Читать книгу A Confederate Biography - Dwight Hughes - Страница 13
Оглавление“Do . . . the Greatest Injury”
Fifteen months before Shenandoah’s commissioning—18 August 1863—a notice appeared in the North British Daily Mail: “Messrs. A. Stephen & Sons launched from their new shipbuilding shed at Kelvinhaugh, another of their wood and iron ships.” The Sea King was described as a fine screw steamship of about 1,200 tons, certified class A1 at Lloyd’s of London. She was the first clipper ship with iron frames and wooden planking (called a composite ship), and also the first steamer specially constructed to compete with “the fastest ships in the trade direct from China to London, in bringing home the first teas of the season.” Confederate commander James Bulloch and Lieutenant Robert Carter had been searching the north bank of the River Clyde for a steamer to purchase when they noticed Sea King in the bustle of fitting out for her first commercial voyage. She appeared to be just what they were looking for, but they got only a quick look. Sea King also caught the attention of retired police detective Matthew Maguire working for the energetic American consul in Liverpool, Thomas H. Dudley. He reported her as a potential rebel raider needing close observation.1
Georgian James Dunwoody Bulloch was forty years old, a former U.S. Navy officer, merchant master, and businessman with extensive experience, formidable organizing talents, and fierce determination. He served as chief purchasing agent in England for the Confederate navy department from his headquarters in the pro-Southern shipping and shipbuilding city of Liverpool, where, a contemporary opined, more Confederate flags flew than in Richmond. Bulloch’s half brother, Irvine Stephens Bulloch, was sailing master on Shenandoah. (The Bullochs’ sister, Martha, married Theodore Roosevelt Sr. and bore the future president.)
Reporting directly to Confederate secretary of the navy Stephen Mallory, James Bulloch accomplished more than any other Confederate on foreign soil. Against persistent Union espionage and intense diplomatic pressure, he launched the most successful raiders—Alabama, Florida, and Shenandoah—along with blockade runners crammed with hundreds of tons of arms and equipment. He contracted the Laird Shipyards to build two iron-hulled steam warships, each with an iron beak—the “Laird rams.” Bulloch had been slated to command Alabama but reluctantly relinquished the position upon request of Mallory, who considered him indispensable in his current position. U.S. minister to Great Britain Charles Francis Adams wrote that Bulloch and associates were more effectively directing hostile operations than if they had been in Richmond. “In other words, so far as the naval branch of warfare is concerned, the real bureau was fixed at Liverpool.” But Mallory, an experienced maritime lawyer from Key West, Florida, played a vital role as arguably the most effective of Jefferson Davis’ cabinet officers. Mallory served before the war as U.S. senator and chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs where he was a vigorous proponent of naval modernization. Davis, whose talents and interests lay almost exclusively in military affairs, left the navy to Mallory.2
Early in 1861 Raphael Semmes had advised a prominent Southerner, “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. . . . Private cupidity will always furnish the means for this description of warfare.” It would be required, maintained Semmes, only to place licensed privateers under sufficient legal constraint to prevent degeneration into abuse and piracy. Even New England ships and New England capital would serve the Confederacy for profit. Privateering would be analogous to the militia system on land.3
The Confederate congress duly authorized privateers, and in response President Lincoln threatened to license his own but did not carry it out. There were virtually no Southern merchant ships on the seas to capture, and Lincoln needed every available vessel to blockade their harbors. A few rebel privateers made it to sea in 1861 with short-lived success. Europeans denied both sides permission to bring captured vessels into neutral ports for adjudication and sale, while the blockade increasingly restricted Southern harbors. For the first time in three hundred years, the business was not profitable.4
Mallory was an innovator, as demonstrated in his adoption of ironclad warships and torpedoes (mines). So, he determined to buy or build vessels configured solely for commerce destruction and fund them from the treasury. Florida and Alabama had been prototypes, built from the keel up and magnificently suited for the purpose. But starting with Raphael Semmes’ little Sumter in 1861, most Confederate raiders had been civilian ships converted, armed, and commissioned as warships—a practice not prevalent since the emergence of the big-gun warship centuries before. Now the advantages of fast sail were merged, in a single vessel of relatively low cost, with steam propulsion and minimum armament against a vast merchant fleet almost exclusively under sail and virtually unarmed—an overwhelming tactical superiority.
On 18 July 1864 Mallory wrote from Richmond to Bulloch: “The loss of Alabama was announced in the Federal papers with all the manifestations of universal joy which usually usher the news of great national victories, showing that the calculating enemy fully understood and appreciated the importance of her destruction. You must supply her place, if possible.” A month earlier, Lieutenant Whittle and Lieutenant Grimball had been in Cherbourg as Alabama prepared for battle. They offered their services but were turned down; it would have been a violation of French neutrality to take on new men. Along with thousands of others, the future Shenandoah officers watched from the bluffs as guns of the USS Kearsarge destroyed and sank Alabama.5
Secretary Mallory desired an iron ship of from 600 to 1,200 tons, with powerful engines and room for one or two guns. It should be fast under steam and sail but “unpretending to man-of-war airs and graces.” It might be built for commercial purposes such as the fruit or opium trade or as a yacht. The vessel must carry supplies—especially ordnance stores—for a global cruise. There would be no access to home ports; the ability to refit, resupply, and recruit in foreign harbors could be restricted by international law and politics. As Bulloch had noted, “[The] flag was tolerated only, not recognized.” Concluded Mallory, “You will regard it but as a suggestion and as evidence of my anxiety to get cruisers to sea, rather than as a direction. Perhaps you can do better. Do not wait for instructions, but do the best you can under the circumstances.”6
For once Bulloch had ample funds after being required by British authorities—motivated by vociferous Union threats of war—to sell the Laird rams to the Royal Navy rather than see them delivered to Confederate service. This was a grievous setback and one of his most severe disappointments; he was determined to put the proceeds to good use but had few options. The British Foreign Enlistment Act, prohibiting belligerents from acquiring war vessels within the realm for a conflict in which Great Britain was neutral, was being evermore strictly enforced. He no longer could have a warship built as he had Florida, Alabama, and the rams; the British would demand proof of ownership by a neutral state. A surreptitious warship purchase would require intermediaries and bribes and probably would deliver a cast-off product. “The necessities of our position greatly narrowed the field for selection, and it was only through a fortunate chance that a suitable vessel was found,” wrote Bulloch.7
Bulloch’s assistant, Lieutenant Robert Carter, was a scion of the Virginia clan from Shirley Plantation on the James River and an occasional courier between Liverpool and Richmond. He departed on a blockade runner, penetrated the Union cordon at Wilmington, and reported to Richmond where he described Sea King to the navy secretary as a potential cruiser. Carter then proposed a mission for her: penetration of the far Pacific where no Confederate had yet sailed and where strategic opportunity awaited. He knew this because he had been there.
The Navy played an expansive role in the nation’s burgeoning overseas commerce during the first half of the century. The U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838–42 to the Pacific and Antarctic had been a phenomenal scientific and surveying success. In 1852 Congress appropriated funds for additional surveying expeditions of the China Seas, North Pacific Ocean, and Bering Strait. The value of the Pacific whale fishery was their primary justification; under pressure from industry leaders, Congress wished to encourage the lucrative trade. Americans dominated the world market and the economic return was immense. Then U.S. Navy Lieutenant Carter served with the expeditions, as did his friend Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke. Beginning shortly after Commodore Perry pried open the reclusive Japanese nation in 1854 to March 1860, they collected a wealth of scientific, commercial, and nautical information, including several dozen charts. Brooke became a Confederate navy commander, scientist, engineer, and adviser to Mallory.8
Lieutenant Carter and Commander Brooke, reunited shipmates from the Pacific, teamed up to convince Mallory of the need for a cruise against the Union whaling fleet—the secretary required little prodding. Just the previous February, Bulloch had written, “there really seems nothing for our ships to do now upon the open sea.” In an Atlantic cruise of several months, the CSS Tuscaloosa encountered one American vessel that carried neutral cargo and was released on bond. Alabama had sighted few enemy ships in the West Indies, heretofore rich in Yankee traffic. A French captain observed no American ships at the Guano Islands off Peru in 1864, whereas in 1863 there had been seventy or eighty standing by for this profitable cargo. The American consul at Hong Kong told his Liverpool counterpart that the brief presence of Alabama in the area had made it virtually impossible for Northern vessels to find freight in Asian ports.9
Only one in a hundred Yankee vessels sailing in foreign trade actually was taken, but the major impact had been psychological—the real damage done by fear of capture. Marine insurance rates soared. Eight Confederate warships destroyed over 100,000 tons of Union shipping worth $17 million, but drove another 800,000 tons into foreign ownership with British and others eagerly buying them. Many that remained were too old or rotting to be of interest. This was called “the flight from the flag.” The war brought maritime New England’s golden age to a close, mostly to the benefit of the British who were delighted at this humbling of their only serious rival in ocean trade. It was a blow from which the U.S. merchant service never fully recovered.10
By March 1864 Bulloch no longer felt justified in commissioning cruisers, but Mallory had other ideas. The Yankee coasting trades, fisheries, and California routes had suffered little. He wanted to place raiders simultaneously on the New England coast and fishing banks, in the South Atlantic, in the East and West Indies, and in the Pacific. This ambitious scheme “would have a decided tendency to turn the trading mind of New England to thoughts of peace. I am exceedingly anxious to do this.” On 10 August, after conferring with Carter and Brooke, Mallory again wrote to Bulloch concerning the enemy’s vulnerability: “His commerce constitutes one of his reliable sources of national wealth no less than one of his best schools for seamen, and we must strike it, if possible. . . . A blow at the whalemen is a blow at New England exclusively, and by keeping in distant seas where steamers rarely go and coal is unattainable they might make a very successful cruise.”11
The North Pacific and Arctic represented the pinnacle of American whaling. From 1835 to 1860 there were seldom fewer than four hundred vessels in the Pacific annually; the number diminished steadily thereafter. Whale oil lost market to new and inexpensive kerosene in the nation’s lamps. Businessmen turned to the burgeoning industries of the Machine Age, while potential sailors turned their backs on the sea and looked westward to the opening frontier. Already feeling the pinch, wealthy New England whaling magnates, like their merchant marine counterparts, would be in no mood to lose more ships and cargo because some damned rebel was loose in the Pacific. Whale oil still was a critical lubricant in the cogs of the Union’s industrial war machine.12
In late summer 1864, Northerners were pessimistic about victory. Union desertions surged and the government was deep in debt. Bloodbaths at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor, and stalemate in the trenches around Petersburg brought a chorus of condemnation down on the president and General Grant. Pressure to negotiate peace was intense. Lincoln despaired of winning reelection in November against the antiwar candidacy of Democrat George McClellan. The previous strategy—cruisers proceeding randomly along regular trading routes and taking any Yankees found there—clearly was no longer productive or practical. The Confederate navy needed a rapid, decisive, and punishing blow against vulnerable but concentrated high-value targets.
As described by Carter, Mallory believed Sea King would make a splendid cruiser. She was an auxiliary steamer, a clipper ship with a steam engine to assist in calms and contrary winds. The engine could drive comfortably at nine knots with an estimated 200 horsepower; to reduce drag under sail the propeller could be disconnected and lifted clear of the water and the telescoping smokestack lowered. These vessels were not commercially successful and only a few were built. Steam still could not compete with fast sail on long ocean voyages carrying high-value cargo. Occasional quicker passages did not compensate for added expense and loss of capacity for engines, coal, and engineering crewmen. For commerce raiding, however, the combination was perfect. Under sail or steam, Sea King could overtake almost any victim and outrun any enemy.13
Mallory enclosed a memorandum in which Brooke laid out a detailed plan based on his Pacific explorations: Passing the Cape of Good Hope by 1 January 1865, a new cruiser would reach Sydney in forty days with twenty days for delays there. Leaving Australia on 1 March, she would proceed through whaling grounds around New Zealand and the Caroline group, touching at Ascension (Pohnpei) Island and, allowing another thirty days for delays, would reach the Ladrones (Mariana) Islands by 1 June. She could visit the Bonin Islands, Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, and North Pacific and be in position about 15 September north of Oahu to intercept the whaling fleet bound there with products of their summer cruise. Ship and mission were coming together. Carter set off for England with Mallory’s instructions.14
Meanwhile, Sea King returned from her maiden voyage. She had stopped at New Zealand under government charter to debark troops for the Maori War. From there she sailed to Sydney, then to Shanghai in twenty-three days, on to Woosang, Hong Kong, and Swatow; and with a full cargo of tea, she made fast passage back to London in seventy-nine days, “beating the clipper ships, as anticipated.” She made 330 miles in one twenty-four-hour period. Bulloch wasted no time, writing to Mallory on 10 September 1864, “I have now the satisfaction to inform you of the purchase of a fine composite ship.”15
Bulloch would have preferred to superintend preparations in person, but ubiquitous Union spies required him to trust intermediaries. A British owner, register, and customhouse clearance were needed as cover, but it was difficult to find a trustworthy citizen willing to front for the ship and prepare her for the voyage while meeting requirements of law. Bulloch convinced an English friend and Southern sympathizer, Richard Wright, to purchase the vessel in his own name at a cost of £35,500, and, without remuneration, to provide power-of-attorney to sell her after leaving London. Wright was a wealthy Liverpool merchant and father-in-law to Charles K. Prioleau, managing partner of Fraser, Trenholm and Co., European financial agents for the Confederacy and primary conduit for Southern funds in Europe. The transaction was executed so skillfully that painstaking review of documents by U.S. agents could find no grounds for complaint. A secret condition of the purchase was that the ship, once commissioned, would not fire a gun before British register documents were returned to England and canceled, insulating Mr. Wright from liability.
Lieutenant Carter returned to Liverpool on 28 September and was delighted to find Sea King already in hand. When informed of the mission, Bulloch consulted Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury, obtaining from him a set of charts containing migration paths of the great whales to augment the Brooke memo.
Maury, world-famous scientist and “Pathfinder of the Sea,” had conducted the first systematic study of the oceans as a U.S. Navy lieutenant and superintendent of the National Observatory in Washington. His most famous work, The Physical Geography of the Sea (1856), compiled study results and charts, generating a revolution in ocean trade. With this information, mariners more effectively plotted courses maximizing good and minimizing poor wind and sea conditions, which contributed significantly to the success of the clippers. Maury charts—created to aid the whaling industry—would now be used to help destroy it.
Bulloch had Sea King moved to London by a roundabout route resembling preparations for a trading venture, ostensibly to Asia. He stowed 800 tons of coal but added nothing of a warlike nature. Any alteration of internal arrangements or addition of equipment not consistent with a mercantile purpose and not required for the voyage would cause inquiry by Yankee agents and British authorities. He engaged the services of Captain Corbett, acquired a crew, and prepared papers for ownership transfer beyond British jurisdiction. He purchased Laurel—a new 269-ton iron screw steamer built for Liverpool-to-Ireland packet service—and advertised through an agent for a voyage to Matamoras via Havana and Nassau.
He appointed Captain Ramsay and loaded Laurel with crated and disguised cannon, munitions, small arms, equipment, and stores for a fifteen-month cruise. False bills of lading included ten tons of “machinery.” He quietly gathered Alabama veterans and other Confederate naval personnel from around the city. Their baggage was crated up and loaded as freight; passenger tickets were issued under assumed names. At about nine o’clock in the evening, a tug came to the wharf and inconspicuously loaded the men for transfer to Laurel at anchor. One was accompanied by his wife, who was to see him off so that onlookers would believe they were on a short excursion.
This strategy worked with Florida and Alabama, but shipyards and docks now were under extremely close surveillance. U.S. consuls had established a secret system of inspecting ships loading for foreign voyages. U.S. minister Adams informed the secretary of state for foreign affairs that British subjects were actively engaged in fitting out a vessel to resume the dirty work of Alabama. Secretary of State William H. Seward warned that the British government would be held accountable for depredations of a new cruiser. If customs officials could be persuaded that the Foreign Enlistment Act was being violated, the ship would be seized. Bulloch noted that Sea King was perhaps the only vessel of her type and class in Great Britain. Her “comely proportions and peculiarities of structure” and fitness for conversion to a cruiser were manifest. “I felt confident that the spies of the United States Consul would soon draw his attention to her, and that she would be keenly and suspiciously watched.”16
Bulloch prepared instructions for Lieutenant Whittle: He was to meet secretly with Richard Wright and Captain Corbett at a London hotel for consultation and would sail in Sea King to Madeira under the name McDonald. Corbett would not exchange signals with passing ships or at least not show official identification, and upon arrival he would hoist the recognition signal for Laurel rather than his own; she would respond with same. It was critical that Sea King’s movements not be reported. Whittle was to acquaint himself with the ship’s sailing qualities, observe the crew, inspect internal arrangements, learn stowage of provisions and stores, pick out positions for magazine and shell rooms, and discuss alterations with Corbett. Corbett remained legal commander, and for reasons of policy as well as courtesy, Whittle was to express all wishes as requests. When they joined Laurel, Whittle would report to Lieutenant Waddell and thereafter act under his instructions. “Relying upon your discretion and judgment, and earnestly wishing you a successful voyage, I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, James D. Bulloch.”17
Commodore Samuel Barron, commander of Confederate naval forces in Europe, appointed Waddell as commanding officer. Bulloch issued him instructions for a cruise “in the far-distant Pacific, into the seas and among the islands frequented by the great American whaling fleet.” In light of vast distances to be covered, difficulties of transforming a merchant vessel to a warship at sea, and isolation from aid and comfort of their countrymen, continued Bulloch, “a letter of specific instructions would be wholly superfluous.” He then proceeded to do just that, expounding “purely advisory” remarks of over 3,500 words concerning the rendezvous, conversion, and coordination with both Captain Corbett and Captain Ramsay. He commented on navigation based on examination of Pacific Ocean charts and advice from Carter and Brooke. Every precaution was to be observed to prevent the direction or intent of the voyage being known in Europe. When Laurel reached Nassau, everything would be exposed, but by then Shenandoah would be beyond interference. “In moments of doubt, when unlooked-for obstacles and apparent troubles are found in your path, that happy inspiration which rarely fails the right-minded officer, who is earnestly intent upon his duty, will come to your aid, and you will thus intuitively perceive the most judicious course of action.”18
Bulloch instructed Waddell to strike southward from Madeira using the northeast trade winds, cross the equator through the Doldrums applying the engine as necessary, and make the southeast trades in a favorable position to weather the Brazil coast. Avoiding the vicinity of Cape Town, Waddell was to continue well south into the steady southwest winds of the higher latitudes and by 1 January pass the Cape of Good Hope at 45° south. There the cruise would properly begin. Due to unknown sources of supply in the Pacific, Waddell should husband coal, acquiring what he could at Sydney or Melbourne and among the islands through which he passed. Brooke’s memo would guide him from there. By the time Waddell reached the position north of Oahu, continued Bulloch, the ship probably would need repairs. If she were still sound, Waddell could proceed to Valparaiso for news. If she were no longer fit for service, he should sell her, preferably in South America or Asia, and release the crew.19
Waddell should avoid returning to Europe, where “[Shenandoah’s] presence might give rise to harassing questions and complications.” He was provided with ample cruising funds but would draw supplies from prizes. He carried £2,000 in gold, £2,000 in marginal credits on the Bank of Liverpool, and a letter of credit from Messrs. Fraser, Trenholm & Co. for £1,000 to use at Sydney or Melbourne. Bulloch would write privately and forward letters via Manila to Waddell at the island of Guam in the Ladrones Islands, but official documents could not be trusted by that route. Waddell should direct progress reports from wherever possible to Fraser, Trenholm & Co. of Liverpool; Bulloch would forward them to the navy department. “I can think of nothing else worthy of special remark. You have a fine-spirited body of young men under your command, and may reasonably expect to perform good and efficient service. I earnestly wish you Godspeed. I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, James D. Bulloch, Commander, C. S. Navy.”20
Commodore Barron added his cautions: Waddell was to remember that many American ships had been sold to the British, were now under protection of a neutral flag, and could not be harmed. He must observe strictest regard for neutral rights, lose no opportunity to cultivate friendly relations with naval and merchant services, and place “the true character of the contest in which we are engaged in its proper light.” Waddell must not hesitate to assume responsibility whenever the interests of his country demanded it. He was above all “to do the enemy’s property the greatest injury in the shortest time.” The maintenance of strict naval discipline would be essential to success; he must enjoin this principle upon the officers and “enforce its rigid observance, always tempering justice with humane and kind treatment.”21
Despite efforts of Union officials, Sea King glided unchallenged down the Thames and slipped into the English Channel on the morning of 8 October 1864. Laurel cleared Liverpool that night. “The entire expedition is far away at sea,” reported Bulloch to Secretary Mallory, beyond interference by any U.S. authority in Europe. Minister Adams had stationed the USS Niagara off the mouth of the Thames and the USS Sacramento in the English Channel, but they had no instructions concerning Sea King if they saw her. On the 12th, Commodore Thomas T. Craven of Niagara received a letter from the Liverpool legation with intelligence that Laurel had sailed, undoubtedly in support of a new rebel pirate. Captain Semmes was said to have sailed in her with eight officers and about one hundred men, forty of whom were formerly of Alabama. The consul recommended that she be taken wherever found. Craven immediately raised anchor and proceeded to the Channel Islands to make a thorough but fruitless search. Similar alerts were forwarded to consuls in Paris, Brussels, and Lisbon, from which word was passed to the Madeira consulate.22
Bulloch again wrote to Mallory six weeks later. He was proud of the accomplishment given the difficulties but did not think it wise to attempt a similar adventure until excitement over this one had “somewhat subsided.” However, if the war continued until the next summer (of 1865), he was convinced that “a formidable naval expedition can be fitted out.” On the same day Bulloch wrote this letter, Mallory penned one to him—not having received reports from Liverpool, the secretary was anxious. Northern newspapers had already headlined the departure of Sea King, speaking of her as a new Confederate raider. Mallory expressed concerns for the safety of men, ship, and mission. “I trust that it has been in your power to carry out what I have long had so much at heart. The success of this measure would be such an effective blow upon a vital interest as would be felt throughout New England.”23
