"Yours very respectfully,
"(Signed) Alexander Sprunt & Son.
"To the Honorable Josephus Daniels,
"The Secretary of the Navy,
"Washington, D.C."
"Navy Department,
"Washington, April 7, 1919.
"Dear Sirs: Receipt is acknowledged of your letter of April 2, expressing gratitude for the rescue of the disabled steamer Korona by the U.S.S. Seminole.
"Your letter of appreciation has been forwarded to the commanding officer of the U.S.S. Seminole via the Commodore Commandant of the Coast Guard Service and the Commandant of the Fifth Naval District, under whose orders the U.S.S. Seminole is operating.
"It is a great pleasure to know that the work of our salvage and rescue ships is appreciated, and I thank you very sincerely for your expression of thanks and recognition of the excellent seamanship and devotion to duty shown by the captain, officers, and crew of the U.S.S. Seminole.
"Very truly yours,
"(Signed) Franklin D. Roosevelt,
"Acting Secretary of the Navy.
"Messrs. Alexander Sprunt & Son,
"Wilmington, North Carolina."
DERELICT BLOCKADE RUNNERS.
For many years the summer visitors on Wrightsville Beach have looked out upon the hurrying swell of the broad Atlantic and have felt the fascination of the long lines of crested breakers like Neptune's racers charging and reforming for the never-ending fray; and, when the unresting tide receded, they have seen the battered hulks of some of the most beautiful ships that ever shaped a course for Wilmington in the days of the Southern Confederacy. They represented an epoch that is unique in our country's history, for, in the modern art of war the conditions which then prevailed can never occur again.
Some of these wrecks may be visible for a hundred years to come, and, as nearly every one who knew these vessels and of their last voyage has passed away, I have thought it might interest some of our people, and perhaps future generations, to know something of these ships, which I still remember distinctly and with whose officers I was more or less familiar. So that I have noted from memory and from official records of the Four Years' War, the tragedies which involved the destruction of these fine vessels between Topsail Inlet and Lockwood's Folly. These will comprise about thirty ships, nearly all of the steamers that were stranded on our coast during the war while running for the Cape Fear Bar under a heavy bombardment by the Federal cruisers.