Thus began that historic siege of Petersburg which was destined to last for many months, and which was marked daily by that heroism of endurance on both sides which is after all, more admirable than the heroism of dash and daring.
The story of that siege will be told in a later chapter. Meanwhile other events had been occurring in other quarters, some account of which must first be given in order that the reader shall fully understand the course and progress of the war during that fighting summer of 1864.
[CHAPTER XLVIII]
The Confederate Cruisers
From the beginning of the war the Federals had enjoyed the very great advantage of having possession of a navy, and of shipyards in which that navy could be increased almost at will, while the Confederates had neither ships nor shipyards. On the Federal side it was easily possible to increase the naval force by drawing into the service available vessels of every kind—steamers, merchantmen, tugs, and even double-ender ferry boats from New York Harbor. The guns with which to arm these vessels were at hand, and they were quickly made ready for service by slight alterations which the shipbuilders of the North were prepared to make at exceedingly short notice. On the Southern side there was next to nothing in this way. For a time the Norfolk navy yard was in the possession of the Confederates, and as we have seen in a former chapter they availed themselves of its working resources so far as to prepare the Merrimac or Virginia, and send her out into Hampton Roads, upon her mission of destruction. But presently a change in the military situation made it necessary for them to blow up that ironclad ship, and they had no means of providing another to take her place. At Charleston two or three ironclad gunboats were constructed, together with several torpedo boats that did more or less execution; but so inadequate were the means of construction on the southern side that these boats accomplished very little. On the Mississippi some rams were created out of old hulks, which did some execution, but which were speedily destroyed.
On the open sea the Confederacy had no ships of its own afloat, except the Sumter, a sailing craft heavily sparred, and commanded by Raphael Semmes, perhaps the most expert sailor and daring fighter among all the men who had resigned from the Federal navy to engage in the Confederate service. That ship, daringly commanded and daringly maneuvered, wrought havoc for a time in the early part of the war, but the days of her usefulness as against steam craft were easily numbered.
Somewhat later a steam vessel, the Alabama, was built at Birkenhead in England for the use of Captain Semmes and his daring crew. She was a little thing, only 220 feet long, and built of wood with no protection whatever against an enemy's fire. But she was fleeter than any ship in the American navy, and it was hoped by the Confederates that she might destroy the commerce of the United States upon the high seas without herself meeting with destruction. In spite of the protests of the American minister in London, this ship, all unarmed, was permitted to escape to sea, and at Fayal in the Azores her cannon and coal were put on board of her.
For nearly two years she made herself a terror to American merchantmen, and was the despair of the American navy, which had no ship capable of steaming one half so fast as she could do. In effect she swept American commerce from the seas, not so much by her captures of American merchantmen as by her perpetual threat of capture which rendered it a bad speculation for any American merchant to send a ship to sea, and thus subject her to the possibility of capture by the Alabama.
In June, 1864, the Alabama put into the harbor of Cherbourg, France. The Kearsarge, a United States war vessel under command of John A. Winslow, lay off the harbor, waiting for the Alabama to come out. The one vessel could not attack the other in a neutral port, or within three miles of the shore. But when the Alabama steamed out to a distance of perhaps eight miles, she was assailed by the Kearsarge, and a fierce battle ensued. The two ships were substantially the same in size, but the Kearsarge was a chain protected vessel, stronger in every way than her Confederate adversary, and on that Sunday morning of June nineteenth, 1864, she made short work of the Confederate cruiser. The Alabama was quickly riddled, and went down stern foremost. Many of her crew went down with her and perished in the sea. The remainder of them were picked up by a British yacht and carried in safety to England.