To his “Memoirs,” also, the reader may be referred for details of the burning of the hosts of American merchantmen that he captured. From Terceira the Alabama made a cruise against the whalers off the Azores, and thence went to Martinique, where the American warship San Jacinto found her. But Semmes escaped on the night of October 20, 1862. His first prize of consequence after this adventure was the Ariel of the Panama line. She was expected to bring a million or so in gold, but in this Semmes was disappointed.
From the place where the Ariel was captured Semmes went to Galveston to intercept the transports of the Banks expedition, of which he had read in captured papers. As he approached Galveston, on the afternoon of January 11, 1863, the Hatteras, a merchant steamer fitted with guns, was sent off to inspect him. Semmes pretended to run, and so drew the Hatteras away from the other blockaders, and then at 7 P.M. (it was dark of course) lay to for her. When the Hatteras ranged up and hailed, Semmes said his ship was “Her Britannic Majesty’s ship Vixen.” Capt. H. C. Blake, of the Hatteras, said he would send a boat, but when the boat had been lowered Semmes shouted, “We are the Confederate steamer Alabama,” and fired a broadside. Semmes was not at any time more than 100 yards away, and the Hatteras, a paddle-wheel steamer, was soon riddled. Blake tried to get alongside the Alabama to board, but could not do it, of course, and the Hatteras was soon rapidly sinking. A lee gun was fired and help called for. The living were all taken off by the Alabama’s crew, save the boat’s crew that had started to board the Alabama.
Raphael Semmes and his Alabama Officers.
From a photograph owned by C. B. Hall.
The Hatteras carried two short thirty-twos and two small rifles—a twenty-pounder and a thirty-pounder—that she was able to bring to bear. The prisoners were landed at Jamaica.
From this point Semmes went to the coast of Brazil, and then off to the point near the equator where homeward-bound American Indiamen cross the line. It was on the Brazil coast, in April, 1863, that he gave the Americans good excuse, by his violations of neutral waters, for the taking of the Florida. In July he went to the Cape of Good Hope, and at Cape Town was even more heartily welcomed than he had been at Gibraltar when in the Sumter. Here is the way he describes his reception:
“During my entire stay, my table was loaded with flowers, and the most luscious grapes, and other fruits, sent off to me every morning, by the ladies of the Cape, sometimes with, and sometimes without, a name. Something has been said before about the capacity of the heart of a sailor. My own was carried by storm on the present occasion. I simply surrendered at discretion, and whilst Kell was explaining the virtues of his guns to his male visitors, and answering the many questions that were put to him about our cruisers and captures, I found it as much as I could do, to write autographs, and answer the pretty little perfumed billets that came off to me. Dear ladies of the Cape of Good Hope!”
Perhaps while we are about it, it may be worth while to make one more quotation to show the full extent of the gallantry of which Semmes makes boast in every chapter. It will be found on page 620 of the “Memoirs,” where he describes the Brazilian people, but no part of the original is italicized:
“The effete Portuguese race has been ingrafted upon a stupid, stolid, Indian stock, in that country. The freed negro is, besides, the equal of the white man, and as there seems to be no repugnance, on the part of the white race—so called—to mix with the black race, and with the Indian, amalgamation will go on in that country, until a mongrel set of curs will cover the whole land. This might be a suitable field enough for the New England school-ma’am, and carpet-bagger, but no Southern gentleman should think of mixing his blood or casting his lot with such a race of people.”