On the 27th of July no little excitement was caused in Cape Town on the arrival of the coasting schooner Rover from Walwich Bay, with the news that the Confederate steamer Alabama had actually made her appearance about twenty-five miles off Green Point. * * * Nothing further was heard, and it was thought by some that she had proceeded on to the eastward; but on the afternoon of August 4 public excitement was again aroused on the arrival of the schooner Atlas, Capt. Boyce, from Saldanha Bay, with the intelligence that the Alabama was lying snugly at anchor in that bay repairing. * * * Captain Boyce also informed us that he had boarded the steamer and was told by her commander that it was his intention to visit both Table Bay and Simons Bay, and that he would be up almost as soon as the Atlas. This bit of news put every one on the qui vive, and the eagerly looked for arrival was the sole subject of talk. Tuesday passed, but the Alabama had not made her appearance yet.
About noon on the following day (Wednesday) an American bark was signalled as standing into Table Bay from the southwest. Almost immediately after a bark-rigged steamer was made down as standing in from the northeast.
The stoop of the Exchange and the space around the signalman’s office behind the Custom House, and all other places from which the signals could be made out, were soon crowded; and when the name of the steamer was made known, the excitement passed all bounds. The news spread through Cape Town like wild fire:
“The Alabama is outside the bay, in chase of an American bark!”
Trading was forgotten—the busiest rushed out of their offices and shops; every cab on the stand loaded regardless of municipal regulations, and vanished up the Kloof road or down Somerset road. Horsemen galloped about the street, and then spurred their steeds right up the Lion’s rump. Men, women and children were seized as with frenzy, and rushed about here, there and everywhere, asking and telling the most contradictory and unheard of things.
“They were firing at each other!—at close quarters!—the smoke and roar of the battle could be quite distinctly heard from the breakwater!”
And the shore from that point round to Camp’s bay was, in an incredibly short space of time, lined with no inconsiderable portion of the madly excited citizens of Cape Town. * * * The fine bark Sea Bride, having run the gauntlet of the Confederate fleet on the Atlantic, had deemed her voyage to be approaching a happy end, and, with full sail set, a favoring breeze and the star-spangled banner at her peak, she sped onward like a thing of life and beauty, in full view of the port to which she was bound. Dimly in the north she descried a steamer standing likewise for the bay, and congratulated herself on her good luck in arriving just in time to receive the latest American news of Vicksburg or the Rappahanock by the English mail. Fast as the bark went, the steamer sped faster still, and in a very unaccountable manner seemed to be bearing down upon the Yankee. In less than half an hour the suspicious craft had fairly overhauled her, and, with the dreadful Confederate flag run up at the peak, left little doubt that the Sea Bride was to become the prey of the redoubtable cruiser, the Alabama. But still, as it appeared to us who witnessed the whole scene from Green Point shore, the Northerner determined to strain every nerve to escape his foe and reach the neutral waters within the charmed league from shore.
The demand from the steamer to heave to was answered by a defiant pressing on of every stitch of canvas, and a still more jaunty display of the stars and stripes at the mizzen. The chase was then continued for a few seconds longer; but at no time was the issue of it uncertain. The Alabama seemed to cut the waters with prodigious speed, and a blank charge from one of her big guns brought the Sea Bride to a full stop. The Confederate, puffing off her steam in enormous volumes, moved gently round her fated victim, and seemed to gaze upon her with the complacent satisfaction a cat might show after the seizure of a tempting mouse, or a hawk which in swift descent had pounced on its unsuspecting prey. A boat was sent to go on board the bark—a few minutes longer and it was impossible to judge what was happening; until at last the stars and stripes were struck, and the Northern bark Sea Bride was manifestly proclaimed a Confederate prize.
When the Alabama anchored in the bay, she was surrounded by boats, the occupants all eager to view ship, officers and crew; and the Confederates found themselves the heroes of the hour. The history of their captures and the battle with the Hatteras had to be related over and over again, with various grades of embellishment, according to the veracity or imagination of the narrator. The newspaper account continues:
Next day the excitement in town was if possible still greater. The day was to all intents and purposes a general holiday. The weather was favorable, charming; the bay was as smooth and sparkling as a sheet of glass, and every man, woman and child in Cape Town seemed to have made up their minds to get on board the Alabama in some; way or other. * * * The Alabama took in and discharged a living freight at the rate of about sixty in the minute from eight o’clock in the morning till four or five in the afternoon. * * * The boatmen quarreled, roared and swore, as their eager living cargoes tumbled in and out of large boats into little ones, utterly reckless of their lives in their mad haste to get into the ship. The ladies’ crinolines blocked the ladders and gangways. * * * The great center of attraction was Captain Semmes. “Where is he?” “Might we just have a look at him?” “Do let us down,” “Do make a little room,” begged and prayed ladies and gentlemen all day long at the head of the companion ladder leading down to the cabin.