Part 50

At last, in despair of any more use of her as a blockade-runner, the Rebel authorities determined to convert her into an ironclad ship-of-war. She was cut down, so as to leave her deck not more than two feet above the water; and upon this deck was built a very heavy casemate, inclining at an angle of about thirty degrees, and mounting four heavy rifled guns. The battery-deck was built of great beams of timber, a foot and a half thick. Her iron armor was four inches thick, then considered quite formidable, and was secured to a backing of oak and pine, eighteen inches thick. Her sides about and below the water line were protected by heavy logs or timbers built upon her, so that from being a slim and graceful blockade-runner, she attained a breadth of forty-one feet, with a length of two hundred and four. The ports in her casemate were closed by iron shutters, of the same thickness as her armor. Her bow was formed into a ram, and also carried, at the end of a spar, a percussion torpedo.

In fact, she was a very formidable craft, of the general style of those built by the Confederates during the war. The Merrimac was nearly all casemate, but the later built ones had as small a casemate as was consistent with the working of the guns they were intended to carry.

Thicker armor than hers had not yet come into use, the English ironclad ships just then built, in consequence of the success of the Monitor and Merrimac, not being any more protected.

The first contest between a monitor and fifteen-inch guns, and an ironclad with stationary casemate or turret and rifled guns, was now to take place.

The Atlanta was commanded by an officer of energy and ability, named Webb, formerly a Lieutenant in the United States Navy.

The Confederate authorities were certain that this latest production of their naval architects was to overcome the redoubtable monitors, and they fully believed that, while the Atlanta’s armor would resist their heavy round shot, her heavy rifled guns, at close quarters, would tear the monitor turret to pieces, while the ram and torpedo would finish the work begun by the guns.

The vessel, being ready, came down from Savannah, passed through the Wilmington, a mouth of the Savannah River, and so passed down into Wassaw Sound, improperly named, in many books and maps, Warsaw.

Admiral Du Pont had taken measures to keep himself informed as regarded this vessel’s state of preparation, and the monitors Weehawken and Nahant had been sent to meet her and some other armored vessels preparing at Savannah.

Both the Nahant and Weehawken were at anchor when the strange vessel was seen. It was at daylight, and she was then about three miles from the Nahant, and coming down very rapidly. The Weehawken was commanded by that capable and sterling officer, John Rogers, and he at once slipped his cable, and made rapidly off, seaward, as if in headlong flight, but, in the meantime, making preparations for action.

At about half-past four, on this bright summer morning, the Weehawken rounded to, and breasted the tide, approaching her enemy.

The Nahant had no pilot, and could only follow in the Weehawken’s wake, through the channels of the Sound.

The Atlanta fired the first shot, at about a quarter to five, being then distant about a mile and a half. This passed across the stern of the Weehawken, and struck the water near the Nahant. The Atlanta seemed to be lying across the channel, awaiting attack, and keeping up her fire.

The Weehawken steadily came up the channel, and at a little after 5 a. m., having approached within about three hundred yards, opened her fire. She fired five shots, which took her fifteen minutes, and at the end of that time the Atlanta hauled down the Confederate colors, and hoisted a white flag. Such a rapid threshing is seldom recorded in naval history, and is the more remarkable when we remember that the commander of the Atlanta was a cool and experienced officer, trained in the United States Navy, and an excellent seaman.

Two passenger steamers, loaded down with ladies and non-combatants, had followed the Atlanta down from Savannah, to witness the capture of the Yankee monitors. These now made the best of their way back to that city.

The Atlanta had a crew of twenty-one officers and one hundred and twenty-four men. Landsmen often wonder why ships have so many officers in proportion to men, but it is necessary.

The officers of the Confederate vessel stated her speed to be ten knots, and they confidently expected to capture both the monitors, after which, as it appeared from the instruments captured on board of her, she expected to proceed to sea, and try conclusions with the Charleston fleet. Her engines were first-rate, and her hull of a good model, and there is no reason why she should not have gone up to Charleston and broken the blockade there, except the one fact that she turned out not to be equal to the monitors.

The action was so brief that the Nahant did not share in it, and of the five shots fired by the Weehawken, four struck the Atlanta, and caused her surrender. The first was a fifteen-inch shot, which, though it struck the casemate of the Atlanta at a very acute angle, smashed through both the iron armor and the wooden backing, strewed the deck with splinters, prostrated some forty officers and men by the concussion, and wounded several by the splinters and fragments of armor driven in. We can imagine the consternation of a crew which had come down confident of an easy victory. In fact, this one shot virtually settled the battle. The Weehawken fired an eleven-inch shot next, but this did little damage. The third shot was from the fifteen-inch gun, and knocked off the top of the pilot-house, which projected slightly above the casemate, wounded the pilots, and stunned the men at the wheel. The fourth shot carried away one of the port-stoppers. Sixteen of her crew were wounded.

The Atlanta was valued by the appraisers, for prize-money, at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, a sum, as Boynton remarks, easily won in fifteen minutes, with only five shots, and without a loss of a single man on the other side. More than this, it settled the value of that class of vessels, as compared with monitors.

“As the fight of the Merrimac with the Cumberland, Congress and Minnesota virtually set aside as worthless for war purposes the vast wooden navies of Europe,” so it showed that great changes and improvements were necessary in the broadside ironclads, if they were to be opposed to monitors armed with guns of great power. The result was a great increase in the thickness of armor, which went on, as the power of the guns increased, until now it is a question whether armor may not be abandoned, except for certain purposes.

KEARSARGE AND ALABAMA. JUNE 19TH, 1864.

During the summer of 1864, while Grant and his army were fighting the terrible battles which opened his way to the James, through Virginia; and the whole country was upon the very tenter-hooks of anxiety, a piece of news came across the water which gave more satisfaction to the country at large than many a hard-won battle has given, where a thousand times the numbers were engaged. It was the intelligence that the Alabama was at the bottom of the sea.

We may borrow the words of Boynton, in his “History of the Navy during the Rebellion,” to put the reader in possession of a part of the career of the notorious Alabama, previous to her meeting with the Kearsarge.

No event of the great civil war excited such deep indignation, such bitter resentment, as the career of the Alabama. It was not alone because she committed such havoc with our commerce--burning our merchantmen in great numbers; nor was it because she had sunk the Hatteras--a merchant steamer converted into a gun-boat; but it was because England had sent out a British ship, with British guns, and seamen trained in her own practice-ship, a vessel English in every essential but her flag, to lay waste the commerce of a country with which she professed to be at peace. To add to the provocation, this vessel was originally called the “290,” to show, by the large number who had contributed to fit her out, how widespread was English sympathy for the cause she was to support. The Alabama was not regarded as a Confederate vessel of war, but as an English man-of-war, sent forth under the thin veil of another flag, to sink and destroy our merchantmen. The short-lived triumph in which England indulged turned out to be about as costly a pleasure as she could well have taken; and deeply mortified as we were that the successful rover should escape our watchful cruisers, and so long pursue, unmolested, her work of destruction, in the end the pride of England was more deeply and bitterly wounded than our own, while at the same time she was held responsible for the destruction of our property. England will probably have reason to remember the Alabama quite as long as the Americans.

The successful movements of this vessel were such as to attract the attention of Europe as well as America. Semmes, her commander, seemed to have been adopted as a sort of English champion, and judging from the expressions of most of the English papers, and what Americans believed to be the effective though quiet support of the English Government, the governing class, at least, in Great Britain were as much pleased with the success of the Alabama as were the people of the South. There was enough of mystery connected with the operations to excite the imagination, and scarcely was any phantom ship ever invested with a more unreal character than was this modern highwayman of the sea.

She seemed to be everywhere, and yet nowhere to be found when sought for by our ships; and some were inclined to think that our naval officers were not very anxious to find her. The result showed how little reason there was for such an injurious suspicion. There could be no more difficult task than to overtake a single fast steamer to which all seas were open, and which constantly shifted her cruising ground. She seldom entered a port, getting coal and provisions from captured vessels, and so could not readily be traced. She burned or sunk the captured vessels, and then disappeared. The public naturally magnified her size, speed and power, but the Navy Department was well informed about her, and knew just what sort of vessel to send in pursuit of her.

Early in 1862 Captain John A. Winslow, of the United States Navy, was sent, in command of the steam-sloop Kearsarge, to cruise on the coast of Europe for the Alabama and her associate vessels.

He blockaded the Florida for some time, but was forced to give her a chance to escape, by the necessity of going for coal and stores. He lay two months off Calais, where the Rappahannock was found, and at last, in despair of getting to sea, the Rebel cruiser was dismantled and laid up.

Soon after this he learned that the Alabama was at Cherbourg, and he immediately sailed for that port, and took up a position off the famous breakwater.

Semmes was now, for the first time, placed in a position where he would either have to fight the Kearsarge, or submit to be blockaded by a ship in every way a fair match for him.

If he declined battle he would be disgraced in the eyes of all Europe. Should he succeed, his victory would have a great moral effect, especially from the scene of action attracting general attention. People of all nations would hear of it, and augur well for the Confederate cause, whose attention would never be drawn by such a combat, if it occurred on the other side of the Atlantic.

Putting a bold face upon his situation, he challenged Winslow. Considering that his ship was somewhat larger than the Kearsarge, that she carried one more gun, and that he had trained English gunners, of whom much was expected; more than that, that his men were confident, from success, and had the sympathies of most of those about them, he had good reason to hope for success.

Winslow and his crew well knew the consequences involved in the battle. They were indignant, as all Northerners were, at the manner in which the Alabama had been fitted out, quite as much as at her depredations upon our commerce, and death would have been preferable to them, to being towed, a prize, into Cherbourg harbor.

The news of the approaching battle soon spread, and was telegraphed in every direction. Crowds came down from Paris, yachts collected, and bets were freely made upon the result.

The writer was in Cherbourg some time after this fight, and photographs of the Kearsarge, her officers, her battery, and the state of her decks after the action, were in many of the shop windows still. The Cherburgeois seemed glad that the Alabama and her English crew had been conquered off their town. At any rate, it was their interest to appear so, after the event. It was rather curious that no photographs of Semmes or his officers appeared in the windows.

At length, on Sunday morning, June 19th, 1864, the Alabama, having made all her preparations, steamed out of Cherbourg, accompanied by the French ironclad frigate Couronne. The morning was a very fine one; the sea calm, and with a light haze upon the water, not sufficient to obscure the movements of the ships. The French frigate accompanied the Alabama only so far as to make it certain that she would not be attacked until beyond the marine league, or line of French jurisdiction. A small steamer bearing an English yacht flag came out at the same time, but attracted no particular attention.

The Alabama was first seen by the Kearsarge at about half-past ten, and the latter immediately headed seaward, not only to avoid all questions of jurisdiction, but to draw Semmes so far from shore that, in case his vessel was partially disabled in the coming fight, she could not escape by running into French waters.

The Kearsarge then cleared for action, with her guns pivoted to starboard. Having reached a point about seven miles from shore, the Kearsarge turned short on her heel, and steered straight for the Alabama.

The moment the Kearsarge came round the Alabama sheered, presenting her starboard battery, and slowed her engine.

Winslow’s intention was to run his adversary down, if opportunity presented, and he therefore kept on his course. When about a mile distant the Alabama fired a broadside, which did only very trifling damage to the Kearsarge’s rigging. Winslow now increased his speed, intending to strike his enemy with full force, and in the next ten minutes the Alabama fired two more broadsides. Not a shot struck the Kearsarge, and she made no reply; but, as the vessels were now not more than seven hundred yards apart, Captain Winslow did not deem it prudent to expose his ship to another raking fire, and the Kearsarge accordingly sheered and opened fire. The ships were thus brought broadside to broadside; but it soon became evident that Semmes did not intend to fight a close action, and Winslow began to fear that he would make for the shore and escape.

To prevent this, Winslow kept his vessel at full speed, intending to run under the stern of the Alabama and secure a raking position.

To avoid this the Alabama sheered, so as to keep her broadside to the Kearsarge, and as both vessels were under a full head of steam, they were forced into a circular movement, steaming in opposite directions round a common centre, with the current setting them to the westward. Had they fought on parallel lines, with the Alabama heading inshore, she would have reached the line of French jurisdiction, and thus escaped. But, being thus compelled to steam in a circle, she was about five miles from the shore when, at the close of the action, she attempted to run into Cherbourg.

The firing of the Alabama was, throughout the action, very rapid, but also very wild. During the first eighteen minutes not a man was injured on board the Kearsarge. Then a 68-pound Blakely shell passed through the starboard bulwarks, about the main rigging, and exploded on the quarter-deck, wounding three men at the after pivot-gun, one of whom afterwards died of his wounds. This was the only casualty among the crew of the Kearsarge during the whole engagement.

The firing of the Kearsarge was very deliberate, and especial pains were taken with the aiming of the two 11-inch pivot-guns. At the distance at which they were fired, about half a mile, they were terribly effective. One shell disabled a gun on board the Alabama, and killed and wounded eighteen men. Another exploded in her coal-bunker, and completely blocked the engine room. Other shells tore great gaps in the Alabama’s sides, and it was soon evident that her race was run. For an hour this fire was exchanged, the Kearsarge suffering little, while almost every shot of hers struck the Alabama. The vaunted English gunners, with their Blakely guns, did not seem to get the range. The Kearsarge’s shell came with due deliberation, but as certain as fate, crashing through her sides, exploding within her or upon her decks, and sweeping away her crew, many of whom were literally torn to pieces by the fearful missiles. She was rapidly reduced to a wreck; her decks were strewn with the dead and wounded, and the water was pouring in the gaps in her sides.

Semmes now made one desperate effort to escape, and suddenly bore up for the land, and made all sail that he could. But he was too late. The Alabama was sinking, and the water which poured into her soon put out her fires.

One or two more shot brought down her flag. For a moment it was uncertain whether it had been hauled down or shot away, but soon a white flag was exposed, and the Kearsarge’s fire ceased.

In a moment more another gun was fired from the Alabama, and this was at once returned. The Kearsarge now steamed ahead, and was laid across the Alabama’s bows, with the intention of sinking her, but as the white flag was still flying, the fire was reserved. Then it was seen that the Alabama’s boats were being lowered, and an officer came alongside, to inform Captain Winslow that the Alabama had surrendered, and was rapidly sinking. Only two boats were in a condition to be sent to the assistance of these people. These were promptly lowered and manned, but before they could reach her they saw the Alabama settle by the stern, raise her bows high in air, shake her mizzen-mast over the side, and plunge down to the bottom of the channel. The crew were left struggling in the water, and the boats of the Kearsarge picked up as many as they could, and hailed the small English yacht steamer, which had come out of Cherbourg in the morning, giving him permission, and requesting him to assist in saving the prisoners. Both parties saved such as they could reach, and when no more were to be seen floating, the Americans, to their surprise, found the yacht making off, instead of delivering the prisoners she had picked up.

Winslow was astonished that such a thing should be done, and, supposing some mistake, and that they were disturbed by the catastrophe which had just occurred, did not fire into them, as he should have done. Among the rest, this Englishman, whose name was Lancaster, had picked up the Captain of the Alabama.

The officer of the Alabama who came to surrender himself and the ship had permission to return, with his boat, to assist in saving life. He went to the English yacht and escaped in her. None of them seemed to feel any disgrace in making off in this way while the Kearsarge was engaged in saving life. The saddest sight of all was, that England was not ashamed of this man Lancaster, and associated him with Semmes, in the banquets and other recognition which the latter received in England.

It was afterwards understood that this Lancaster was a “_nouveau-riche_,” who had a yacht, and who was glad to be seen and identified with any notorious person. Many persons in England shared his feelings, and when the Alabama was sunk, she was much regretted by the rich men of Birmingham and Manchester, as well as by those of the higher nobility, who would not, on any account, speak on equal terms to those with whom they were in complete sympathy in the matter of our war. We must also consider that the man Lancaster had no experience in any kind of warfare, and that he probably knew no better, and even thought he was doing a clever thing.

In his letter acknowledging Captain Winslow’s despatch announcing the result of this action, Mr. Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, says: “The Alabama represented the best maritime effort of the best English workshops. Her battery was composed of the well-tried 32-pounders of fifty-seven hundred weight, of the famous 68-pounder of the British navy, and of the only successful rifled 100-pounder yet produced in England. The crew were generally recruited in Great Britain, and many of them received superior training on board her Majesty’s gunnery-ship, the Excellent. The Kearsarge is one of the first gun-boats built at our navy yards at the commencement of the Rebellion, and lacks the improvements of the vessels now under construction.

* * * “The President has signified his intention to recommend that you receive a vote of thanks, in order that you may be advanced to the grade of Commodore. Lieutenant-Commander James S. Thornton, the executive officer of the Kearsarge, will be recommended to the Senate for advancement ten numbers in his grade.” * *

Thornton was well known in the navy for his firmness, ability and courage.

In regard to the conduct of the English yacht, the Secretary says, “That the wretched commander * * * should have resorted to any dishonorable means to escape after his surrender; that he should have thrown overboard the sword that was no longer his; that before encountering an armed antagonist the mercenary rover should have removed the chronometers and other plunder stolen from peaceful commerce, are not matters of surprise, for each act is characteristic of one who has been false to his country and flag. You could not have expected, however, that gentlemen, or those claiming to be gentlemen, would, on such an occasion, act in bad faith, and that, having been called upon or permitted to assist in rescuing persons and property which had been surrendered to you, they would run away with either.” * * * *

“The Alabama was an English-built vessel, armed and manned by Englishmen; has never had any other than an English register; has never sailed under any recognized national flag since she left the shores of England; has never visited any port of North America; and her career of devastation since she went forth from England is one that does not entitle those of her crew who were captured to be paroled. This Department expressly disavows that act. Extreme caution must be exercised, so that we in no way change the character of this English-built and English-manned, if not English-owned, vessel, or relieve those who may be implicated in sending forth this robber upon the seas from any responsibility to which they may be liable for the outrages she has committed.”