Memoirs of Service Afloat During the Civil War - Raphael Semmes

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for I could still hold on to my own canvas. I have witnessed many beautiful sights at sea, but the most beautiful of them all was when the Brooklyn let fly all her sheets, and halliards, at once, and clewed up, and furled, in man-of-war style, all her sails, from courses to royals. We now began to gain quite perceptibly on our pursuer, and at half-past three, the chase was abandoned, the baffled Brooklyn retracing her steps to Pass à l’Outre, and the Sumter bounding away on her course seaward.

      We fired no gun of triumph in the face of the enemy—my powder was too precious for that—but I sent the crew aloft, to man the rigging, and three such cheers were given for the Confederate flag, “that little bit of striped bunting,” that had waved from the Sumter’s peak during the exciting chase, as could proceed only from the throats of American seamen, in the act of defying a tyrant—those cheers were but a repetition of many such cheers that had been given, by our ancestors, to that other bit of “striped bunting” which had defied the power of England in that olden war, of which our war was but the logical sequence. The reader must not suppose that our anxiety was wholly allayed, as soon as we saw the Brooklyn turn away from us.

      The Sumter running the blockade of Pass à l’Outre by the enemy’s Ship Brooklyn, on the 30th June, 1861.

      We were, as yet, only a few miles from the land, and our coast was swarming with the enemy’s cruisers. Ship Island was not a great way off, and there was a constant passing to and fro, of ships-of-war between that island and the passes of the Mississippi, and we might stumble upon one of these at any moment. “Sail ho!” was now shouted from the mast-head. “Where away!” cried the officer of the deck. “Right ahead,” said the look-out. A few minutes only elapsed, and a second sail was descried, “broad on the starboard bow.” But nothing came of these spectres; we passed on, seaward, without so much as raising either of them from the deck, and finally, the friendly robes of night enveloped us. When we at length realized that we had gained an offing; when we began to feel the welcome heave of the sea; when we looked upon the changing aspect of its waters, now darkening into the deepest blue, and breathed the pure air, fresh from the Gulf, untainted of malaria, and untouched of mosquito’s wing, we felt like so many prisoners who had been turned loose from a long and painful confinement; and when I reflected upon my mission, to strike for the right! to endeavor to sweep from the seas the commerce of a treacherous friend, who had become a cruel and relentless foe, I felt, in full force, the inspiration of the poet:—

      “Ours the wild life in tumult still to range,

       From toil to rest, and joy in every change.

       Oh, who can tell? Not thou, luxurious slave,

       Whose soul would sicken o’er the heaving wave;

       Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease,

       Whom slumber soothes not—pleasures cannot please;

       Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,

       And danced in triumph o’er the waters wide,

       The exulting sense—the pulse’s maddening play,

       That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?

       * * * * * * * * * Death!

       Come when it will—we snatch the life of life;

       When lost—what recks it—by disease or strife?

       Let him who crawls, enamored of decay,

       Cling to his couch, and sicken years away;

       Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head;

       Ours! the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed;

       While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul,

       Ours, with one pang—one bound—escapes control.

       His corpse may boast its wan and narrow cave,

       And they who loathed his life, may gild his grave:

       Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,

       When ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.”

      CHAPTER XII.

       Table of Contents

      BRIEF SKETCH OF THE OFFICERS OF THE SUMTER—HER FIRST PRIZE, WITH OTHER PRIZES, IN QUICK SUCCESSION—HER FIRST PORT.

      Captain Poor, the commander of the Brooklyn, was greatly censured by his Government, for permitting the escape of the Sumter. It was even hinted that there had been treason, in the engine-room of the Brooklyn, as one or more of the engineers had been heard to express sentiments favorable to the South. There was no truth, of course, in this report. It had its origin in the brain of a people, who, having become traitors, themselves, to their former principles, were ready to suspect, and to impute treason to every one else. The greatest offence which had been committed by Captain Poor was that he had probably permitted his cupidity to draw him away from his station. He had chased a prize, in his eagerness to clutch the prize-money, a little too far—that was all. But in this, he sinned only in common with his countrymen. The thirst of gain, as well as the malignity of hate, seemed, from the very first days of the war, to have seized upon a majority of the Northern people. The Army, and the Navy, professions hitherto held honorable, did not escape the contamination. They were soon found, first plundering, and then maliciously burning private houses. The spectacle of cotton-thieving was more than once presented by the highest dignitaries of the two services—the Admiral quarrelling with the General, as ignoble rogues are wont to quarrel, as to which rightly pertained the booty.

      The evening of the escape of the Sumter was one of those Gulf evenings, which can only be felt, and not described. The wind died gently away, as the sun declined, leaving a calm, and sleeping sea, to reflect a myriad of stars. The sun had gone down behind a screen of purple, and gold, and to add to the beauty of the scene, as night set in, a blazing comet, whose tail spanned nearly a quarter of the heavens, mirrored itself within a hundred feet of our little bark, as she ploughed her noiseless way through the waters. As I leaned on the carriage of a howitzer on the poop of my ship, and cast a glance toward the quarter of the horizon whence the land had disappeared, memory was busy with the events of the last few months. How hurried, and confused they had been! It seemed as though I had dreamed a dream, and found it difficult, upon waking, to unite the discordant parts. A great government had been broken up, family ties had been severed, and war—grim, ghastly war—was arraying a household against itself. A little while back, and I had served under the very flag which I had that day defied. Strange revolution of feeling, how I now hated that flag! It had been to me as a mistress to a lover; I had looked upon it with admiring eyes, had dallied with it in hours of ease, and had had recourse to it, in hours of trouble, and now I found it false! What wonder that I felt a lover’s resentment?

      My first lieutenant now approached me, and touching my elbow, said, “Captain, had we not better throw this howitzer overboard? it can be of no further service to us, and is very much in the way.” My waking dream was dissolved, on the instant, and I returned at once to the duties of the ship. I assented to the lieutenant’s proposition, and in a few minutes more, the poop was cleared of the incumbrance. It was the howitzer—a heavy, awkward, iron field-piece with huge wheels—which we had received on board, when we lay between the forts, as a protection against the enemy’s boats. The rest of the night, to a late hour, was devoted to lashing, and otherwise securing such heavy articles, as were likely to be thrown from their places, by the rolling of the ship; getting the anchors in-board and stowing them, and, generally, in making the ship snug. I turned in after a day of excitement, and slept too soundly to continue the day-dream from which I had been aroused by my first lieutenant.

      The sun rose in an unclouded sky, the next morning, with a gentle breeze from the south-west, or about abeam; our course being about south-east.

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