CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

CAPTAIN RAPHAEL SEMMES’S ACCOUNT OF the service of the Alabama, as the public probably observed, was most carefully confined within the limits of legal and professional statement. It was no part of his purpose to enter into the details of life on board, or to make any unnecessary confidences respecting himself or the officers and crew who shared his labors and successes. It is hardly necessary, therefore, to offer any apology for the matter contained in this volume. It will not be doubted that a cruise so unique and remarkable had its share of daily and hourly interests, and of manifestations of that human nature which is of the first consequence in all narrative.

It is certainly not a sense of peculiar fitness which determines the present writer to undertake to make a book from his recollections of the cruise. But those most interested have decided that his duty lies in that direction, and he would himself regret that the irresponsible romancer of the future should become sole heir to the Alabama’s traditions. Though in a minor sense, perhaps what he has in custody is history, and requires reverent treatment. Truth, at least, he thinks he can promise, for he has spared no pains to verify through the testimony of others what he has herein set down.

Before and during the first year of the Alabama’s career, several Confederate cruisers raided the North Atlantic. The Sumter had fully demonstrated the tremendous damage which armed cruisers might effect upon the enemy’s commerce, if they could be put on the high seas and maintained there. But the Confederate cruisers Tallahassee, Georgia, Nashville, Chickamauga, Sallie, and Retribution were not at all adapted to such a service, and could add little substantial achievement. The Florida was unlucky from the first. She started from Nassau with the germs of yellow fever on board. The sickness and mortality among her crew was so great that she was quickly compelled to make port, and the blockading fleet at Mobile tore her literally to splinters. Months elapsed before she could be got to sea again, and then disaster after disaster beset her, until she was eventually captured at Bahia by the U. S. S. Wachusett.

Later in the war, and after the sinking of the Alabama, the Shenandoah, fitted out, like the Florida and Alabama, in England, made havoc amongst the American whaling-fleets in the Pacific; l the respective results of her operations and those of the Florida showing as great value in vessel property destroyed as was accomplished by the Alabama. But annihilation of American shipping interests was effected almost solely by the peculiar operations of the latter. It was not to good fortune alone that this distinction is due. The Alabama was fitted out with the most careful and astute prevision, commanded by a man of rare genius, and officered with special reference to the work in hand. It was to be, practically, one small, swift ship against the many which her enemy could send against her. Her itinerary was pre-arranged with exactness and carried out without any deviation. Mysterious and uncertain in her whereabouts to the foe, and for that reason a terror to his commerce in all seas, her movements could not be left to shape themselves upon events of the moment. The work to be done was definite; and the method must not leave Commander Semmes without suitable communications to inform him of the movements of the pursuers, or to supply other emergencies. At the same time, the Alabama had unusual resources within herself, such as no other man-of-war of her day could boast. She carried the means for making all ordinary repairs upon her machinery, spars, and armament while at sea, or in ports where mechanical facilities could not be commanded. It was manifestly uncertain what influences might be excited by her powerful enemy in neutral ports against her. Of English sympathy alone she could be fairly assured; but that must be counted on only within the strict limit of neutrality laws peculiarly disadvantageous to a ship without consorts or home ports of entry.

The Alabama’s actual destructiveness to the commerce of the enemy was therefore out of all proportion to her force, or the actual number of her captures, or their money-value. Fifty-seven vessels of all sorts were burned—the value as estimated by the Geneva award being but $6,750,000. A large number were, however, released on ransom-bond, having neutral cargo on board, and hundreds of neutrals were brought-to and examined. In the meantime the Alabama sailed seventy-five thousand miles, or thrice the distance round the globe. Beginning her work in the North Atlantic, she shifted rapidly from place to place as the terror of her presence did its work,—the West Indies, the Gulf of Mexico, back again to the West Indies, Brazil, Cape of Good Hope, China Seas, Strait of Malacca, Ceylon, Arabian Gulf, Strait of Madagascar, Cape Town, St. Helena, Brazil, the English Channel—this was her itinerary. For two years she preyed upon her enemy, and set pursuers at defiance, accomplishing to the letter the mission upon which she was sent.

It is unnecessary as to those who have studied the sciences of war and statecraft to say anything respecting the moral quality of the Alabama’s work. But from the fact that a fairly large and probably well-intentioned class amongst those who were suffering from her depredations got into the way of calling her a “pirate,”—a circumstance entirely without the least shadow of legal justification, and which must therefore have been founded upon a misconception, not only of the necessities of war, but also of the spirit which animated her officers and crew,—it may soften prejudices a little to call attention to a few facts.

The North was at the time pretty effectually blockading Southern ports, and cutting off the Confederacy from all commercial advantages and resources, which were far more vital, not only to military power, but to domestic comfort, than a similar blockade of Northern ports would have been. Reprisals were justified to a far greater extent than it was in the power of the South to inflict them. Retaliation upon non-combatants or private interests, especially when unlikely to effect political results or even to materially weaken a foe, is unchivalric and immoral. But it is evident that the operations of the Alabama were well calculated to draw away from Southern ports the swiftest and most effective ships of the enemy in order to protect his commerce; and thus, reducing the strength of the blockade, to procure relief both to the government and the people of the Confederacy. It could not be assumed that the North would certainly sacrifice its shipping interests. The South had also a fairly strong party of sympathizers in the North itself, which it was advisable to encourage and stimulate by striking blows, whenever practicable, at its all but omnipotent “business interests.” Other considerations of policy might be cited to the same purpose. But it is chiefly in point to assure the reader that while the Alabama’s main purpose was to threaten the shipping interests of her foe, neither her projectors, nor the officers and men who manned her, could possibly have foreseen that she would keep on for an extended period making audacious raids upon merchant vessels, without being overhauled and, if necessary, brought to bay, by some of the numerous armed ships of her enemy. She was a fighting-ship, and under no circumstances, within reasonable odds, contemplated avoiding battle. This is evident from what happened in the only two instances in which the opportunity was fairly presented, and should be admitted frankly.

The strict and firm discipline, the isolation, watchfulness, labor, and exposure which were concomitants of service on this lone cruiser demanded from her officers, at least, a strong sentiment of duty and patriotism, not inferior to any manifested afloat or afield on either side of the great war-question pending. And quite apart from the English mercantile and political policy, which to a certain extent favored the career of the Alabama, her officers received from the English authorities and naval officers a degree and kind of recognition which it is practically impossible for John Bull to extend to those he cannot approve as men of honor and principle.

Perhaps one thing more should be noted. The writer has had it suggested that inasmuch as the Alabama destroyed American prestige on the seas,—a calamity to be deplored by all patriotism which now embraces a whole country,—her exploits are rather to be forgotten as errors and sorrows than to be held up to admiration. But the writer, believing that the counsels of men can shape nothing contrary to the purposes of that Providence which is clearly manifest to reverent and thoughtful minds in history, and that acceptance of results (even to the extent of pleading guilty of treason) does not necessarily wipe out the moral value of heroism expended on the losing side, assumes that the Alabama, directed and controlled by American patriots, though of States’ rights persuasion, is pretty sure to remain a feature of American maritime history, and a subject of legitimate interest to most Americans, of generations present and to come.

This explanation to the general reader will not be construed, it is hoped, into apology. Whatever may be fitting for others, it would be at least highly indecorous for a person in the present writer’s position to make excuses for a course of action on his own part or that of his fellow-officers, which was prompted at the time by the highest motives, and must therefore be remembered...