Cruise of the Chickamauga.—Mr. Mallory's inefficiency.—Troubles in Bermuda.—The three Weeks.—End of the Cruise.

In the latter part of September, 1864, I was ordered to the command of the "Chickamauga," a double screw steamer converted into a so-called man of war. She was one of those vessels before alluded to in this narrative, as partly owned by the Confederate Government, and was taken possession of by the government authorities with scant regard for the rights of the other owners, who had no alternative but to accept inadequate compensation for their share of the vessel. Her battery consisted of a twelve-pounder rifled gun forward, a sixty-four pounder amidships, and a thirty-two pounder rifle aft, all on pivots. She was more substantially built than most of the blockade-runners, and was very swift, but altogether unfit for a cruiser, as she could only keep the sea while her supply of coal lasted. She was schooner rigged, with very short masts, and her sails were chiefly serviceable to steady her in a sea-way. Under all sail and off the wind, without steam, she could not make more than three knots with a stiff breeze; by the wind under the same circumstances, she had not even steerage way. Captain J. T. Wood, of the Confederate Navy, had just returned from a "raid" along the Northern coast, and the incompetent Secretary of the Navy conceived, no doubt, that he had hit upon a happy idea when it occurred to his muddled brain, to send these vessels out to harass the coasting trade and fisheries of the North.[12] As a mere question of policy, it would have been far better to have kept them employed carrying out cotton and bringing in the supplies of which the army was so sorely in need. The attack upon Fort Fisher was probably precipitated by these expeditions, which could in no wise affect the real issues of the war. But Mr. Mallory was from first to last an incubus upon the country. I do not impugn his patriotism, nor his private character, but his official imbecility, which wrought much damage to the cause, is a legitimate object for censure.

At this period Atlanta had been captured, and a large portion of Georgia was practically severed from the Confederacy. It was becoming more and more difficult to provision the troops. The Subsistence Department of the Confederate Government has been often censured for its alleged mismanagement. I have personal knowledge of an instance where it resented the interference of a subordinate. Major Magruder, General Whiting's chief Commissary, had effected what he believed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement with the farmers of western North Carolina. He was to furnish salt and transportation, (the former a very rare and costly commodity at that time, and the latter difficult to be obtained); and in return, they were to supply his department with the cured bacon. The arrangement, when reported to the Department at Richmond, was cancelled, and the Major, a very zealous and competent officer, was ordered elsewhere. Surely there must have been grave mismanagement somewhere; for, several months after the period of which I now write, and when the army of Northern Virginia was almost reduced to starvation in February, 1865, there were stored "in the principal railroad depots between Charlotte, Danville and Weldon inclusive, rations for 60,000 men for more than four months," and these provisions were for the exclusive use of the army in Virginia. The fact was ascertained by taking account of those stores, which was done by order of General Johnston, "and the very zealous and efficient officer, Major Charles Carrington, who was at the head of the service of collecting provisions in North Carolina for the army, was increasing the quantity rapidly." "The officers of the commissariat in North Carolina, upon whom the army in Virginia depended for subsistence, were instructed by the Commissary General just then, to permit none of the provisions they collected to be used by the troops serving in it."[13]

We sailed in the Chickamauga on the night of October 29th, with a motley crew, and passed through the blockading fleet without receiving any damage from numerous shots. We had a fine view of several of our pursuers for a few moments, as they burned their signal blue light; and had not crossed the bar two hours before the commanding officer of the fleet received information of the fact. Our rockets had diverted the pursuit to the misfortune of the blockade-runner "Lady Stirling," which was captured; and from some of her crew, as we subsequently learned, the fact of our departure was ascertained. If we could have foreseen such an event, we might have tried the range of our after pivot gun with very good effect upon the blockader following in our wake; but although our crew was at quarters, and we were prepared to fight our way to sea, we wished to avoid an encounter by which nothing was to be gained; our chief object being to injure the enemy's commerce. Nearly all of the officers of the Chickamauga had resigned from the United States Navy, and I have no doubt they contrasted (as I could not help doing) next morning, our spar deck encumbered with coal bags, and begrimed with dirt, and the ragged tatterdemalions leaning over the bulwarks, or stretched along the decks in the agonies of sea-sickness, with the cleanliness, order and discipline, to which we had been accustomed under the "Stars and Stripes." The condition below decks was even worse; the crew sleeping upon the coal which was stowed in the hold; and the officers upon the softest plank they could find in the contracted cabin. In addition to a complement of officers for a frigate, the Secretary of the Navy had ordered six pilots to the vessel. As three of them held their "branches" for the approaches to Norfolk, Mr. Mallory must have expected to hear that we had passed under the guns of Fortress Monroe, laid Norfolk under contribution, and captured the Gosport Navy-yard.

The scene upon our decks, when the sun rose the morning after our passage through the fleet, was demoralizing; and I am sure some of us felt as if we were indeed "pirates," although we were bound to deny the "soft impeachment," when brought against us by the Northern press. The exertions of the executive officer, Dozier, seconded by his zealous subordinates, brought some degree of order out of this "chaotic" mass after a while.

Our first prize was the "Mark L. Potter," from Bangor for Key West, with a cargo of lumber. As there was no alternative but to destroy her, the officers and crew were transferred to the Chickamauga, and she was set on fire. This capture was made on Sunday the 30th. The next morning at 7.30 a. m., when about one hundred and fifty miles off the Capes of Delaware, we sighted a square-rigged vessel, which changed her course in the effort to escape, as soon as she discovered that we were steering for her. At 9.30 we overhauled her and brought her to. It proved to be the barque "Emma L. Hall," loaded with a cargo of sugar and molasses. She was set on fire at 11.15 a. m. Hasty work was made of this prize, as a full rigged ship hove in sight while we were transferring the crew, and such stores as we needed, from the Emma L. Hall. The stranger bore north by west when discovered, and was standing almost directly toward us, with studding-sails and royals set to the favorable breeze, a cloud of snowy canvas from her graceful hull to the trucks of her tapering royalmasts. She approached within five or six miles, when her studding-sails were suddenly hauled down, and she was brought close to the wind in an effort to escape from us. We soon overhauled her, and at 1.15 were near enough to throw a shot across her bow, and to show the Confederate flag at our peak. The summons was replied to by their hoisting the Stars and Stripes, and heaving to. Our prize was the clipper ship "Shooting Star," bound from New York to Panama, with a cargo of coal for the U. S. Pacific squadron. While we were making preparations for burning her, another square rigged vessel hove in sight, steering toward us. It proved to be the barque "Albion Lincoln," bound for Havana, partly in ballast; and as her cargo consisted only of a small lot of potatoes and onions, I determined to bond her, and to put the prisoners, now numbering sixty (the wife of the captain of the Shooting Star among them) on board of her. In truth, I was relieved from an awkward dilemma by the opportune capture of the Albion Lincoln; for there was absolutely no place for a female on board the Chickamauga. I do not doubt, however, that the redoubtable Mrs. Drinkwater would have accommodated herself to the circumstances by turning me out of my own cabin. Heavens! what a tongue she wielded! The young officers of the Chickamauga relieved each other in boat duty to and fro; and she routed every one of them ignominiously.

After the Albion Lincoln had been bonded for $18,000, we were kept very busy for several hours paroling prisoners, etc., and in the meanwhile a gale of wind was brewing, and the sea growing very rough. By six o'clock in the afternoon, the Lincoln was under way with the paroled prisoners; her master having been put under oath to shape the vessel's course for Fortress Monroe; and we applied the torch to the "Shooting Star." The burning ship was visible for many miles after we left her; and it was a strange, wild spectacle, that flaming beacon in the rough sea. The master of the "Albion Lincoln" shaped his course straight for New York. I hope his conscience has since reproached him for violating his oath, though given to a "rebel."

The gale increased during the night. Next day our course was shaped for Montauk Point; the scene of the previous day's operations having been in about latitude 40° and longitude 71°, or about fifty miles southeast of Sandy Hook. Montauk Point was sighted from aloft about mid-day, and the engines were slowed down, so as not to approach too near the land before night. We spoke several vessels during the day, all of them under the British flag. Toward night we steamed towards the land, with the expectation of finding smoother water, for the wind continued to blow from the southwest. At 5.45 p. m., we overhauled two schooners close in to the shore; one of them was the "Good-speed," from Boston to Philadelphia, in ballast; and the other, the "Otter Rock," from Bangor for Washington with a load of potatoes. Both were scuttled. Our boats did not get alongside the Chickamauga again till eight o'clock. The wind had been gradually veering round to the northeast, and the night was growing so dark and stormy, that I was reluctantly compelled to abandon the purpose previously entertained of entering Long Island Sound. The crew of the Good-speed profited by the darkness to escape in their boat to the land, a few miles distant.

We made an offing of thirty or forty miles during the night, and next morning captured the bark "Speedwell," in ballast from Boston to Philadelphia. The captain's sister and his child were on board his vessel, and represented to be sick. I could not reconcile it to my sense of humanity to subject the weaker sex to the probable dangers and certain hardships of confinement on board the Chickamauga. The Speedwell was therefore bonded for $18,000, and the captain—a very decent fellow by the way—sent on his voyage rejoicing; but the "recording angels" of the Northern press never placed this act to my credit.

The northeast gale, which had been brewing for some days, commenced in earnest toward the evening. After buffeting against it for two days, the necessity for making a port became apparent, our supply of coal beginning to get low. The course was, therefore, shaped for Bermuda, and we anchored off the bar at St. George's on Monday morning, November 7th.

The Governor of the island gave us a vast deal of trouble and annoyance, from this time until we finally left port. Lending apparently a willing ear to the representation of the American Consul, he would not permit us to enter the harbor until after a correspondence, in which I stated the fact that our engines needed repairs; but we lay outside twenty-four hours before even this permission was granted. He next forbade me to coal the ship. After a protest from me he relented so far, only, as to authorize a supply of coal, sufficient to carry the Chickamauga to the nearest Confederate port, although he had been officially informed that the vessel was regularly commissioned, and was then on a cruise. Although I was never favored with a sight of the correspondence, which must have been carried on between the American Consul and His Excellency on the subject, I am satisfied that the former presented a favorable case; but the Governor had no right to inquire into the antecedents of the Chickamauga, or to question the title by which she was held by the Confederate Government. She was, to all intents and purposes, as "bona fide" a man-of-war as the Florida, which had entered that same port, and been supplied with coal, and other necessaries, without question or molestation. But the fortunes of the Confederacy were now waning; and his Excellency wished perhaps—and may have received instructions—to keep on good terms with the winning side, and in disregard of the obligations of justice to the weaker party.[14] The result of his partial, and unfriendly course, was to bring the cruise of the Chickamauga to a speedy end; for it was impossible for her to keep the sea without a supply of fuel—steam, which is merely an auxiliary in a properly constituted man of war, being the Chickamauga's sole motive power. Many of our crew, too, were enticed to desert; but the efficiency of the vessel was rather increased than diminished by our getting rid of the vagabonds. They were for the most part "waifs and strays," of Wilmington, and "skulkers" from the army, who had been drafted from the Receiving ship. They profited by liberty on shore to secrete themselves, and many of them perished with the yellow fever, then prevailing in Bermuda.

We sailed from St. George's for Wilmington November 15th, showing our colors to several vessels on the way, all of which carried a foreign flag. American colors had for a long time become a rare sight upon the ocean, except when flying from the peak of a man-of-war. All of the vessels captured by the Chickamauga were either coasters, or traders to West India ports, and were scarcely off soundings on the American coast.[15] The Alabama and Florida had demonstrated what a vast amount of injury might be inflicted upon an enemy's commerce by a few swift cruisers; and there is no doubt that this number might have been increased to any reasonable extent, by proper management. No sensible individual, I presume, really attaches any importance to the ravings of a portion of the Northern press, during the war, against the "rebel pirates," and their depredations upon commerce. To destroy merchant vessels was not a pleasure, but it was a duty, and a matter of necessity, seeing that the Confederate ports were so closely blockaded as to render it absolutely impossible to send the prizes in for adjudication, and that all of the foreign powers prohibited the sending of captured vessels into their ports. The officers and crews attached to these "piratical vessels" would very gladly have carried or sent their prizes into a Confederate port; for in that case they would have been equally fortunate with their confreres of the United States Navy, whose pockets were filled to repletion with the proceeds of captured property belonging to Confederates, on land and sea.

We approached the coast in very thick weather on the night of the 18th. We could dimly discern the breakers ahead, and close aboard; but it was impossible to distinguish any landmark in so dense a fog. A boat was lowered therefore, and one of the bar pilots sent to examine nearer, but he returned on board in the course of an hour, with the report that he had pulled close in to the surf, but could recognize no object on the shore, although he had rowed some distance parallel to it, and as closely as he could venture. "Did you see no wrecks on the beach?" I inquired. "Yes, sir," he replied, "I saw three." "And how were they lying?" I asked. He stated that two of them were "broadside on" to the beach, and close together; and the third "bows on" to the beach, about a cable's length to the north of them. I was satisfied about our exact position at once, for while I was on the special service before alluded to, I had made a visit to Masonborough Inlet, on duty connected with the signal stations, and had noticed three wrecks in the positions described. The Chickamauga was put under low steam, with one watch at quarters, and we waited for daylight to cross the bar. As the fog lifted, shortly after sunrise, two of the blockading fleet were discovered on our port quarter, steaming towards us, as we were running down the coast towards Fort Fisher. When within long range they opened fire, which was returned by us. They were soon joined by a third blockader, and as we drew nearer to the bar, Fort Fisher took part in the engagement, and the blockaders hauled off. Shortly afterwards we crossed the bar, and anchored inside of the "Rip."

[12] It is very far from my intention, by these remarks, to condemn the depredations of the Confederate cruisers upon the Federal commerce, or the policy which dictated the fitting of them out. But there appears to me to be a wide difference between the destruction of ships and cargoes belonging to capitalists, who contributed by their means and influence to the support of the Federal Government, and the burning of fishing craft manned by poor men, who relied upon the "catch" of the trip for the means of feeding and clothing their families. But I will not expatiate upon the "sentiment" involved in the subject, for fear of incurring the reproach cast by Sir Peter Teazle upon that very humane and sentimental character, Joseph Surface, whose actions differed so widely from his words.