Republicans, at least blatant War Democrats.
The reader cannot be at a loss to account for this change. It was caused by the purest, and most refined selfishness. Next to the love of wealth, the love of office may be said to be the distinguishing passion of the American people. In the hands of a skilful office-seeker, patriotism is a mere word with which to delude the ignorant masses, and not a sentiment, or a creed, to be really entertained. Our allies in the North were very patriotic, whilst there were still hopes of preserving the Union, and along with it the prospect of office, by the aid of the Southern people, but the moment the Southern States went out, and it became evident that they would be politically dead, unless they recanted their political faith, it was seen that they had no intention of becoming martyrs. Their motto, on the contrary, became sauve qui peut, and the d—l take the hindmost; and the banks of the new political Jordan were at once crowded with a multitude anxious to be dipped in its regenerating waters!
As the tidings of these doings in the North were flashed to us, over the wires, in Montgomery, it became evident to me, that the Light-House Bureau was no longer to be thought of. It had become necessary for every man, who could wield a sword, to draw it in defence of his country, thus threatened by the swarming hordes of the North, and to leave the things of peace to the future.
I had already passed the prime of life, and was going gently down that declivity, at whose base we all arrive, sooner or later, but I thanked God, that I had still a few years before me, and vigor enough of constitution left, to strike in defence of the right. I at once sought an interview with the Secretary of the Navy, and explained to him my desire to go afloat. We had, as yet, nothing that could be called a navy; not a ship indeed, if we except a few river steamers, that had been hastily armed by some of the States, and turned over, by them, to the Navy Department. The naval officers, who had come South, had brought with them nothing but their poverty, and their swords; all of them who had been in command of ships, at the secession of their respective States, having, from a sense of honor, delivered them back to the Federal Government.
If a sense of justice had presided at the separation of the States, a large portion of the ships of the Navy would have been turned over to the South; and this failing to be done, it may be questionable whether the Southern naval officers, in command, would not have been justified in bringing their ships with them, which it would have been easy for them to do. But, on the other hand, they had been personally intrusted with their commands, by the Federal Government, and it would have been treason to a military principle, if not to those great principles which guide revolutions, to deliver those commands to a different government. Perhaps they decided correctly—at all events, a military, or naval man, cannot go very far astray, who abides by the point of honor.
Shortly before the war-cloud had arisen so ominously above the political horizon, I had written a letter to a distinguished member of the Federal Congress from the South, in reply to one from himself, giving him my views as to the naval policy of our section, in case things should come to a crisis. I make no apology to the reader for presenting him with the following extract from that letter, bearing upon the subject, which we have now in hand. “You ask me to explain what I mean, by an irregular naval force. I mean a well-organized system of private armed ships, called privateers. If you are warred upon at all, it will be by a commercial people, whose ability to do you harm will consist chiefly in ships, and shipping. It is at ships and shipping, therefore, that you must strike; and the most effectual way to do this, is, by means of the irregular force of which I speak. Private cupidity will always furnish the means for this description of warfare, and all that will be required of you will be to put it under sufficient legal restraints, to prevent it from degenerating into piracy, and becoming an abuse. Even New England ships, and New England capital would be at your service, in abundance. The system of privateering would be analogous to the militia system on the land. You could have a large irregular sea force, to act in aid of the regular naval force, so long as the war lasted, and which could be disbanded, without further care or expense, at the end of the war.”
Wealth is necessary to the conduct of all modern wars, and I naturally turned my eyes, as indicated in the above letter, to the enemy’s chief source of wealth. The ingenuity, enterprise, and natural adaptation of the Northern people to the sea, and seafaring pursuits, had enabled them, aided by the vast resources, which they had filched, under pretence of legislation, from the South, to build up, in the course of a very few years, a commercial marine that was second only to that of Great Britain, in magnitude and importance.
The first decked vessel that had been built in the United States, was built by one Adrian Block, a Dutch skipper, on the banks of the Hudson, in 1614, and in 1860, or in less than two centuries and a half, the great Republic was competing with England, the history of whose maritime enterprise extended back a thousand years, for the carrying trade of the world! This trade, if permitted to continue, would be a powerful means of sustaining the credit of the enemy, and enabling him to carry on the war. Hence it became an object of the first necessity with the Confederate States, to strike at his commerce. I enlarged upon this necessity, in the interview I was now holding with Mr. Mallory, and I was gratified to find that that able officer agreed with me fully in opinion.
A Board of naval officers was already in session at New Orleans, charged with the duty of procuring, as speedily as possible, some light and fast steamers to be let loose against the enemy’s commercial marine, but their reports up to this time, had been but little satisfactory. They had examined a number of vessels, and found some defects in all of them. The Secretary, speaking of the discouragement presented by these reports, handed me one of them, which he had received that morning, from the Board. I read it, and found that it described a small propeller steamer, of five hundred tons burden, sea-going, with a low-pressure engine, sound, and capable of being so strengthened as to be enabled to carry an ordinary battery of four, or five guns. Her speed was reported to be between nine, and ten knots, but unfortunately, said the Board, she carries but five days’ fuel, and has no accommodations for the crew of a ship of war. She was, accordingly, condemned. When I had finished reading the report, I turned to the Secretary, and said, “Give me that ship; I think I can make her answer the purpose.” My request was at once acceded to, the Secretary telegraphed to the Board, to receive the ship, and the clerks of the Department were set at work, to hunt up the necessary officers, to accompany me, and make out the proper orders. And this is the way in which the Confederate States’ steamer Sumter, which was to have the honor of being the first ship of war to throw the new Confederate flag to the breeze, was commissioned. I had accepted a stone which had been rejected of the builders, and which, though, it did not afterward become the “chief corner-stone of the temple,” I endeavored to work into the building which the Confederates were then rearing, to remind their posterity that they had struggled, as Patrick Henry and his contemporaries had struggled before them, “in defence of their liberties.”
The next day, the chief clerk of the Navy Department handed me the following order:
Confederate States of America,
Navy Department, Montgomery, April 18, 1861.
Sir:—You are hereby detached from duty as Chief of the Light-House Bureau, and will proceed to New Orleans, and take command of the steamer Sumter (named in honor of our recent victory over Fort Sumter). The following officers have been ordered to report to you, for duty: Lieutenants John M. Kell, R. T. Chapman, John M. Stribling, and Wm. E. Evans; Paymaster Henry Myers; Surgeon Francis L. Galt; Midshipmen, Wm. A. Hicks, Richard F. Armstrong, Albert G. Hudgins, John F. Holden, and Jos. D. Wilson. I am respectfully your obedient servant,
S. R. Mallory, Secretary of the Navy.
Commander Raphael Semmes.
The reader will observe that I am addressed as a “commander,” the rank which I held in the old service. The Navy Department, in consultation with the President, had adopted the rule of accepting all the officers who chose to come to us from the old Navy—as
