Sketches From My Life / By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha

by Augustus Charles Hobart-Hampden

CHAPTER XVI.

THE LAND BLOCKADE.

I have now come to the end of my blockade-running yarns. I have endeavoured to avoid giving offence to anyone: to the American officers and men who manned the cruisers I can, as a nautical man, truly and honestly give the credit of having most zealously performed their hard and wearisome duty. It was not their fault that I did not visit New York at the Government's expense; but the old story that 'blockades, to be legal, must be efficient,' is a tale for bygone days. So long as batteries at the entrance of the port blockaded keep ships at a respectable distance, the blockade will be broken.

A practical suggestion that my experience during the time I was a witness of the war in America would lead me to make is, that, both for the purposes of war and of blockade, speed is the most important object to attain. Towards the end of that contest, blockade-running became much more difficult, in fact, was very nearly put a stop to, not by the ports becoming more effectually closed to traffic, but by the sea being literally covered with very fast vessels, who picked up many blockade-runners at sea during the daytime, especially when they had their heavy cargoes of cotton on board. The Americans are also perfectly alive to the fact that, for purposes of war, speed is all important. An American officer of rank once remarked to me: 'Give me a fifteen-knot wooden vessel armed with four heavy guns of long range, and I'll laugh at your lumbering iron-clads.' Perhaps he had prize-money in view when he said so; or, what is still more important, he may have felt how easily such vessels as those he proposed would sweep the seas of foreign privateers. In these views I can but think he was right and far-seeing. Time will show.

It may have struck my readers as strange that, in a country with so large an inland boundary, the necessaries of life and munitions of war could not have been introduced into the Southern States by their extensive frontiers: but it is only a just tribute to the wonderful energy shown by the Northern Americans during the civil war, to state that the blockade by land was as rigid as that enforced by their fleets; and almost as much risk was run by persons who broke the land blockade as by those who evaded the vigilance of the cruisers at sea. The courses of the large inland rivers were protected by gun-boats, and on account of the rapids and other impediments, such as snags, with which they were filled, the fords or passes for boats were few and far between, and thus easily guarded; besides which, it was always a difficult matter to avoid the pickets belonging to either party, who were very apt to suspect a man they found creeping about without any ostensible object, and anyone suspected of being a spy in those days had a short shrift and a long rope applied before he knew where he was. More from a spirit of enterprise than from any other reason, I determined to see what the land blockade was like, and while at Richmond, happening to meet another adventurous individual also so inclined, we commenced our plan of campaign.

First of all (by the way, I ought to mention that we were both nautical parties) we engaged a pilot, thereby meaning a man who had a canoe or two stowed away in different parts of the woods, and who was well acquainted with the passes on the river. Our amiable friend, the correspondent of the 'Times.' showed so much confidence in our success that he entrusted to our care a packet of despatches, which were intended, if we got through successfully, to delight the eyes of the readers of the 'Thunderer' some weeks afterwards.

We had to buy a horse and buggy, as naturally enough no one would let them out on hire for such an enterprise; besides, those were not days when men let out anything on hire that they could not keep in sight. However, we sent a man on before us, in company with the pilot, to a station some miles from the frontier, whose business it was to bring the trap back when we had done with it. We stowed in our haversacks a pair of dry stockings, a good stock of tobacco, and a couple of bottles of brandy, against the road; we also had passes to produce in the event of questions being asked by the patrols on the Southern side of the frontier.

All being ready, we started, leaving Richmond at four o'clock in the morning. We travelled on a long, dreary, dusty road all day, stopping about noon for two hours at a free nigger's hut, where we got some yams and milk, and about sunset arrived at the station above mentioned, at which we were to dismiss our conveyance; and right glad we were to get rid of it, for we were bumped to death by its dreadful oscillations.

At this station our pilot was waiting for us. There were also bivouacking here a picket of cavalry, who told us they had seen some of the enemy's patrols that morning, scouring about on the opposite bank of the river just where we proposed to land. Somehow or other, people always seem to take a pleasure in telling you disagreeable things at a time when you rather want encouragement than fear instilled into you. We had some supper, consisting of eggs and bacon; and at nine o'clock, it being then pitch dark, the pilot informed us it was time to start. I must say I should have been more comfortable if I had been on the bridge of my little craft, just starting over the bar at Wilmington, with the probability of a broadside from a gun-boat saluting us in a very short time, than where I was. But it would never do to think of going back, so we crawled into the wood.