The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner

by J. Wilkinson

CHAPTER XI.

The Lee Captured at Last.—Sandy Keith alias Thomassen. Recruiting in the British Provinces for the United States Army.—Failure of the Expedition.—Return to Bermuda.

On our voyage to Halifax, we passed many vessels, and exciting no suspicion, for at that period many of the captured blockade-runners were afloat in the United States service. We showed American colors to those which passed near us and once, in thick weather off New York, we passed within hailing distance of a man of war bound South. We arrived at Halifax the 16th of October. The cargo of cotton was consigned to the firm of B. Wier & Co. with instructions to purchase shoes, etc., with a part of the proceeds, and to hold the balance to my credit. There was then no agent of the Confederate Government in Halifax, but I had taken letters of introduction from a mercantile house in London to this firm to be used in case of touching there on the way back from Glasgow the year before. When I received my instructions from the Secretary of the Navy before leaving Richmond, I wished to ascertain to whom the cargo was to be consigned on our arrival at Halifax; and then learned from the Secretary of State, to whom I was referred, that there was no accredited agent of the government there. In this dilemma I sought counsel of my good friend Mr. Seddon, Secretary of War, who advised me to act according to my own judgment. I therefore directed the bills of lading, invoices, etc., to be made out with B. Wier & Co. as consignees. In no case, I believe, did the Confederate Government appear as the shipper or consignor. Every cargo was supposed to be owned by private individuals; and the blockade-runners were regularly entered and cleared at the Confederate Custom House. Upon this occasion the Lee's papers were closely scrutinized by the collector of the customs at Halifax, who did me the honor of personal attention; but he could find no flaw in them, and the vessel was regularly entered, with little more than the customary delay.

The Lee had made her last voyage under the Confederate flag. Sailing for Wilmington with a full cargo, she was captured off the coast of North Carolina. The land had been made the night before under quite favorable circumstances, but neither the captain, nor the pilot, being willing to assume the responsibility of taking charge of the vessel, the Lee was put to sea again, and by further culpable mismanagement, she fell an easy prey next morning to one of the United States cruisers. She had run the blockade twenty-one times while under my command, and had carried abroad between six thousand and seven thousand bales of cotton, worth at that time about two millions of dollars in gold, and had carried into the Confederacy equally valuable cargoes. My staunch old helmsman, who had been released in New York by claiming British protection, and who started at once in search of me, met me in Halifax on our return from the Johnson's Island expedition. He actually shed tears as he narrated the train of circumstances which led to the capture. "She would have gone in by herself," he said, "if they had only let her alone;" for indeed it was evident to all on board the morning of her capture, that she had been close in to the shore within a few miles of the New Inlet Bar. She had not reached the bar, however, so that the pilot's course in refusing to take charge was justifiable; but the fatal error was committed by not making a good offing before daylight. At the time of her capture, she was not more than twenty miles from the land, and in the deep bay formed by the coast between Masonborough Inlet and the Cape Lookout Shoals.

The arrival of so large a party of Confederates in Halifax attracted attention, and it was essential to the successful execution of the project, that all suspicion should be allayed. The party, therefore, was divided into groups of three or four individuals, who were directed to report, in person, at Montreal, each one being strictly enjoined to secrecy and discretion; for although the precise object of the expedition was only known to three of its members, Lieutenants R. Minor, Ben. Loyall and myself, every one belonging to it was quite well aware that it was hostile to the United States Government. They were a set of gallant young fellows, with a single exception. Who he was and where he came from, none of us knew; but he had been ordered by the Secretary of the Navy to report to me for duty. We believed him to be a traitor and a spy; and succeeded in ridding ourselves of him the day after our arrival at Halifax, by advancing him a month's wages. No member of the expedition ever saw him again.

The most officiously zealous friend and partisan whom we all encountered in Halifax was Mr. "Sandy" Keith, who was facetiously called the Confederate Consul. By dint of a brazen assurance, a most obliging manner, and the lavish expenditure of money, "profusus sui alieni appetens"—he ingratiated himself with nearly every southerner who visited Halifax although he was a coarse, ill-bred vulgarian, of no social standing in the community. It is true that a worthy member of the same family had risen from obscurity to high honors, but Sandy was a black sheep of the flock. He was employed at first by many of our people to purchase for them on commission, and afterwards by the Confederate Government. He profited by so good an opportunity for swindling, eventually forging invoices of articles, and drawing bills of exchange upon the Confederate Government, which were duly honored. This villainy was perpetrated towards the end of the war, and at its close, Sandy Keith absconded with his ill-gotten gains, a considerable proportion consisting of money in his hands, belonging to private individuals. Among his victims was Colonel S. of Baltimore, who determined to make an effort to recover his money. His first step was a visit to Halifax. His endeavors there to find Keith's whereabouts were for some time fruitless. But at last a clue was found. A girl, who had accompanied Keith in his flight, had written a letter to a relative in Halifax, and Colonel S. by some means obtained a sight of the envelope. The post-mark, plainly legible, indicated that the letter had been written at an obscure little village in Missouri. S. hastened back to Baltimore, and secured the coöperation of a detective, not for the purpose of arresting Keith, because he doubted whether he could recover possession of his property by the slippery and uncertain process of law, but for the sake of the detective's strong arm and presence of mind in the event of resistance. The reward to the detective being made contingent upon the recovery of the money, the pair left Baltimore, and in due time reached the village in the backwoods, where they learned that two persons, as man and wife, were boarding at the house of a widow, a mile or two distant. They waited until night, and then, arming themselves with revolvers, started for the house of the widow. Knocking at the door, it was opened to them, and as they passed in, Keith's voice was heard, inquiring who had entered. Guided by the sound, they rushed to the room occupied by him. He had retired for the night. His loaded pistol was lying on a table near his bedside; but he had neglected to lock the door of his chamber, and S. and the detective had secured his arms and held him a prisoner before he was fairly awake. There was little parleying between them, the detective merely assuring him that if he did not come to terms speedily, his trunk would be broken open and all of its contents seized. The whole affair was amicably settled in ten minutes, by a check upon the bank in which Keith had deposited some of his money, for the amount due to S., and the detective's reward. Keith demurred a little to the latter demand, but finally yielded to moral suasion; and next day S. presented the check, which was paid. Sandy Keith was supposed by those who had known him, to have been lost among the common herd of low swindlers and rogues, for none of them would have given him credit for enterprise or sagacity. He emerged, however, from obscurity, to perpetrate the most horrible and devilishly ingenious crime of the century; for it was he who under the name of Thomassen blew up the "City of Bremen" with his infernal machine. Those who have read the account of that dreadful tragedy will remember that the explosion was precipitated by the fall of the box containing dynamite from a cart, or wheelbarrow, conveying it to the steamer. The hammer was set, by clockwork apparatus, to explode the dynamite after the departure of the steamer from England and when near mid-ocean, and Keith, confiding in the efficacy of the arrangement, was actually about to take passage in the steamer from Bremerhaven as far as England. Many persons believe that the "City of Boston" was destroyed some years ago by this incarnate fiend, and by the same means. That calamity carried mourning into many households in Keith's native city, for a large number of its most respectable citizens were on board. It will be remembered that she was supposed at the time to have foundered at sea in a gale of wind.

I had been furnished, before leaving Richmond, with letters to parties in Canada, who, it was believed, could give valuable aid to the expedition. To expedite matters, a trustworthy agent, a canny Scotchman, who had long served under my command, was dispatched to Montreal, via Portland, to notify these parties that we were on our way there. Our emissary, taking passage in a steamer bound to Portland, passed safely through United States territory, while the rest of us commenced our long and devious route through the British Provinces. Wherever we travelled, even through the remotest settlements, recruiting agents for the United States army were at work, scarcely affecting to disguise their occupation; and the walls of the obscurest country taverns bristled with advertisements like the following: "Wanted for a tannery in Maine one thousand tanners to whom a large bonus will be paid, etc." Many could not resist such allurements, but it was from this class and similar ones, no doubt, that the "bounty jumpers" sprang. It has been asserted, by those who were in a position to form a correct estimate, that the British Provinces, alone, contributed one hundred thousand men to the Federal army. It is scarcely an exaggeration to add, that the population of the civilized world was subsidized.

We were seven days in making the journey to Montreal, where my faithful agent met me by appointment, and carried me to the residence of Captain M., a zealous and self-sacrificing friend to the cause, and to whom I had been accredited. He looked steadily at me for a moment after our introduction, and then said "I have met you once before." He recalled to my memory the fact, that while I commanded the battery at Acquia Creek in the early part of the war, he had brought a schooner loaded with arms, etc., up the Potomac, and succeeded in placing her under the protection of our batteries; having profited by a cold, dark, and inclement night, to evade the vigilance of the gunboats. Subsequently he and his family were compelled to leave Baltimore, and were now refugees in Canada. Colonel K., also a refugee and an inmate of Captain M.'s house, and to whom, likewise, I carried letters, enlisted enthusiastically in the expedition, and devoted his whole time and energies to its success. We might, indeed, have obtained a large number of recruits from among refugees and escaped prisoners in Canada, but it was not considered prudent to increase the size of the party to any extent, our number being quite sufficient, under the plan as devised. But we picked up two or three escaped prisoners from Johnson's Island; among them an individual who was well known to Colonel Finney (a member of the expedition); having been in the Colonel's employment on the plains previous to the war. The Colonel was the right hand of Major Ficklin in organizing and putting into operation the "pony express," which used to traverse the continent from St. Louis to San Francisco, and our recruit, Thompson, was one of his trusted subordinates. This man had led a very adventurous life. He informed us that after making his escape from Johnson's Island on the ice one dark winter night, he walked into Sandusky, and there laid in wait at the entrance of a dark alley for a victim with whom to exchange clothing. His patience being rewarded after a while, he laid violent hands upon his prize, and directed him to divest himself of his suit. The stranger replied, that he would not only supply him with clothing, but with money to make his way into Canada; adding that he had a son in the Confederate army. He gave Thompson the contents of his purse, and requesting him to wait till he could go home, soon returned with a full suit of clothes.