removing thence, in a few years, to Mobile. My intention of retiring from the Federal Navy, and taking service with the South, in the coming struggle, had been made known to the delegation in the Federal Congress from Alabama, early in the session of 1860-1. I did not doubt that Maryland would follow the lead of her more Southern sisters, as the cause of quarrel was common with all the Southern States, but whether she did or not, could make no difference with me now, since my allegiance, and my services had become due to another State.
The month of February, 1861, found me still at the city of Washington. The following extract from a letter written by me to a Southern member of the Federal Congress, temporarily absent from his post, will show the state of mind in which I was looking upon passing events. “I am still at my post at the Light-House Board, performing my routine duties, but listening with an aching ear and beating heart, for the first sounds of the great disruption which is at hand.” On the 14th of that month, whilst sitting quietly with my family, after the labors of the day, a messenger brought me the following telegram:—
Montgomery, Feb. 14, 1861.
Sir:—On behalf of the Committee on Naval Affairs, I beg leave to request that you will repair to this place, at your earliest convenience.
Your obedient servant, C. M. Conrad, Chairman.
Commander Raphael Semmes, Washington, D. C.
Here was the sound for which I had been so anxiously listening. Secession was now indeed a reality, and the time had come for me to arouse myself to action. The telegram threw my small family-circle into great commotion. My wife, with the instincts of a woman, a wife, and a mother, seemed to realize, as by intuition, all the dangers and difficulties that lay before me. She had been hoping without hope, that I would not be subjected to the bitter ordeal, but the die was now cast, and with a few tears, and many prayers she nerved herself for the sacrifices, and trials that she knew were before her. Her children were to be withdrawn from school, her comfortable home broken up, and she was to return, penniless, to her people, to abide with them the fortunes of a bloody, and a doubtful war. The heroism of woman! how infinitely it surpasses that of man. With all her gentleness, and tenderness, and natural timidity, in nine cases in ten, she has more nerve than the other sex, in times of great emergency. With a bleeding and bursting heart, she is capable of putting on the composure, and lovely serenity of an angel, binding up the wounds of a husband or son, and when he is restored to health and vigor, buckling on his sword anew, and returning him to the battle-field. Glorious women of the South! what an ordeal you have passed through, and how heroically you have stood the trying test. You lost the liberty which your husbands, sires, and sons struggled for, but only for a period. The blood which you will have infused into the veins of future generations will yet rise up to vindicate you, and “call you blessed.”
The telegram reached me about four o’clock, P. M., and I responded to it, on the same evening as follows:
Washington, Feb. 14, 1861.
Hon. C. M. Conrad, Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, Congress of the Confederate States:—Despatch received; I will be with you immediately.
Respectfully, &c.,
R. Semmes.
The next morning, I repaired, as usual, to the office of the Light House Board, in the Treasury building, General John A. Dix being then the Secretary of the Treasury, and ex officio President of the Board, and wrote the following resignation of my commission, as a Commander in the United States Navy:
Washington, D. C., Feb. 15, 1861.
Sir:—I respectfully tender through you, to the President of the United States, this, the resignation of the commission which I have the honor to hold as a Commander in the Navy of the United States. In severing my connection with the Government of the United States, and with the Department over which you preside, I pray you to accept my thanks for the kindness which has characterized your official deportment towards me.
I have the honor to be very respectfully your obedient servant,
Raphael Semmes,
Commander U. S. Navy.
Hon. Isaac Toucey, Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D. C.
On the same day, I received the following acceptance of my resignation:—
Navy Department, Feb. 15, 1861.
Sir:—Your resignation as a Commander in the Navy of the United States, tendered in your letter of this date, is hereby accepted.
I am respectfully your obedient servant,
I. Toucey.
Raphael Semmes, Esq., late Commander U. S. Navy, Washington.
A few days previously to my resignation, by the death of a lamented member of the Light-House Board, I had been promoted from the Secretaryship, to a Membership of that Board, and it now became necessary for me to inform the Board officially, of my being no longer a member of it, which I did in the following communication:—
Washington, D. C., Feb. 16, 1861.
Sir:—I have the honor to inform you, that I have resigned my commission, as a Commander in the Navy of the United States, and that, as a consequence, I am no longer a member of the Light-House Board. In severing thus my connection with the Board, at which I have had the honor to hold a seat, since the 17th of November, 1858, I desire to say to the members, individually, and collectively, that I shall carry with me to my home in the South, a grateful recollection of the amenities, and courtesies which have characterized, on their part, our official intercourse.
I am very respectfully your obedient servant,
Raphael Semmes.
Commander T. A. Jenkins, U. S. N., Secretary Light-House Board, Washington.
I left in the Light-House Board, a South Carolinian, and a Virginian, both of whom were too loyal to their places, to follow the lead of their States. The South Carolinian has been rewarded with the commission of a Rear-Admiral, and the Virginian with that of a Commodore. The presence of these gentlemen in the Board may account for the fact, that my letter was not even honored with an acknowledgment of its receipt.
I have said that there was no talk at this time, about traitors, and treason. The reader will observe how openly, and as a matter of course, all these transactions were conducted. The seceded States had been several months in getting their Conventions together, and repealing, with all due form, and ceremony, the ordinances by which the Federal Constitution had been accepted. Senators, and members of the House of Representatives of the Federal Congress had withdrawn from their seats, under circumstances unusually solemn, and impressive, which had attracted the attention of the whole country. Mr. Jefferson Davis, in particular, had taken leave of a full Senate, with crowded galleries, in a speech of great dignity and power, in the course of which he said: “We will invoke the God of our Fathers, who delivered them from the power of the Lion, to protect us from the ravages of the Bear; and thus putting our trust in God, and in our own firm hearts, and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may.”
As the resignation of each officer of the Army, and Navy went in, it was well understood what his object was, and yet we have seen, that up to this period, the Government accepted them all, and permitted the officers to depart to their respective States. It was not known, as yet, to what extent the disintegration
