Memoirs of Service Afloat During the Civil War - Raphael Semmes

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this time, several of the Gulf States had seceded—called a Convention in the city of Washington, to endeavor to allay the storm. A full representation attended, composed of men, venerable for their years, and renowned for their patriotic services, but their labors ended also in failure; Congress scarcely deigned to notice them. In both houses of Congress the Northern faction, which had so recently triumphed in the election of their President, was arrayed in a solid phalanx of hostility to the South, and could not be moved an inch. The Puritan leaven had at last “leavened the whole loaf,” and the descendants of those immigrants who had come over to America, in the May Flower, feeling that they had the power to crush a race of men, who had dared to differ with them in opinion, and to have interests separate and apart from them, were resolved to use that power in a way to do no discredit to their ancestry. Rebels, when in a minority, they had become tyrants, now that they were in a majority.

      Nothing remained to the South, but to raise the gantlet which had been thrown at her feet. The Federal Government which had been established by our ancestors had failed of its object. Instead of binding the States together, in peace, and amity, it had, in the hands of one portion of the States, become an engine of oppression of the other portion. It so happened, that the slavery question was the issue which finally tore them asunder, but, as the reader has seen, this question was a mere means, to an end. The end was empire, and we were about to repeat, in this hemisphere, the drama which had so often been enacted in the other, of a more powerful nation crushing out a weaker.

      The war of the American sections was but the prototype of many other wars, which had occurred among the human race. It had its origin in the unregenerated nature of man, who is only an intellectual wild beast, whose rapacity has never yet been restrained, by a sense of justice. The American people thought, when they framed the Constitution, that they were to be an exception to mankind, in general. History had instructed them that all other peoples, who had gone before them, had torn up paper governments, when paper was the only bulwark that protected such governments, but then they were the American people, and no such fate could await them. The events which I have recorded, and am about to record, have taught them, that they are no better—and perhaps they are no worse—than other people. It is to be hoped that they will profit by their dear-bought experience, and that when they shall have come to their senses, and undertake to lay the foundation of a new government, they will, if they design to essay another republic, eliminate all discordant materials. The experiment of trusting to human honesty having failed, they must next trust to human interests—the great regulator, as all philosophy teaches, of human nature. They must listen rather to the philosophy of Patrick Henry, than to that of James Madison, and never attempt again to bind up in one sheaf, with a withe of straw, materials so discordant as were the people of the North, and the people of the South.

      CHAPTER VII.

       Table of Contents

      THE FORMATION OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT, AND THE RESIGNATION OF OFFICERS OF THE FEDERAL ARMY AND NAVY.

      As I am not writing a history of the war, but only of a very small portion of the war, it cannot be expected that I will follow events in a connected train. I have detained the reader, so far, as to give him a continuous, though hasty glance, of the causes of the war, but having brought him down to the final rupture of the sections, I must leave him to supply for himself many a link, here and there, in the broken chain, as we proceed. Let him imagine then that the Southern States have seceded—the gallant little State of South Carolina setting her larger, and more powerful sisters, the example, on the 20th December, 1860—and that they have met at Montgomery, in Alabama, by their delegates in Congress, to form a new Confederacy; that a Provisional Government has been formed and that Mr. Jefferson Davis has been elected President, and Mr. Alexander H. Stephens Vice-President.

      The time had now come for the officers of the old Army, and Navy to make their election, as to which of the two Governments they would give their adhesion. There were no such questions then, as rebellion, and treason in the public mind. This was a Federal after-thought, when that Government began to get the better of us in the war. The Puritan, if he had been whipped, would have been a capital secessionist, and as meek, and humble as we could have desired. He would have been the first to make a “perpetual” alliance with us, and to offer us inducements to give him the benefits of our trade. After the first drubbing we gave him, at Manassas, he was disposed to be quite reasonable, and the Federal Congress passed the conciliatory resolution I have quoted in a previous chapter, intimating to us, that if we would come back, slavery should be secure in the States, and our “rights and dignity” remain unimpaired. But as he gained strength, he gained courage, and as the war progressed, and it became evident that we should be beaten, he began to talk of traitors, and treason.

      As a general rule, the officers both of the Army, and the Navy sided with their respective States; especially those of them who were cultivated, and knew something of the form of government, under which they had been living. But even the profession of arms is not free from sordid natures, and many of these had found their way into both branches of the public service. Men were found capable of drawing their swords against their own firesides, as it were, and surrendering their neighbors, and friends to the vengeance of a government, which paid them for their fealty. Some, with cunning duplicity, even encouraged their former messmates, and companions who occupied places above them, to resign, and afterward held back themselves. Some were mere soldiers, and sailors of fortune, and seemed devoid of all sensibility on the subject, looking only to rank and pay. They were open to the highest bidder, and the Federal Government was in a condition to make the highest bids. Some of the Southern men of this latter class remained with the North, because they could not obtain the positions they desired in the South; and afterward, as is the fashion with renegades, became more bitter against their own people than even the Northern men.

      Civil war is a terrible crucible through which to pass character; the dross drops away from the pure metal at the first touch of the fire. It must be admitted, indeed, that there was some little nerve required, on the part of an officer of the regular Army, or Navy, to elect to go with his State. His profession was his only fortune; he depended upon it, for the means of subsisting himself and family. If he remained where he was, a competency for life, and promotion, and honors probably awaited him; if he went with the South, a dark, and uncertain future was before him; he could not possibly better his condition, and if the South failed, he would have thrown away the labor of a life-time. The struggle was hard in other respects. All professions are clannish. Men naturally cling together, who have been bred to a common pursuit; and this remark is particularly applicable to the Army, and the Navy. West Point, and Annapolis were powerful bonds to knit together the hearts of young men. Friendships were there formed, which it was difficult to sever, especially when strengthened by years of after-association, in common toils, common pleasures, and common dangers. Naval officers, in particular, who had been rocked together in the same storm, and had escaped perhaps from the same shipwreck, found it very difficult to draw their swords against each other. The flag, too, had a charm which it was difficult to resist. It had long been the emblem of the principle that all just governments are founded on the consent of the governed, vindicated against our British ancestors, in the War of the Revolution, and it was difficult to realize the fact that it no longer represented this principle, but had become the emblem of its opposite; that of coercing unwilling States, to remain under a Government, which they deemed unjust and oppressive.

      Sentiment had almost as much to do with the matter, as principle, for there clustered around the “old flag,” a great many hallowed memories, of sacrifices made, and victories won.

      The cadet at West Point had marched and countermarched under its folds, dreaming of future battle-fields, and future honors to be gained in upholding and defending it; and the midshipman, as he gazed upon it, in some foreign port, flying proudly from the gaff-end of his ship, had drunk in new inspiration to do and to dare, for his country. Many bearded men were affected almost to tears, as they saw this once hallowed emblem hauled down from the flag-staves, of Southern forts, and arsenals. They were in the condition of one who had been forced, in spite of himself, to realize

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