The Alabama was disabled for two or three days, soon after the events recorded in the last chapter, by an accident which occurred to her engine—the giving way of one of the valve castings. I was, in consequence, obliged to withdraw from the tracks of commerce, and lie as perdue as possible, until the damage could be repaired. For this purpose, I ran close in with the land, on the north side of the island of Jamaica, where, with the exception of an occasional fishing-boat, and a passing coasting sloop, nothing was to be seen. Mr. Freeman, my chief engineer, was a capital machinist, and a man of great fertility of resource, and he went to work at once to remedy the mishap. Nothing but the puffing of the bellows, the clinking of the hammer on the anvil, and the rasping of files was heard now for forty-eight hours. At the end of this time, the engine was again in order for service. But we should have no occasion to use it for some days yet.

It was now the 12th of December, and it was time for us to begin to think of running into the Gulf of Mexico, in pursuit of General Banks. Accordingly we put the ship under sail, and ran along down the island of Jamaica to the west end. Hence we stretched over into that other track of the California steamers, returning to the United States by the west end of Cuba; intending to follow this track as far as Cape San Antonio, hoping that we might stumble upon something by the way. The California steamer was not now my principal object, however, but only an incident to my Mexican Gulf scheme. I did not design to waste time upon her. Whilst pursuing our way leisurely along this track, we experienced a most singular series of bad weather. We took an old-fashioned norther, which lasted us three days, and blew us well down into the Gulf of Honduras. Here we became the sport of a variety of currents—setting generally to the westward, but sometimes in a contrary direction. We sighted some of the islands lying parallel with the coast, but being anxious to get forward, did not touch at any of them. As we drew out of the Gulf of Honduras, we again crossed the track of the California steamers, but fortune continued adverse, and none came along. A delay of a week or two here might enable me to pick up one of these treasure steamers, but this would interfere with my designs against Banks, as before remarked, and I forbore.

On the 20th of December we made the Mexican province of Yucatan, and, just before nightfall, got hold of Cape Catoche. My land-fall was a very happy one, though, owing to the bad weather, I had had no “observation” for thirty-six hours. I sounded soon after dark, in twenty-eight fathoms of water, and being quite sure of my position, ran into the Yucatan passage, by the lead, the night being too dark to permit us to discern anything. The coast is clean, and the soundings regular, and I felt my way around the Cape without the least difficulty, finding myself, the next morning, in the Gulf of Mexico, running off to the westward with a free wind. The water was of a chalky whiteness, a little tinged with green, resembling the water on the Bahama Banks, and we ran along in a depth of twenty fathoms, the entire day, scarcely varying a foot. I had accomplished my object, thus far, with perfect success. I had not sighted a sail since leaving the west end of Jamaica, which could report me, and had entered the Gulf of Mexico, by night, unseen of any human eye, on the land or the sea. On the day after entering the Gulf, we did pass a solitary sail—a large steamer—steering in the direction of Havana, but she was hull down, and could make nothing of us. She may have been an enemy, but was probably a French ship of war, or transport, from Vera Cruz; the French expedition that culminated in the death of the unfortunate Maximilian having landed in Mexico about a year before, and there being much passing of steamships between France and Vera Cruz.

On the 22d of December, night overtaking us, within about twenty miles of the Arcas, we anchored in twenty fathoms of water, in the open sea. The Yucatan coast is like that of West Florida, and the Guianas, before described. It is a continuous harbor, a ship being able to hold on to her anchors in the heaviest gale. Getting under way the next morning, we continued on our course, and pretty soon made a bark standing in the same direction with ourselves. It was our old friend, the Agrippina, with her bluff bows, and stump top-gallant masts. She had been all this time making her way hither from Blanquilla—a period of nearly four weeks; the incorrigible old Scotch captain having stopped, on his way, to refresh his crew, and do a little private trading. However, he was in good time, and so, letting him off with a gentle reprimand, we ran in to the Arcas together, and anchored at about five o’clock in the afternoon.

We remained at these little islands a week, coaling ship, and refitting and repainting. We could not have been more thoroughly out of the world if we had been in the midst of the great African desert. A Robinson Crusoe here might have had it all to himself; and to give color to the illusion, we found on one of the islands a deserted hut, built of old boards and pieces of wreck, with an iron pot or two, and some pieces of sail-cloth lying about. An old dug-out, warped and cracked by the sun, lay hauled up near the hut, and a turtle-net, in pretty good repair, was found, stowed away in one corner of Crusoe’s abode. But what had become of the hermit who once inhabited these desolate little coral islands, over which the wild sea-bird now flew, and screamed, in undivided dominion? An humble grave, on the head-board of which had been rudely carved with a knife, a name, and a date, told the brief and mournful story. A companion had probably laid the hermit away and departed. A more fitting burial-place for a sailor could not well be conceived; for here the elements with which he was wont to battle had full sweep, and his requiem was sung, without ceasing, by the booming wave, that shook and rocked him in his winding-sheet of sand, when the storm raged.

The islands are three in number, lying in a triangle. They are surrounded by deep water, and it is probably not a great many years since the little stone-mason of the sea, the coralline insect, first brought them to the surface, for the only vegetation as yet on any of them is a carpet of sea-kale, on the largest of them, and a stunted bush or two. In the basin, in the centre of the triangle, the Alabama is anchored, and so pellucid is the water, that not only her anchor, which lies in seven fathoms, is visible, from stock to fluke, but all the wonders of the coral world, before described, lie open to inspection; with the turtle groping about amid the sea-fern, the little fishes feeding, or sporting, and madrepore and sponges lying about in profusion. Bartelli drew up from this submarine forest, one of the largest of the latter, and having cured it in the sun, and rendered it sweet by frequent ablution, transferred it to my bath-room. The naturalist would have revelled at the Arcas, in viewing the debris of sea-shells, and coral, and the remains of stranded fish, that lay strewn along the beach; and in watching the habits of the gannet, man-of-war bird, and a great variety of the sea-gull, all of which were laying, and incubating. As the keel of one of our boats would grate upon the sand, clouds of these birds would fly up, and circle around our heads, screaming in their various and discordant notes at our intrusion. Beneath our feet, the whole surface of the islands was covered with eggs, or with young birds, in various stages of growth. Here, as at Blanquilla, all our boats were hoisted out, and rigged for sailing; and fishing, and turtling parties were sent out to supply the crew, and in the evening sailing and swimming matches, and target-shooting took place. This was only the by-play, however, whilst the main work of the drama was going forward, viz., the coaling, and preparation of the Alabama for her dash at the enemy.

Our upper deck had again become open, and required recaulking; and some patching and refitting was necessary to be done to the sails. As we wanted our heels to be as clean as possible, we careened the ship, and gave her copper a good scrubbing below the water-line, where it had become a little foul. Having taken all the coal out of the Agrippina, we ballasted her with the coral rock, which we found lying abundantly at our hands, watered her from the Alabama, and gave her her sailing orders for Liverpool. She was to report to Captain Bullock, for another cargo of coal, to be delivered at another rendezvous, of the locality of which the reader will be informed in due time. During the week that we lay at the Arcas, there had evidently been several gales of wind at work around us, though none of them had touched us. On two or three occasions, when the wind was quite light, and the sky clear overhead, a heavy sea was observed to be breaking on the northern shores of the islands. There is no doubt that on these occasions there were “northers” prevailing along the Mexican coast. I was led hence to infer, that these terrible gales do not extend, as a general rule, a great distance seaward from that coast. We were very little more than a hundred miles from Vera Cruz, which is in the track of these terrible storms, and yet we had only felt the pulsations of them, as it were; the huge breakers on the Arcas beating time, in a still atmosphere, to the storm which was raging at Vera Cruz. It was seventeen days from the time we doubled Cape Catoche, until we left the Arcas. During all this time, we were off the coast of Yucatan, the season was near mid-winter, and yet we had not had a norther. Along the Mexican coast from Tampico to Vera Cruz, at this season of the year, the usual interval between these gales, is from three to five days.

As has been mentioned to the reader, the Banks’ expedition was expected to rendezvous at Galveston, on the 10th of January. On the 5th of that month we got under way from the Arcas, giving ourselves five days in which to make the distance, under sail. Our secret was still perfectly safe, as only a single sail had passed us, whilst we lay at anchor, and she at too great a distance to be able to report us. We had an abundant supply of coal on board, the ship was in excellent trim, and as the sailors used to say of her, at this period, could be made to do everything but “talk.” My crew were well drilled, my powder was in good condition, and as to the rest, I trusted to luck, and to the “creek’s not being too high.” The weather continued fine throughout our run, and on the 11th at noon—having been delayed a day by a calm—we observed in latitude 28° 51' 45, and longitude 94° 55', being just thirty miles from Galveston. I now laid my ship’s head for the Galveston light-house, and stood in, intending to get a distant sight of the Banks’ fleet before nightfall, and then haul off, and await the approach of night, before I ran in, and made the assault.

I instructed the man at the mast-head, to keep a very bright look-out, and told him what to look out for, viz., an immense fleet anchored off a light-house. The wind was light, and the afternoon was pretty well spent before there was any sign from the mast-head. The look-out at length cried, “Land ho! sail ho!” in quick succession, and I already began to make sure of my game. But the look-out, upon being questioned, said he did not see any fleet of transports, but only five steamers which looked like ships of war. Here was a damper! What could have become of Banks, and his great expedition, and what was this squadron of steam ships-of-war doing here? Presently a shell, thrown by one of the steamers, was seen to burst over the city. “Ah, ha!” exclaimed I, to the officer of the deck who was standing by me, “there has been a change of programme here. The enemy would not be firing into his own people, and we must have recaptured Galveston, since our last advices.” “So it would seem,” replied the officer. And so it turned out. In the interval between our leaving the West Indies, and arriving off Galveston, this city had been retaken by General Magruder, assisted by a gallant seaman of the merchant service, Captain Leon Smith. Smith, with a couple of small river steamers, protected by cotton bags, and having a number of sharp-shooters on board, assaulted and captured, or drove to sea the enemy’s entire fleet, consisting of several heavily armed steamships.

The recapture of this place from the enemy changed the destination of the Banks’ expedition. It rendezvoused at New Orleans, whence General Banks, afterward, attempted the invasion of Texas by the valley of the Red River. He was here met by General Dick Taylor, who, with a much inferior force, demolished him, giving him such a scare, that it was with difficulty Porter could stop him at Alexandria, to assist him in the defence of his fleet, until he could extricate it from the shallows of the river where it was aground. The hero of Boston Common had not had such a scare since Stonewall Jackson had chased him through Winchester, Virginia.

What was best to be done in this changed condition of affairs? I certainly had not come all the way into the Gulf of Mexico, to fight five ships of war, the least of which was probably my equal. And yet, how could I very well run away, in the face of the promises I had given my crew? for I had told them at the Arcas islands, that they were, if the fates proved propitious, to have some sport off Galveston. Whilst I was pondering the difficulty, the enemy himself, happily, came to my relief; for pretty soon the look-out again called from aloft, and said, “One of the steamers, sir, is coming out in chase of us.” The Alabama had given chase pretty often, but this was the first time she had been chased. It was just the thing I wanted, however, for I at once conceived the design of drawing this single ship of the enemy far enough away from the remainder of her fleet, to enable me to decide a battle with her before her consorts could come to her relief.

The Alabama was still under sail, though, of course, being so near the enemy, the water was warm in her boilers, and in a condition to give us steam in ten minutes. To carry out my design of decoying the enemy, I now wore ship, as though I were fleeing from his pursuit. This, no doubt, encouraged him, though, as it would seem, the captain of the pursuing ship pretty soon began to smell a rat, as the reader will see presently by his report of the engagement. I now lowered my propeller, still holding on to my sails, however, and gave the ship a small head of steam, to prevent the stranger from overhauling me too rapidly. We were still too close to the fleet, to think of engaging him. I thus decoyed him on, little by little, now turning my propeller over slowly, and now stopping it altogether. In the meantime night set in, before we could get a distinct view of our pursuer. She was evidently a large steamer, but we knew from her build and rig, that she belonged neither to the class of old steam frigates, or that of the new sloops, and we were quite willing to try our strength with any of the other classes.At length, when I judged that I had drawn the stranger out about twenty miles from his fleet, I furled my sails, beat to quarters, prepared my ship for action, and wheeled to meet him. The two ships now approached each other, very rapidly. As we came within speaking distance, we simultaneously stopped our engines, the ships being about one hundred yards apart. The enemy was the first to hail. “What ship is that?” cried he. “This is her Britannic Majesty’s steamer Petrel,” we replied. We now hailed in turn, and demanded to know who he was. The reply not coming to us very distinctly, we repeated our question, when we heard the words, “This is the United States ship ——” the name of the ship being lost to us. But we had heard enough. All we wanted to know was, that the stranger was a United States ship, and therefore our enemy. A pause now ensued—a rather awkward pause, as the reader may suppose. Presently, the stranger hailed again, and said, “If you please, I will send a boat on board of you.” His object was, of course, to verify or discredit the answer we had given him, that we were one of her Britannic Majesty’s cruisers. We replied, “Certainly, we shall be happy to receive your boat;” and we heard a boatswain’s mate call away a boat, and could hear the creaking of the tackles, as she was lowered into the water.

Things were now come to a crisis, and it being useless to delay our engagement with the enemy any longer, I turned to my first lieutenant, and said, “I suppose you are all ready for action?” “We are,” he replied; “the men are eager to begin, and are only waiting for the word.” I then said to him, “Tell the enemy who we are, for we must not strike him in disguise, and when you have done so, give him the broadside.” Kell now sang out, in his powerful, clarion voice, through his trumpet, “This is the Confederate States steamer Alabama!” and turning to the crew, who were all standing at their guns—the gunners with their sights on the enemy, and lock-strings in hand—gave the order, fire! Away went the broadside in an instant, our little ship feeling, perceptibly, the recoil of her guns. The night was clear. There was no moon, but sufficient star-light to enable the two ships to see each other quite distinctly, at the distance of half a mile, or more, and a state of the atmosphere highly favorable to the conduct of sound. The wind, besides, was blowing in the direction of the enemy’s fleet. As a matter of course, our guns awakened the echoes of the coast, far and near, announcing very distinctly to the Federal Admiral—Bell, a Southern man, who had gone over to the enemy—that the ship which he had sent out to chase the strange sail, had a fight on her hands. He immediately, as we afterward learned, got under way, with the Brooklyn, his flag-ship, and two others of his steamers, and came out to the rescue.

The Combat between the Alabama and the Hatteras, off Galveston, on the 11^th of January, 1863.

Our broadside was returned instantly; the enemy, like ourselves, having been on his guard, with his men standing at their guns. The two ships, when the action commenced, had swerved in such a way, that they were now heading in the same direction—the Alabama fighting her starboard-broadside, and her antagonist her port-broadside. Each ship, as she delivered her broadside, put herself under steam, and the action became a running fight, in parallel lines, or nearly so, the ships now nearing, and now separating a little from each other. My men handled their pieces with great spirit and commendable coolness, and the action was sharp and exciting while it lasted; which, however, was not very long, for in just thirteen minutes after firing the first gun, the enemy hoisted a light, and fired an off-gun, as a signal that he had been beaten. We at once withheld our fire, and such a cheer went up from the brazen throats of my fellows, as must have astonished even a Texan, if he had heard it. We now steamed up quite close to the beaten steamer, and asked her captain, formally, if he had surrendered. He replied that he had. I then inquired if he was in want of assistance, to which he responded promptly that he was, that his ship was sinking rapidly, and that he needed all our boats. There appeared to be much confusion on board the enemy’s ship; officers and crew seemed to be apprehensive that we would permit them to drown, and several voices cried aloud to us for assistance, at the same time. When the captain of the beaten ship came on board to surrender his sword to me, I learned that I had been engaged with the United States steamer Hatteras, Captain Blake. I will now let Captain Blake tell his own story. The following is his official report to the Secretary of the Federal Navy:—

Setting aside all the discourteous stuff and nonsense about “a rebel steamer,” and a “piratical craft,” of which Captain Blake, who had been bred in the old service, should have been ashamed, especially after enjoying the hospitalities of my cabin for a couple of weeks, the above is a pretty fair report of the engagement. I am a little puzzled, however, by the Captain’s statement, that he could use but four guns on a side. We certainly understood from all the officers and men of the Hatteras, at the time, that she carried eight guns; six in broadside, and two pivots, just like the Alabama,—the only difference between the two ships being, that the Alabama’s pivot guns were the heaviest.

There is another remark in the report that is quite new to me. I am informed, for the first time, that Captain Blake desired to board me. I cannot, of course, know what his intentions were, but I saw no evidence of such an intention, in the handling of his ship; and Captain Blake must himself have known that, in the terribly demoralized condition of his crew, when they found that they had really fallen in with the Alabama, he could not have depended upon a single boarder. What Captain Blake means by saying that his ship went down, with her pennant flying, I am at a loss, as every seaman must be, to understand. Did he not surrender his ship to me? And if so, what business had his pennant, any more than his ensign, to be flying? But this, I suppose, was a little clap-trap, like his expressions, “rebel,” and “pirate,” thrown in to suit the Yankee taste of the day. Indeed, nothing was more lamentable to me, during the whole war, than to observe how readily the officers of the old Navy, many of whom belonged to the gentle families of the land, and all of whom had been bred in a school of honor, took to the slang expressions of the day, and fell, pell-mell, into the ranks of the vulgar and fanatical rabble that was hounding on the war.

The officers of the Confederate States Navy, to say the least, were as much entitled to be regarded as fighting for a principle as themselves, and one would have thought that there would have been a chivalrous rivalry between the two services, as to which should show the other the most courtesy. This was the case, a thousand years ago, between the Christian and the Saracen. Did it result from their forms of government, and must democrats necessarily be vulgarians? Must the howling Demos devour everything gentle in the land, and reduce us all to the common level of the pot-house politician, and compel us to use his slang? Radicalism seemed to be now, just what it had been in the great French Revolution, a sort of mad-dog virus; every one who was inoculated with it, becoming rabid. The bitten dog howled incessantly with rage, and underwent a total transformation of nature. But our figure does not fit the case exactly. There was more method in this madness, than in that of the canine animal, for the human dog howled as much to please his master, as from rage. The size of the sop which he was to receive depended, in a great measure, upon the vigor of his howling.

But to return to the Alabama and the Hatteras. As soon as the action was over, and I had seen the latter sink, I caused all lights to be extinguished on board my ship, and shaped my course again for the passage of Yucatan. In the meantime, the enemy’s boat, which had been lowered for the purpose of boarding me, pulled in vigorously for the shore, as soon as it saw the action commence, and landed safely; and Admiral Bell, with his three steamers, passed on either side of the scene of action—the steamers having been scattered in the pursuit, to cover as much space as possible, and thus increase their chances of falling in with me. They did not find the Alabama, or indeed anything else during the night, but as one of the steamers was returning to her anchorage off Galveston, the next morning, in the dejected mood of a baffled scout, she fell in with the sunken Hatteras, the tops of whose royal masts were just above water, and from the main of which, the pennant—the night pennant, for the action was fought at night—spoken of by Captain Blake, was observed to be flying. It told the only tale of the sunken ship which her consort had to take back to the Admiral. The missing boat turned up soon afterward, however, and the mystery was then solved. There was now as hurried a saddling of steeds for the pursuit as there had been in the chase of the young Lochinvar, and with as little effect, for by the time the steeds were given the spur, the Alabama was distant a hundred miles or more.

There was very little said by the enemy, about this engagement, between the Alabama and the Hatteras, as was usual with him when he met with a disaster; and what was said was all false. My own ship was represented to be a monster of speed and strength, and the Hatteras, on the other hand, to be a tug, or river steamer, or some such craft, with two or three small guns at the most. The facts are as follows: The Hatteras was a larger ship than the Alabama, by one hundred tons. Her armament, as reported to us by her own people, was as follows: Four 32-pounders; two Parrot 30-pounder rifles; one 20-pounder rifle; and one 12-pounder howitzer—making a total of eight guns. The armament of the Alabama was as follows: Six 32-pounders; one 8-inch shell gun; one Blakeley rifle of 100 pounds—total, eight guns. There was, besides, a little toy-rifle—a 9-pounder—on the quarter-deck of the Alabama, which had been captured from a merchant-ship, and which, I believe, was fired once during the action. The crew of the Hatteras was 108 strong; that of the Alabama 110. There was thus, as the reader sees, a considerable disparity between the two ships, in the weight of their pivot-guns, and the Alabama ought to have won the fight; and she did win it, in thirteen minutes—taking care, too, though she sank her enemy at night, to see that none of his men were drowned—a fact which I shall have occasion to contrast, by-and-by, with another sinking. The only casualty we had on board the Alabama was one man wounded. The damages to our hull were so slight, that there was not a shot-hole which it was necessary to plug, to enable us to continue our cruise; nor was there a rope to be spliced. Blake behaved like a man of courage, and made the best fight he could, ill supported as he was by the “volunteer” officers by whom he was surrounded, but he fell into disgrace with the Demos, and had but little opportunity shown him during the remainder of the war, to retrieve his disaster.