The Romance of Modern Sieges

CHAPTER XIII

RUNNING THE BLOCKADE (1861)

North v. South – A new President hates slavery – Fort Sumter is bombarded – Ladies on the house-top – Niggers don’t mind shells – A blockade-runner comes to Oxford – The Banshee strips for the race – Wilmington – High pay – Lights out – Cast the lead – A stern chase – The run home – Lying perdu– The Night-hawk saved by Irish humour – Southern need at the end of the war – Negro dignity waxes big.

In November, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States. As the new President was in sympathy with those who wished to abolish slavery, and as the Southern States were mostly inhabited by large landholders possessing thousands of slaves, this election was felt to doom their ascendancy unless they could resist the will of the North. Therefore, on the 17th of December a convention of the State of South Carolina was held at Charleston, which formally repealed their acceptance of the United States Constitution.

Neither side at first foresaw the results of secession. Each thought the other would offer little resistance. The North were totally unprepared for war; the South were weakened by internal dissensions, but they fought as long as they had any soldiers left, and at last “robbed the cradle and the grave.” The South were in the end quite exhausted, while the North seemed to gather new strength every month. As the war went on the soldiers of the South, or Confederates, wore out their clothes, and could not replace them. Things were so scarce and dear that it became a proverb, “In going to market, you take your money in your basket and bring your purchases home in your pocket.” Planters in the South had to borrow money to support their hordes of negroes in idleness while they themselves were away at the front.

On the 4th of March Lincoln formally entered on office. Secession, he said, meant rebellion. The Constitution must be preserved, if necessary, even by force.

Major Anderson, who held a small fort in Charleston Harbour for the North, spiked his guns and moved into Fort Sumter, also in the harbour. This was considered an act of war, and Fort Sumter was bombarded and taken. The little town was full of excited soldiers, singing and shouting. We have a peep of what was going on and what it felt like in Mrs. Chestnut’s diary for the 12th of April:

“I do not pretend to go to sleep. How can I? If Anderson does not accept terms at four the orders are he shall be fired upon. I count four. St. Michael’s bells chime out, and I begin to hope. At half-past four the heavy booming of a cannon! I sprang out of bed, and on my knees prostrate I prayed as I never prayed before. There was a sound of stir all over the house, pattering of feet in the corridors. All seemed hurrying one way. I put on my double gown and went on the house-top. The shells were bursting. The roar of the cannon had begun. The women were wild there on the house-top. Prayers came from the women and imprecations from the men. Then a shell would light up the scene, and we all wondered why Fort Sumter did not reply.”

On the next day Fort Sumter was on fire. The warships of the North were outside the bar, and could not enter for want of depth of water. On the 15th Anderson had to give the fort up to the South.

The slaves were taking it all very quietly, seemed not much moved by the thought of being free – rather preferred to be slaves and be well fed.

A negro was rowing in the bay towards Charleston during the bombardment with some supplies from a plantation. He was met and asked: “Are you not afraid of Colonel Anderson’s cannon?”

“No, sar. Mars Anderson ain’t daresn’t hit me. He knows marster wouldn’t ’low it.”

The next step taken by the President was to declare all the Southern ports in a state of blockade, in order that the seceding States might be starved out. The coast-line was some 3,000 miles in length, and the whole fleet of the United States did not reach 150 ships, of which many were unseaworthy. But the energy of the North increased this fleet to nearly 700 vessels. Thus any attempt to run in through the blockading squadron was very dangerous.

A royal proclamation in England admonished all loyal subjects to respect the Federal blockade; but the high profits to be made tempted many Liverpool firms to adventure their argosies. A ship taken while running the blockade is treated as an enemy, and if she resists she is treated as a pirate.

During the first year of the war many captures were made, and stories came to England of hairbreadth escapes which set many young men longing to join in the exciting game.

I remember a man coming to Oxford when I was an undergraduate with a letter of introduction from a friend. He was running into Charleston, and had brought from that port a store of watches and jewellery, which he persuaded us to take in exchange for a quantity of discarded clothing. The lady’s gold watch which I got is, I hear, still going strong, and belies the suspicion with which I took it. At this time there were no mills, and almost no manufactories in the Southern States, so that they soon began to feel the want of clothes, buttons, boots, socks, medicines, and chemicals. Nassau, a little island in the Bahamas, was the chief base for the steamers that were running the blockade. It is about 560 miles from Charleston and 640 from Wilmington.

The Bahama group afforded neutral water to within fifty miles of the American coast, but it required a very fast vessel to succeed in evading the chain of cruisers which soon patrolled the coast. These fast vessels were being built in England and elsewhere. Let us follow the fortunes of one of them – the Banshee.

She arrived safely across the Atlantic and put into Nassau. There she was stripped for the work that lay before her. Everything aloft was taken down, and nothing was left standing but the two lower masts, with cross-trees for a look-out man. The ship was painted a dull white, and the crew wore a grey uniform. As the success of a blockade-runner depends much on her speed, the qualities of the engineer are important.

The Banshee possessed a model chief engineer in Mr. Erskine, a man cool in danger and full of resource. In her pilot, Tom Burroughs, she had a man who knew the waters thoroughly, and was a genius in smelling out a blockader on the darkest night. A good pilot received about £800 for the trip there and back, for there was some risk in the service, and if they were captured they went to prison. The pay of the seamen was from £50 to £60 for the trip. So the Banshee stole out of Nassau Harbour on a dark night, laden with arms, gunpowder, boots, and clothing, on her way to Wilmington.

Wilmington lies to the north of Charleston, some sixteen miles up the Cape Fear River. Off the mouth of this river lies Smith’s Island, which divides the approach to the port into two widely different channels.

Fort Fisher, placed at the northern point, obliged the blockaders to lie far out, beyond the range of the guns. Further out still was a cordon of cruisers, and outside these were gunboats always on the move; so that it required speed and a good look-out to elude the three lines of blockaders. They crept as noiselessly as possible along the shores of the Bahamas, and ran on safely for the first two days out, though as often as they saw a sail on the horizon they had to turn the Banshee’s stern to it till it vanished. The look-out man had a dollar for every sail he sighted, and was fined five dollars if it were seen first from the deck. On the third day they found they had only just time to run under cover of Fort Fisher before dawn, and they tried to do it.

“Now the real excitement began,” says Mr. Taylor, who was in charge of the cargo, “and nothing I have ever experienced can compare with it. Hunting, pig-sticking, big-game shooting, polo – all have their thrilling moments, but none can approach ‘running a blockade.’ Consider the dangers to be encountered, after three days of constant anxiety and little sleep, in threading our way through a swarm of blockaders, and the accuracy required to hit in the nick of time the mouth of a river only half a mile wide, without lights, and with a coast-line so low that as a rule the first intimation we had of its nearness was the dim white line of the surf.”

They steamed along cautiously until nightfall. Though the night was dark it was dangerously clear. No lights, not even a cigar. The hatchways of the engine-room were covered with tarpaulins, and the poor stokers had to breathe as best they could.

All hands were on deck, crouching down behind the bulwarks. On the bridge were Taylor, the captain, Mr. Steele, and the pilot, all straining their eyes into the “vasty deep.”

Presently the pilot muttered: “Better cast the lead, captain.”

Steele murmured down the tube that led to the engine-room, and the vessel slowed down and then stopped. A weird figure crept into the fore-chains and dropped the leaded line, while the crew listened to see if the engines would seize the opportunity to blow off steam and so advertise their presence for miles around. In two minutes came the seaman, saying: “Sixteen fathoms, sir. Sandy bottom, with black specks.”

“We are not so far in as I thought,” said the pilot. “Port two points and go a little faster.”

He knew by the speckled bottom where they were. They had to be north of that before it was safe to head for the shore.

In an hour or less the pilot asked for another sounding. No more specks this time. “Starboard and go ahead easy” was the order now.

The paddle-floats were flapping the water softly, but to the crew the noise they made was terrifying. They could be heard a long way.

Suddenly the pilot said: “There’s one of them, Mr. Taylor, on the starboard bow.”

Presently straining eyes could see a long, low, black object lying quite still. Would she see the Banshee?

They passed within a hundred yards of her and were not heard.

Soon after Burroughs whispered: “Steamer on the port bow.”

A second cruiser was made out close to them.

“Hard a port,” said the captain, and the steamer swung round, bringing the enemy upon her beam. No sound! The enemy slept! Then suddenly a third cruiser came out of the gloom and steamed slowly across the Banshee’s bows.

“Stop her,” said Captain Steele down the tube, and the blockade-runner gurgled to a standstill, while the cruiser moved across and was lost in the darkness.

Then “Slow ahead” was the order, until the low-lying coast and the grey surf came dim to the eye. But it was getting near dawn, and there was no trace of the river mouth.

They knew not quite where they were, and thoughts of prison and prison fare would come uppermost.

At length the pilot said: “All right, boys. I can see the big hill yonder.”

The only hill on the coast was near Fort Fisher. Now they knew where they were; so did six or seven gunboats, which, in the silver light of early dawn, catching sight of their prey, steamed hard and fast towards the Banshee, with angry shots from the bow gun. The balls were dropping all around and churning up the sea. It was mighty unpleasant to men who knew they had several tons of gunpowder in the hold; and just then they were obliged to steer out to avoid the North Breaker shoal, so that the gunboats crept ever nearer and nearer, barking like disappointed puppies.

The pilot looked at the captain and the captain at the supercargo. Their lips tightened and their breath came faster as they eyed the gunboats askance.

“One good shot into the paddle will end this trip,” thought Mr. Taylor; “and it is my first run in, too!”

Then came a welcome sound overhead. A shell from the fort whirred its way towards the gunboats and warned them off.

With a parting broadside they sheered off out of range, and after half an hour’s run the Banshee was over the bar and in quiet waters. They soon sped up the sixteen miles to Wilmington, and found a large posse of willing slaves ready to discharge their cargo.

The poor folk at Wilmington were then very much pinched for want of good food and drink, and the advent of the Banshee restored smiles all round. Living on corn-bread, bacon, and water grows monotonous, and invitations to lunch on board the Banshee were never declined – in fact, many friends did not even wait for an invitation.

Within a very few days the Banshee was again ready for sea, ballasted with tobacco and laden with cotton – three tiers even on deck! High profit tempted them to pile up their vessels like hay-waggons, and put to sea in a condition quite unfit to meet a boisterous wind.

It was fortunately more easy to run out than to run in, as there was no harbour mouth to find in the dark, and the open sea lay before them. They learnt that the Admiral’s ship remained at anchor during the night, while the other vessels moved slowly to and fro across the mouth of the river; so they formed a bold plan, thinking that security lay in a startling impudence. They hid the Banshee behind Fort Fisher till nightfall, rowing ashore to get the latest news from Colonel Lamb, who commanded the fort.

“Which, sir, is the Admiral’s flag-ship?”

“The Minnesota, a sixty-gun frigate. Don’t go too near her.”

“That is just what we mean to do, Colonel; but first we will take her bearings exactly. We don’t want to bump into her.”

The Colonel was very kind and helpful, and they often enjoyed his society and that of his wife, who lived in a cottage not far off.

As soon as night fell over the sea the Banshee slipped quietly from her secret anchorage, crossed the river bar, and following the observations they had taken, ran close by the flagship, and so out to sea, clear of the first cordon. But in trying to pass the second they ran across a gunboat, which at once opened fire. The men lay down on the deck, and the engines throbbed and thumped. Luckily the gunboat was very slow, and they soon lost one another; but as they could hear her pounding along behind, they attempted a ruse. The helm was put hard over, so that they steamed in a direction at right angles to their former course, and in a few minutes their engines were stopped. The Banshee lay perfectly still. The crew rose on their elbows and peeped over the bulwarks, following the course of the gunboat by the flashes of her guns and by the rockets she was sending up madly to attract or warn her consorts. So they saw her go plunging past them and firing madly into the dark abyss of the night.

After resting five minutes on the heaving wave, the Banshee started again as noiselessly as she could. One danger remained – the third cordon. You may be sure they stared wide-eyed round the horizon as morning broke. With the Banshee so heavily laden it would be fatal to meet a cruiser in the daylight.

No smoke visible – no sail! All that day and for two days more they steamed on with fear beside them. On the evening of the third day they steamed proudly into Nassau, though a heavy list to starboard made them present a rather drunken appearance.

The profits of blockade-running may be estimated by the fact that though the Banshee afterwards became a total loss by capture, she earned enough on her eight successful trips to pay the shareholders 700 per cent. on their investment. The Northerners turned her into a gunboat, but she asserted her sympathies for the South by running foul of the jetty in the naval yard at Washington.

On another run in the Night Hawk, after getting safely through the blockading fleet, they grounded on the bar, and two launches speedily boarded them. The Northerners were very excited, and evidently expected to meet with desperate resistance, for firing of revolvers and wild cutlass blows surprised the crew of the Night Hawk, who stood quietly on the poop waiting to be taken prisoners.

“This roused my wrath,” says Taylor, “and I expostulated with the Lieutenant upon his firing on unarmed men.”

They then cooled down and began a search for portable valuables; but, perhaps because they feared Colonel Lamb might come to the rescue, they made haste about this, and then set fire to the ship fore and aft.

They were quickened in their departure by the humour of an Irish fireman, who sang out lustily:

“Begorra! begorra! but we shall all be in the air in a minute, with this ship full of gunpowder!”

The men who were holding Taylor dropped him “like a hot potato,” and away they rowed, taking some of the crew as prisoners. The gunpowder existed only in the fancy of the Irishman.

The blockaders opened fire on the Night Hawk, which was blazing merrily, and Colonel Lamb shelled the blockading fleet; then through the boiling surf the rest of the crew rowed safely, wet through and exhausted.

With the rising tide she bumped herself over the sandbank, still burning. They telegraphed to Wilmington for help, and some 300 negroes came down the river to assist in baling and pumping. So they managed to save the Night Hawk and make her fit to undertake other voyages, though to look at she was no beauty, for her sides were all corrugated with the heat, and her stern twisted, and not a bit of woodwork on her was left unconsumed by the fire. Yet she managed to stagger across the Atlantic through some very bad weather.

Such were some of the adventures of the blockade-runners in the Civil War of the United States. To those who bought the ships it was a matter of pecuniary profit merely; to the Southerners in Richmond, Wilmington, and Charleston, and even on the plantations inland, the arrival of these vessels staved off famine and cold and nakedness. To the Northerners they meant a prolongation of the unequal struggle, and it was no wonder that they dealt rather harshly with those whom they caught.

A rich lady of South Carolina wrote during this war: “I have had an excellent pair of shoes given me. For more than a year I have had none but some dreadful things made by our carpenter, and they do hurt my feet so. Uncle William says the men who went into the war to save their negroes are abjectly wretched. Neither side now cares a fig for these beloved negroes, and would send them all to heaven in a hand-basket to win the fight.”

The negroes on the whole were very faithful to their old masters, for many of them had been treated with all justice and kindness. Of course, some of them gave themselves airs on becoming free and independent voters. One old negro said to his master: “When you all had de power you was good to me, and I’ll protect you now, massa. No niggers nor nobody shall tech you. If you want anything, call for Sambo. Ahem! I mean call for Mr. Samuel: dat my name now.”

From “Running the Blockade,” by T. E. Taylor. By kind permission of Mr. John Murray.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FIRST IRONCLADS (1862)

Will they sink or swim? – Captain Ericsson, the Swede – The Merrimac raised and armoured – The Monitor built by private venture —Merrimac surprises Fort Monroe – The Cumberland attacked – The silent monster comes on – Her ram makes an impression – Morris refuses to strike his flag – The Cumberland goes down – The Congress is next for attention – On fire and forced to surrender – Blows up at midnight – The Minnesota aground shows she can bite – General panic – Was it Providence? – A light at sea – Only a cheese-box on a raft – Sunday’s fight between two monsters – The Merrimac finds she is deeply hurt, wounded to death – The four long hours – Worden and Buchanan both do their best – Signals for help – The fiery end of the Whitehall gunboat.

The War of Secession between the Federals and Confederate States gave rise to a new kind of warship – the ironclad. The Merrimac was converted into such a vessel by the South, and the Monitor was built by the North, or Federals, in the space of 100 days.

Most people, experts and others, predicted a watery grave for a ship cased in iron. Very few ventured on board at the launching of the Monitor, and even the builders provided a steam-tug to save the passengers in case she went to the bottom. But the Monitor, after the first graceful dip, sat like a wild duck on a mere, being flat-bottomed, having a turret 9 feet high, capable of revolving, with two circular portholes to fire from. Captain Ericsson, a Swede, was her architect.

The South had seized all the forts and dockyards below Chesapeake Bay, and had struck great consternation into the Federal hearts. When the Federals burnt and evacuated the Norfolk Navy Yard they scuttled the steam frigate Merrimac; but the Confederates raised her, plated her with railroad iron, and fitted her with a slanting roof to serve as a shield. The Merrimac, when finished, did not take the water so gracefully as the Monitor, for her weight was so enormous that she nearly broke her back in launching. It was known that both sides were at work upon some monster of the deep, but which would be ready first no one could predict.

However, on the 8th of March the Merrimac left Norfolk, accompanied by two other war vessels – the Jamestown and Yorktown– and followed by a little fleet of armed tugs. She was heading for Newport News, where there was a Federal garrison, guarded by the sailing frigates the Cumberland and the Congress, which rode at anchor within half a mile of the shore battery. Their boats were hanging at the booms, and the week’s washing fluttered in the rigging – as peaceful a scene as could be imagined.

But the look-out on Fortress Monroe caught sight of a monster vessel ploughing the waves, and signalled to the war-ships to get under way. The Minnesota had her steam up and soon went off towards Newport News, where the Cumberland and Congress lay on blockading duty. The crew of the Cumberland, seeing a strange ship come round Craney Island, recognized her as the expected ironclad. All hands were beat to quarters, and the Cumberland swung across the channel in order to bring her broadside to bear. The slanting roof of the Merrimac puzzled them, and the long iron ram churned up the water as she advanced relentlessly and in silence. At the distance of a mile the Cumberland began to use her pivot guns, but the Merrimac made no reply, only steamed majestically on, though broadside after broadside was poured upon her like hail; but the heavy shot glanced off harmlessly, and ever the Merrimac came closer and closer.