The most instructive chapter in the history of the United States is that relating to the deeds of the cruisers in the Confederate navy; for, though few in number, they proved to the world that the over-sea commerce of a nation at war could be swept away entirely by means so inexpensive and of such little power as to be absolutely insignificant. Consider the first Confederate cruiser worth mention—the Sumter. She was a small coaster lying at New Orleans. Her cabins for passengers were on deck, and her coal-carrying capacity was equal to but five days at sea, and her hull was so frail that she was condemned by a board of able Confederate officers who examined her. But Raphael Semmes eagerly took hold of her. He cleared away the cabin hamper on deck, overhauled her sails and rigging, mounted an eight-inch pivot and some thirty-two-pounders from the Norfolk Navy Yard, and then did one other thing to her worth especial mention: “The engine which was partly above the water line was protected by a system of woodwork and iron bars.” So says Semmes’ “Memoirs”; and that is important because he said the captain of the Kearsarge, having used chains for armor, was unchivalrous. He began work on April 22, 1861. On June 3d he put her in commission under the name of Sumter. Thereafter some time was spent in drilling the crew, and then he dropped down to the head of the Passes to wait opportunity to get to sea. Very naturally he was astonished to find that the Brooklyn, the only blockading steamer, was lying out at sea instead of anchoring at the head of the Passes. He was also astonished that he was not attacked by the Brooklyn during the nine days that he lay there, and the reader is likely to share his feeling. And then came Sunday, June 30th. While the men on the Sumter prepared themselves for the usual man-o’-war inspection, a report that the Brooklyn was off on a chase was received.

Instantly preparations began for a run to sea. It was a hopeless attempt in the eyes of one of her lieutenants, for he had been on the Brooklyn, and thought her the faster ship; but Semmes was a daredevil who would “make a spoon or spoil a horn.” As they approached the bar the Brooklyn was seen coming, and she was but four miles away when the Sumter crossed the bar. But she did not overhaul the Sumter. There was a fresh breeze, and both ships made sail. The Sumter had large fore and aft sails, which enabled her, when they were set, to lie closer to the wind than the Brooklyn could do, and the Sumter fairly ran her out of sight.

As the pilot left the Sumter at the bar he said to Semmes: “Now, Captain, you are all clear; give her h-ll and let her go,” and that is just what Semmes did after “this bold and dashing adventure,” as Porter calls it. Going to the south coast of Cuba, he fell in with his first prize, a ship called the Golden Rocket, “from the Black Republican State of Maine.” A gun—the first fired by any Confederate naval officer afloat—brought her to, with the American flag flying. She was found to be in ballast, and was, of course, burned. Her flag was marked with her name and the date of capture, and stowed in a bag, where many others came to keep it company, for Semmes saved all the flags he captured, and when the Alabama was at last shot from under his feet he says: “I committed to the keeping of the guardian spirits of that famous battle ground a great many bags full of ‘old flags,’ to be stowed away in the caves of the sea as mementoes that a nation once lived whose naval officers loved liberty more than the false memorial of it, and who were capable, when it became ‘Hate’s polluted rag,’ of tearing it down.”

Within three days Semmes captured five American vessels, three of which he determined to carry into a Cuban port. On the fourth day, being then off Cienfuegos, he saw three more come out, and by hoisting false colors he disguised his ship so that they all proceeded on their courses until a marine league or more from the coast, when they were captured, and all taken into port. Semmes hoped that he should be able to sell them as prizes, but the Cuban authorities, after proper consideration, refused to allow this to be done.

In explanation of the refusal it should be said that when England declared in favor of granting the South belligerent rights, orders were issued that “required every ship-of-war or privateer of either belligerent which should enter British waters to depart within twenty-four hours afterwards, except in case of stress of weather, or of her requiring provisions, or things necessary for the subsistence of her crew, or repairs. In either of these cases she was to put to sea as soon after the expiration of the twenty-four hours as possible, taking in no supplies beyond what might be necessary for immediate use, and no more coal than would carry her to the nearest port of her own country, or some nearer destination. Nor, after coaling once in British waters, was she to be suffered to coal again within three months unless by special permission.” These orders were very annoying to the North, because when made, the Confederates had not a single ship of any kind afloat. It was simply excluding United States warships from what had once been friendly ports. On the other hand, the determination that no prizes should be sold in British ports was a hardship upon the South, because it prevented the Southern cruisers, that were eventually sent afloat, disposing of their prizes. Because of it the South did not sell a single prize, for the other nations followed England’s lead in this matter. But, on the whole, it must be said that while England’s attitude toward the cruisers of the two belligerents was, by the letter of the law, that of strict neutrality, the operation of this neutrality was a much greater hardship to the North than to the South, considered as national governments. The crews of the Confederate cruisers failed to get any prize money, but they could “sink, burn, and destroy ad lib.” They were about as great a menace to American commerce as if they had been getting prize money. There is now no disputing the oft-repeated assertion that England managed to maintain a neutrality that should help the South and hurt the North as much as was possible without causing open war with the United States.

Having failed to get his prizes sold in Cuba, because Spain had followed England in refusing to allow such sales in her ports, Semmes took another prize, the Abby Bradford, to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, hoping to find a market there. He says of this attempt:

“All these small South American towns are, more or less, dependent upon American trade. The New England States and New York supply them with their domestic cottons, flour, bacon, and notions; sell them all their worthless old muskets, and damaged ammunition, and now and then, smuggle out a small craft to them, for naval purposes. The American Consul, who is also a merchant, represents not only those ‘grand moral ideas,’ that characterize our Northern people, but Sand’s sarsaparilla, and Smith’s wooden clocks. He is, par excellence, the big dog of the village. The big dog was present on the present occasion, looking portentous and savage, and when he ope’d his mouth, all the little dogs were silent. Of course, the poor Sumter, anchored away off in the bay, could have no chance before so august an assemblage.”

The Abby Bradford was ordered to New Orleans, but the Powhatan, Capt. D. D. Porter, captured her.

The Sumter was at Puerto Cabello on July 26th. She had taken nine prizes cruising in the island region of the Caribbean Sea. To follow her in all the details of her voyage would be monotonous. The reader can find the story in full, even to the number of ladies who showered their favors upon the Confederate captain, for Semmes was so proud of all of his conquests as to omit none. She was usually under sail, but used coal in chasing, and was able to renew her supply at Trinidad as well as other ports.

Meantime Semmes had been carrying a considerable number of merchant seamen to abide the fate of the crew of the Savannah (privateer) who were held for trial in New York on a charge of piracy. Semmes informed these merchant seamen that he should hang them if the Savannah’s crew were executed, and he says himself he should have done so, but does not tell by what process of reasoning he concluded it would be right to retaliate on men not engaged in warring against the Confederacy.

From Trinidad the Sumter went down the Brazil coast to Maranham, and thence to a point near the equator, where homeward-bound American ships from South America crossed, and then back to the Caribbean Sea islands, where, eventually, at St. Pierre, she was blockaded by the Iroquois. The Iroquois’ captain made a mistake. He arranged with an American shipmaster in the harbor to hoist signals, in case the Sumter sailed at night, to tell what course she was steering from the open roadstead. The signals were duly hoisted as Semmes started away south, but Semmes saw and understood them, and after running a mile or two with the Iroquois making all steam to head him off, he turned around and ran away to the north and escaped.

The Sumter now went to Spain, stopping at Cadiz, where she was not cordially received, and from there went to Gibraltar, where, as Semmes says, “the army and navy of Great Britain were with us almost to a man,” while “the Yankee officers of the several Federal ships of war, which by this time had arrived, were kept at arm’s length. No other than the customary official courtesies were extended to them. We certainly did not meet any of them at the club.”

However, if the Sumter’s officers had a good time ashore, they were unable to have one afloat, for the “several Federal ships” that had arrived effectually blockaded her. The work she did and the fate of the ship are thus summed up by Semmes:

“She cruised six months, leaving out the time during which she was blockaded in Gibraltar. She captured eighteen 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 five or six 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 only $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.”

The next cruiser to be considered was named the Florida. She was built at Liverpool under the name of Oreto. The American officials learned, while she was building, that she was of the same model and scantling as the best British gunboats of that day. She had ports for four 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 on March 22d with a crew of fifty men, but she went directly to Nassau, in the Bahamas. When there she appeared as a merchant ship consigned by Fraser, Trenholm & Co., of Liverpool, notorious as Confederate agents, to their Nassau house. Here, on complaint of the United States consul, she was libelled, and there was a farce of a trial in the Nassau court. Of course she was released. It was proved that she had taken on munitions of war, but these had been sent ashore again, and to the mind of the court she was a genuine British merchantman. Meantime her crew asked the British authorities to discharge them, alleging as a reason for the request that they had been deceived when they shipped in her. She had been represented as a merchantman, they said, but it was plain she was a man-o’-war, and they did not want to fight. On this plea they were at once discharged.

On August 2d she cleared for Havana, shipped twenty-two men of the blockade-running class, went to a desolate island called Green Key, and met a vessel that had brought out a first-class English armament of two seven-inch rifles and six six-inch guns. Her new commander was John Newland Maffitt, formerly of the American navy, and one who, because of his good qualities, did not lose his friends there when he forsook the flag. Maffitt was so pressed for men that he worked as a common sailor himself to transfer the arms. In fact, every man on board worked so hard that when one man came down with yellow fever the others took it. The ship reached Cardenas, in spite of losses from the fever. While still ill with the fever, Maffitt was compelled by the authorities to go to Havana.

Finding he should never get a crew there, he decided on the desperate expedient of running over to Mobile and braving the blockade, although he had barely enough men to man the stoke-hole.

The blockaders were sighted on September 4, 1862, and Maffitt, with just one man on deck to steer, hoisted the British flag, and headed directly for the blockaders.

At that time Commander George H. Preble was in charge of the station, and he had the Oneida and Winona under him. Seeing a boat exactly like a British gunboat, and under British colors, and knowing that British gun-boats were frequently sent alongshore to see whether the ports were really blockaded, Preble was deceived. He called his men to quarters and approached the stranger, but did not seem to have been suspicious when he saw that she was running at full speed and had no men on deck. He hailed her when near enough, and got no reply. Then he fired, in rather slow succession, three shots across her bow. As she still kept on he opened on her with a broadside, and the Winona joined in.

The Florida was but 300 yards away, and yet so wretched was the American marksmanship, that the broadsides cut the rigging and tore away the upper part of her bulwarks. One shell did, indeed, pass through and through the Florida near the water-line, to explode beyond her, but it did her no material damage. She passed in clear. The remarks which all the writers on the subject make about the narrow margin of luck in the time fuse of that one shell are not adapted to increase one’s respect for the ability of the gunners. It is a fact, as already noted, that the gunners of the war of 1861 were not to be compared in skill with those of 1812. And this is a subject that cannot be impressed deeply enough on the minds of American readers. For we may shout “Tirez! Tirez toujour!” as the Frenchman did, till we are blind, and still suffer defeat unless we can hit the target when we fire.

As between John N. Maffitt, sitting alone on deck because unable to stand—alone save for the man at the wheel—while his ship made that desperate dash for home, and the Union forces wasting their ammunition on the salt-sea air, one cannot hesitate long in bestowing his sympathy even if Maffitt was an enemy of the flag. It was a most heroic deed on one side and a sorry exhibit of incompetence on the other. On the other hand, when Preble was dismissed the punishment was unjust, for he had done his duty as he saw it. He had given his men all the target practice that the regulations provided. The fault was not in the man, but in the naval regulations that are careful to provide that every man blacks his shoes daily and limit the target practice of the gunners to, say, ten shots a year.

When Maffitt had recruited his health and a good crew, he found the blockading squadron increased, among other ships, by the Cuyler, Capt. Francis Winslow, that, because of her speed, was sent there especially to take him should he run out. But little that worried Maffitt. At 2 o’clock on the morning of January 16, 1863, he was ready, and out he went.

The lookout on the Cuyler saw him coming when he was a long way from the bar, and notified the officer of the deck. Now, there was a regulation on the Cuyler which forbade the officer of the deck slipping the cable until Captain Winslow was on deck to order it done. By this regulation just a half hour’s time was lost. So the Florida was away, passing between the Susquehanna and the Cuyler at a distance of 300 yards while the Cuyler was still at anchor. The Cuyler did get under way at last, and chased the Florida until the next night, when the Florida changed her course and escaped.

The Oneida’s crew saw the signal announcing the coming of the Florida, and beat to quarters, but remained at anchor, although she was one of the swifter vessels present. And she remained at anchor until 3.50 o’clock, when, to quote her log, “having seen no vessel run out, beat the retreat.” Porter calls this affair “the greatest example of blundering committed throughout the war.” Certainly the captains of the Cuyler and the Oneida were not fit for their commands.

Maffitt went to Nassau, where the British population went delirious with joy over his success, and sold him coal to last three months, instead of enough to last to the nearest Confederate port, as the government orders had provided. Then Maffitt went cruising between New York and Brazil. In the course of five months he took seventeen prizes, and then went to Brest, France, where the ship was thoroughly overhauled.

Meantime Maffitt fitted one of his prizes, the Clarence, with light guns, and sent her cruising under Lieut. Charles W. Read. Read was as brave and dashing as Maffitt. Between the 6th and 10th of May, 1863, he took five prizes, shifting his flag to the fifth, 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, Maine, 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.

At Brest, Maffitt was relieved by Capt. Charles M. Morris, who took the Florida to Bahia, where Capt. Napoleon Collins, in the Wachusett, found her. Morris thought he was safe, and with half his crew went ashore. Collins rammed the Florida, fired a few shots into her, and took her to the United States. That carrying her home was a very grave mistake will soon appear; for a more open violation of a neutral port was never recorded, and if a naval officer feels justified in such an act he should not try to get prize money out of it, but make an end of his capture as soon as possible.

In considering violations of neutral ports, one may say that in practice the neutral port of a weak power has always been violated whenever there was any occasion for it. Moreover, since respect for a neutral port is a matter of courtesy only, we may be sure that whenever wars shall occur in future, weak neutral ports will be violated as they have been in the past. It is a question of policy in each case, and the captain of the aggressive ship must decide for himself whether the circumstances warrant the insult to the weak power.

As to this particular case, it is the sentiment of the people of the United States, if the writer knows that sentiment, that Captain Collins was entirely justified in capturing the Florida, especially as the Brazil authorities had permitted Semmes, of the Alabama, to use Fernando de Noronha as headquarters, so to speak, while cruising against American commerce. Indeed, Semmes took an American ship, the Louisa Hatch, into the port at that island, coaled his ship from her, and then towed her outside and burned her. While lying there, too, he saw two American vessels in the offing, went out and burned them, and came back again within a few hours to hobnob with the Governor. The mouth of Brazil was stopped. If Collins had sunk the Florida in port or burned her outside, it would have been proper for the United States government to set off the Alabama’s case against that of the Wachusett, and leave it to arbitration to decide which government should pay damages. But the most interesting feature of this case is found in the attitude of the British writers on the subject. When one recalls how the Essex was captured at Valparaiso after Porter’s too generous treatment of Hillyar, and how the Armstrong was attacked in the Azores, and how the Levant was taken at Porto Praya, one might suppose that the British would be rather lenient with their cousins across the sea, especially as blood is thicker than water; but we find in a work printed in 1896, called “Ironclads in Action,” by H. W. Wilson, a work that deals with ironclads as late as 1895, the capture of the Florida is denounced (page 151, vol. 1) as “disgraceful.” The writer really goes out of his way to do this, for neither the Wachusett nor the Florida was an ironclad in any sense. Moreover, he asserts that “the Florida’s officers were very badly treated,” which is simply a false statement.

Nevertheless, there was one disgraceful feature of the Florida affair. When Brazil demanded the restoration of the ship with her crew on board in the harbor of Bahia, the United States agreed to give her up, and Collins, who had captured her, was ordered to take her back as a punishment for his violation of international law. But the Florida never left the waters of the United States as a warship. She was lying at Hampton Roads when the order was issued—lying “just at the spot where the Cumberland was sunk in very deep water. An engineer was placed on board in charge with two men to assist him in looking after the water cocks; but, strangely enough, although the Florida was to all appearances water tight when she reached Newport News, she sank that night at 2 o’clock in ten fathoms.” “When the sinking of the vessel was reported to Admiral Porter (he was there fitting for the Fort Fisher expedition) he merely said ‘Better so’; while the Secretary of State and Secretary of the Navy never asked any questions.”

Those quotations are from Admiral Porter’s “Naval History of the Civil War,” and they are not unlikely to give the reader a choking sensation, for they show that the sinking of the Florida was the work of a sneak—that the “two men,” when “looking after the water cocks,” opened them under orders. The humiliating story is inserted here because the shame of it should serve to prevent the necessity of ever writing another of the kind.

The story of the Alabama is longer but not more interesting than that of the Florida. She was built by the Lairds and was known as No. 290, because she was the 290th ship the firm had built. The British government had full information that she was building for a Confederate cruiser under the supervision of Commander James D. Bullock of the Confederate navy, and, later, that Bullock was shipping men (British subjects) for her, promising petty offices to this and that capable man. The reader who wants to go into the details of this matter will find plenty of them in an Englishman’s work on the “Neutrality of Great Britain during the American Civil War,” by Mountague Bernard, of Oxford University. It furnishes, curiously enough, abundant proof that England escaped with a light penalty when in court in the matter of the “Alabama claims.”

The Alabama was a perfect cruiser for her day—long, lean, and shoal of draft. She was 230 feet long, only thirty-two wide, and she drew but fifteen 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 ten knots an hour, and her screw propeller could be detached and hoisted out of water whenever it was desirable to work with sails only. She carried eight guns, of which one was a hundred-pounder Blakely rifle, mounted on a pivot forward; one an eight-inch smooth-bore on a pivot aft, and six were thirty-twos in broadside.

Semmes, for his activity in the Sumter, was ordered to the new cruiser. He gathered his officers and crew at Liverpool, and shipping the outfit of all kinds in the merchant ship Bahama, he, with all hands, took passage in her. The cruiser, that was still known only as No. 290, was allowed to go on a trial trip. Although the ship was plainly a cruiser, and although men had testified under oath that they had shipped in her as a Confederate cruiser, the law officer of the customs authority decided that the evidence was insufficient, and she did not return from that trial trip. She met the Bahama at Terceira, a Portuguese island, and there, a marine league from land, on Sunday, August 24, 1862, No. 290 became the Alabama, and Semmes her captain, in the usual form. She was without any doubt a Confederate man-of-war. The people who still persist in calling her a pirate craft are probably unaware that if she had really been a pirate the United States would never have presented any claims against Great Britain for the damages she did to American commerce. And as for Semmes, he is entitled, in his official capacity as her captain, to as courteous treatment at the hands of historians as any captains that ever went afloat. Of his personal character it need only be said that he has written it into his “Memoirs.”

To his “Memoirs,” also, the reader may be referred for details of the burning of the hosts of American merchantmen that he captured. From Terceira the Alabama made a cruise against the whalers off the Azores, and thence went to Martinique, where the American warship San Jacinto found her. But Semmes escaped on the night of October 20, 1862. His first prize of consequence after this adventure was the Ariel of the Panama line. She was expected to bring a million or so in gold, but in this Semmes was disappointed.

From the place where the Ariel was captured Semmes went to Galveston to intercept the transports of the Banks expedition, of which he had read in captured papers. As he approached Galveston, on the afternoon of January 11, 1863, the Hatteras, a merchant steamer fitted with guns, was sent off to inspect him. Semmes pretended to run, and so drew the Hatteras away from the other blockaders, and then at 7 P.M. (it was dark of course) lay to for her. When the Hatteras ranged up and hailed, Semmes said his ship was “Her Britannic Majesty’s ship Vixen.” Capt. H. C. Blake, of the Hatteras, said he would send a boat, but when the boat had been lowered Semmes shouted, “We are the Confederate steamer Alabama,” and fired a broadside. Semmes was not at any time more than 100 yards away, and the Hatteras, a paddle-wheel steamer, was soon riddled. Blake tried to get alongside the Alabama to board, but could not do it, of course, and the Hatteras was soon rapidly sinking. A lee gun was fired and help called for. The living were all taken off by the Alabama’s crew, save the boat’s crew that had started to board the Alabama.

The Hatteras carried two short thirty-twos and two small rifles—a twenty-pounder and a thirty-pounder—that she was able to bring to bear. The prisoners were landed at Jamaica.

From this point Semmes went to the coast of Brazil, and then off to the point near the equator where homeward-bound American Indiamen cross the line. It was on the Brazil coast, in April, 1863, that he gave the Americans good excuse, by his violations of neutral waters, for the taking of the Florida. In July he went to the Cape of Good Hope, and at Cape Town was even more heartily welcomed than he had been at Gibraltar when in the Sumter. Here is the way he describes his reception:

“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. Dear ladies of the Cape of Good Hope!”

Perhaps while we are about it, it may be worth while to make one more quotation to show the full extent of the gallantry of which Semmes makes boast in every chapter. It will be found on page 620 of the “Memoirs,” where he describes the Brazilian people, but no part of the original is italicized:

“The effete Portuguese race has been ingrafted upon a stupid, stolid, Indian stock, in that country. The freed negro is, besides, the equal of the white man, and as there seems to be no repugnance, on the part of the white race—so called—to mix with the black race, and with the Indian, amalgamation will go on in that country, until a mongrel set of curs will cover the whole land. This might be a suitable field enough for the New England school-ma’am, and carpet-bagger, but no Southern gentleman should think of mixing his blood or casting his lot with such a race of people.”

At Cape Town Semmes was troubled a little by “the stereotyped American consul; half diplomat, half demagogue.” The American consuls were in chase wherever he entered a port, but the truth is that they were rarely able to do more than accumulate facts that were eventually handed in along with the bill for damages when the Alabama claims got into court in 1871.

Before reaching Cape Town a prize was turned into a cruiser, and she was of some little consequence in the Cape waters, but did nothing as compared with what the dashing Read accomplished on the American coast.

From the Cape of Good Hope Semmes went to the East Indies, where he found a harvest of prizes, came back to the Cape, and eventually went to Europe; and late at night, on the 10th of June, 1864, the Alabama reached Cherbourg, France, which was her last port, for there the Kearsarge, Capt. John A. Winslow, caught her.

It is to the credit of Captain Semmes that he had no wish to escape the Federal ship, though he says that had he known that the Kearsarge had been armored by placing iron cables on her sides opposite her machinery he should not have done so. Ship for ship and crew for crew, the Alabama was inferior to the Kearsarge by a greater extent than has usually been told in history. In size they were practically the same—1,031 tons for the Kearsarge and 1,016 for the Alabama, but the Kearsarge was the swifter ship of the two. The Alabama carried eight guns, and she fired 328 pounds of metal at a broadside. The Kearsarge carried seven guns, and fired 366 pounds at a broadside; but these figures do not fully tell the superiority of the guns of the Kearsarge, for her two pivots were eleven-inch Dahlgrens, a style of gun that, at the range of this battle, and in a fight between unarmored ships, were far superior to the 100-pounder Blakely and the eight-inch (sixty-four-pounder) smooth-bore on the Alabama. And, then, in the crews the Kearsarge carried 163 men, chiefly Americans, to the Alabama’s 149, almost exclusively Europeans. The officers of the Alabama were about the only ones who had any sentiment in the fight; the men before the mast were at best filibusters—as ragged a crew (mentally) as that of the Bonhomme Richard. That they should have made any fight at all was due to the training received from men who had been reared under the old flag. Another great difference was in the powder, for that on the Alabama was very old and bad.

The Alabama remained in Cherbourg until Sunday, June 19, 1864, when soon after 9 o’clock Semmes headed her out of the harbor. The French ironclad Couronne went along to see that the fight took place three sea miles from shore, and a steam yacht, the Deerhound, followed to give her owner and his family a chance to see a sea battle. The shores were soon covered with equally eager if less fortunate spectators, trains being run from Paris to bring people to the fight. And the sympathy of nearly all the spectators was with the Confederate ship.

Captain Winslow steamed off shore until seven miles from land, and then at 10.50 o’clock turned and drove the Kearsarge straight at the Confederate cruiser. At 10.57, when the ships were yet 1,800 yards apart, the Alabama yawed enough to open fire with a broadside. It was aimed rather worse, perhaps, than that which the Oneida fired into the Florida off Mobile, for the shot flew over the Kearsarge. Two more broadsides were fired from the Alabama as the Kearsarge approached head on, but when the Kearsarge, at a range of 900 yards, was seen to be heading to run across the Alabama’s stern, the Alabama started off in a way that set the two ships running “in a circle against the sun”—starboard side to starboard side, gradually approaching nearer and nearer, while the current swept them slowly down the coast.

As this circling was started the Kearsarge opened fire. Word was sent to every gunner to “make every shot count,” and they obeyed. The gunnery of the Kearsarge was the best shown during the Civil War. The Alabama fired rapidly—she hurled 370 shot in sixty-five minutes, of which only twenty-eight struck the Kearsarge. Of these, two were turned by the chain armor, but had they penetrated they would have had no serious effect. One shell penetrated the stern post, but failed to explode. Had it exploded, the Kearsarge would have had difficulty in steering—perhaps she would have been made helpless; but the battle was then so far done that the Alabama would, at best, have been able to escape.

The Kearsarge fired only 173 shot, but so many of these struck home that before the end of an hour the Alabama was sinking.

Hoisting trysail and jib, Semmes headed for the shore, hoping to escape with the aid of his sails, but it was too late. The Kearsarge ran across her bow to deliver a raking broadside, and then the Alabama hauled down her flag. A little later a white flag was displayed, and then it was seen that the Alabama was rapidly settling in the water. A boat put off from her to ask for assistance. The Kearsarge sent two boats to rescue the crew, and the steam yacht Deerhound came up to help also. Semmes seeing at last that she must sink, threw his sword into the sea and leaped overboard, and while he swam for life the Alabama’s stern sank under the sea, the bow was lifted high out of water, and down she went, with her bowsprit disappearing last of all.

There was some diplomatic trouble over the escape of a lot of the Alabama’s crew, including Semmes, on the Deerhound. The reader will, perhaps, be able to determine the rights of the Deerhound in this case by putting himself mentally in her owner’s place. Suppose Ireland should secede from Great Britain and an Irish cruiser should be sunk in the presence of a Yankee yacht. Would the Yankee yacht-owner deliver up the Irishmen’s crew to the triumphant British warship? Certainly, if the Yankee yacht-owner was a politician, he would not do so.

And, then, there were the virulent attacks on Semmes for swimming to the Deerhound instead of swimming to the Kearsarge. What would the reader have done? What would that other “pirate,” John Paul Jones, have done in a case like that?

It is now thirty-seven years since the Alabama sank in the green waves off Cherbourg. Those of us who were old enough to read the newspaper extras that were issued when the account of it was telegraphed home are old enough to know better than to call Semmes a pirate.

Semmes having escaped to England, was counted a hero there, and a fine sword was given to him to replace the one he threw into the sea. Let the prejudiced shipowner who lost money through the work of this sea rover candidly ask himself what kind of a sea captain it is who, knowing his force is inferior, sails boldly out to meet a watchful enemy, and then fights till his ship is shot from under his feet.

Raphael Semmes earned the right off Cherbourg to have his name inscribed in the list of the sea heroes of America.

The total number of prizes made by the Alabama was sixty-nine, of which fifty-three were destroyed, two had their cargoes only destroyed, and eleven were bonded. The Florida took thirty-seven, of which twenty-eight were destroyed. While the number taken was but a small percentage of the American merchant fleet, the effect of the captures was to raise insurance rates, frighten shippers as well as shipowners, and so prevent the employment of the ships at sea. The carrying trade utterly abandoned American ships.

There were a few other Confederate cruisers, the Shenandoah being the most important, although she did nothing but destroy the American whaling and sealing fleet on the northwest coast. Her total number of captures was thirty-six. What the cruisers did altogether might be told in a list of the American ships destroyed, but it is better to express the facts by saying that they literally swept the American flag from the sea. England was obliged to pay $15,000,000 for the aid she gave the Confederates in this work. As has been said, “she got off cheap.” What she failed to do when she sent shiploads of war material to help the Barbary pirates who were attacking American commerce, she accomplished entirely when she allowed the Confederate warships to fit out in her ports. She destroyed the only competitor on the high seas of whom she had any fear. Does any one doubt that she did it deliberately? From 1864 until this day in 1897 the maritime supremacy of Great Britain has been undisputed. She paid $15,000,000 in damages, and every year has collected in profits on the American carrying trade which she then secured—who shall say how many times $15,000,000 her profits on the American carrying trade are? Perhaps if the reader will learn the answer to this question, he may make up his mind what the American people ought to do about it.