The men who were holding Taylor dropped him “like a hot potato,” and away they rowed, taking some of the crew as prisoners. The gunpowder existed only in the fancy of the Irishman.
The blockaders opened fire on the Night Hawk, which was blazing merrily, and Colonel Lamb shelled the blockading fleet; then through the boiling surf the rest of the crew rowed safely, wet through and exhausted.
With the rising tide she bumped herself over the sandbank, still burning. They telegraphed to Wilmington for help, and some 300 negroes came down the river to assist in baling and pumping. So they managed to save the Night Hawk and make her fit to undertake other voyages, though to look at she was no beauty, for her sides were all corrugated with the heat, and her stern twisted, and not a bit of woodwork on her was left unconsumed by the fire. Yet she managed to stagger across the Atlantic through some very bad weather.
Such were some of the adventures of the blockade-runners in the Civil War of the United States. To those who bought the ships it was a matter of pecuniary profit merely; to the Southerners in Richmond, Wilmington, and Charleston, and even on the plantations inland, the arrival of these vessels staved off famine and cold and nakedness. To the Northerners they meant a prolongation of the unequal struggle, and it was no wonder that they dealt rather harshly with those whom they caught.
A rich lady of South Carolina wrote during this war: “I have had an excellent pair of shoes given me. For more than a year I have had none but some dreadful things made by our carpenter, and they do hurt my feet so. Uncle William says the men who went into the war to save their negroes are abjectly wretched. Neither side now cares a fig for these beloved negroes, and would send them all to heaven in a hand-basket to win the fight.”
The negroes on the whole were very faithful to their old masters, for many of them had been treated with all justice and kindness. Of course, some of them gave themselves airs on becoming free and independent voters. One old negro said to his master: “When you all had de power you was good to me, and I’ll protect you now, massa. No niggers nor nobody shall tech you. If you want anything, call for Sambo. Ahem! I mean call for Mr. Samuel: dat my name now.”
From “Running the Blockade,” by T. E. Taylor. By kind permission of Mr. John Murray.