Alabama claims against Great Britain.

For the remainder of the year 1863 Semmes cruised in the Straits of Sunda, the China Sea, and the Bay of Bengal. From the time of leaving Port Royal to April 27, 1864, the Alabama took some 30 prizes. Semmes at first secured his coal from vessels which were despatched to an appointed rendezvous, but he later learned to depend on captured supplies and that furnished him in neutral ports. On June 10, 1864, the Alabama reached Cherbourg, France, which proved to be her last port, as Captain John A. Winslow of the Kearsarge found her there. To his credit be it said that Semmes did not seek to avoid an engagement with his adversary, though he knew the Kearsarge was somewhat his superior in the matter of armament. The Kearsarge carried 7 guns, throwing a weight of projectiles of 430 pounds, while the Alabama carried 8 guns, the weight of her projectiles being 360 pounds. The Union vessel also had a slight advantage in the number of her crew and in the matter of speed, though both ships were unarmored. The Alabama came out on Sunday morning, June 19, 1864, and after an engagement of about an hour was reduced to a sinking condition. Her loss in killed, wounded and drowned was 40; that of the Kearsarge was only 1 killed and 2 wounded. The survivors of the Alabama were rescued by her own boats and by those of the Kearsarge and the English yacht, Deerhound. Thus ended the career of this famous vessel. In two years Semmes had captured some 70 vessels and had almost swept American commerce from the seas. The carrying trade forsook American bottoms, and the nation is still seeking to recover it.

None of the other Confederate cruisers attained the prominence of the Sumter, the Florida or the Alabama. The Georgia was bought at Dumbarton, Scotland, for the Confederate Page 327 government. She was commissioned off Ushant in April, 1863, by Com. William L. Maury, having put to sea under the name of the Japan. Her career extended over a period of one year, during which she cruised in the Atlantic, ran over to the coast of Brazil, and thence to the Cape of Good Hope. On October 28, she anchored at Cherbourg, having taken 9 prizes. She remained here for four months, part of the time undergoing repairs. Captain Maury was relieved by Lieutenant Evans, and in April, 1864, she put in at Bordeaux, again repairing. She seems to have taken no more prizes, and on the whole her cruises had not been successful. An English ship-owner was afterward rash enough to pay £15,000 for her, after her crew had been discharged and her war equipment landed. Thus converted into a merchant-vessel she was later seized by the Niagara, Captain Craven, who sent her to Boston, where she was condemned by a prize-court.

None of the cruisers had a more varied career than the Tallahassee, formerly the blockade-runner Atlanta. She was converted into a man-of-war, and on August 6, 1864, sailed from Wilmington, North Carolina, for a cruise off the coast, and shaped her course for Halifax, where she arrived on the 19th, after having destroyed several vessels. At Halifax, her captain, John Taylor Wood, was unable to secure only enough coal to take the vessel back to Wilmington, where she arrived on the 26th. Regarding her subsequent career, Soley says: "In November she made another short cruise, this time under the name of the Olustee, during which she took a few prizes. With this cruise her belligerent career came to an end. Her battery was removed, and her officers and crew detached. A bill of sale was drawn up, the ostensible purchaser being the navy agent at Wilmington; a register was issued, a crew engaged, a cargo of cotton shipped, and invoices and bills of lading made out in the prescribed form. She received the name Page 328 of the Chameleon, which must have been a piece of pleasantry on the part of whoever may have been considered her owner." She departed in December from Wilmington to obtain, if possible, supplies at Bermuda for the Confederate government. She was unsuccessful, and was finally taken to Liverpool and delivered to Fraser, Trenholm & Co., the Confederate agents^ Afterwards the British government seized her, and ultimately surrendered the vessel to the United States.

The Nashville was commissioned as a man-of-war in the fall of 1861, with Robert B. Pegram, C. S. N. as captain. She made a short voyage to England and back, in the course of which she burned the ship Harvey Birch and the schooner Robert Gilfillan. She was later employed as a blockade-runner, and was eventually destroyed by the monitor Montauk. (See chapter, Operations before Charleston). The Chickamauga was formerly the small blockade-runner Edith. Her commander was Captain John Wilkinson, who. sailed in her for a short cruise in the fall of 1864, during which she captured 7 vessels. Her career ended in the Cape Fear river, where she was sunk as an obstruction after the fall of Fort Fisher.

The Shenandoah, the last of the commerce-destroyers, was. formerly the Sea King. She was a full-rigged ship with auxiliary steam power, of 790 tons, built on the Clyde, and employed in the East India trade. She was fast, and had made more than one run of 320 miles in 24 hours. She was bought by Captain Bullock and sent to the Desertas, an uninhabited island near Madeira. Officers and stores were sent to the same place in the steamer Laurel, and on October 20, 1864, the Sea King was transferred to Captain James Iredell Waddell of the Confederate navy, her future commander. She was commissioned the Shenandoah and at once started on her cruise. Waddell first went to Australia, whence, in pursuance of the Page 329 plan projected by Com. John Mercer Brooke, he proceeded to destroy the U. S. whaling fleet in the South Pacific. Her total captures were 36. The destructive career of this vessel only ceased June 28, 1865, when Waddell learned of the collapse of the Confederacy.

The efforts of the Confederacy to obtain ships-of-war abroad were much less successful in France than in England. Six vessels were built for the Confederacy in France, but only one, the iron-clad ram Sphynx, found its way into the enemy's hands, and then not until near the close of the war. Her captain was Thomas Jefferson Page, C. S. N., who took her to an appointed rendezvous off Quiberon, where she was met by the steamer City of Richmond with stores. She was commissioned the Stonewall January 24, 1865, and went to Coruna, and thence to Ferrol, Spain, for repairs, where she was blockaded by the United States vessels Niagara and Sacramento. Page steamed out and tried to provoke an encounter, but the Union ships refrained from attacking her on the ground that the engagement must result disastrously to them. Page then crossed the ocean, called at Nassau, where he learned of the surrender of General Lee and the end of the war. He delivered the Stonewall to the Spanish authorities, who placed her at the disposition of the U. S. government. In November, 1865, she was received by Captain Alexander Murray of the Rhode Island, and was conveyed by that ship and the Hornet, Commander George Brown, to Washington, D. C. In 1867 she was sold to the Japanese government, and under the Japanese flag was taken to Yokohama, where, after nearly a year's delay, owing to the revolution then existing, she was turned over to the Japanese authorities, who thus became possessed of their first iron-clad. Had this vessel been given an opportunity she would doubtless have proved a most formidable antagonist. She was armored with 4 or 5 inches of iron on the sides, had Page 330 a 300-pounder rifled Armstrong gun in the casemated bow, while the fixed turret aft carried 2 rifled 70-pounders. This closes the short account of the more important cruisers commissioned by the Confederacy. The carrying trade of the United States was destroyed, and millions of dollars worth of property were wiped out. The indirect damage wrought by the cruisers is incalculable. England has been one of the chief beneficiaries of the havoc wrought by these commerce destroyers, and was largely responsible for the success attained by the South in carrying on the work. The paltry $15,000,000 awarded the nation, in the matter of the Alabama claims, was a small offset to the actual advantage which has resulted to England, America's chief commercial rival.