There were a few other Confederate cruisers, the Shenandoah being the most important, although she did nothing but destroy the American whaling and sealing fleet on the northwest coast. Her total number of captures was thirty-six. What the cruisers did altogether might be told in a list of the American ships destroyed, but it is better to express the facts by saying that they literally swept the American flag from the sea. England was obliged to pay $15,000,000 for the aid she gave the Confederates in this work. As has been said, “she got off cheap.” What she failed to do when she sent shiploads of war material to help the Barbary pirates who were attacking American commerce, she accomplished entirely when she allowed the Confederate warships to fit out in her ports. She destroyed the only competitor on the high seas of whom she had any fear. Does any one doubt that she did it deliberately? From 1864 until this day in 1897 the maritime supremacy of Great Britain has been undisputed. She paid $15,000,000 in damages, and every year has collected in profits on the American carrying trade which she then secured—who shall say how many times $15,000,000 her profits on the American carrying trade are? Perhaps if the reader will learn the answer to this question, he may make up his mind what the American people ought to do about it.

Three Famous Confederate Cruisers.

From a painting by M. J. Burns.

CHAPTER XV
THE ALBEMARLE AND CUSHING

A FORMIDABLE WARSHIP WAS BUILT UNDER REMARKABLE CONDITIONS TO ENABLE THE CONFEDERATES TO REGAIN CONTROL OF THE INLAND WATERS OF NORTH CAROLINA—VERY SUCCESSFUL AT FIRST, BUT SHE WAS LAID UP TO AWAIT THE BUILDING OF ANOTHER ONE, AND THEN CAME CUSHING WITH HIS LITTLE TORPEDO BOAT, AND THE CONFEDERATE HOPES WERE DESTROYED WITH THEIR SHIP.

The loss of the control of the North Carolina sounds, as already told, proved more damaging to the Confederate forces than they realized at first, but they very soon began making efforts to establish themselves there once more, and the oftener they were defeated in their hopes the more determined they became. To tell the complete story of the skirmishes that took place between the Dismal Swamp and Newbern would be to give a hundred instances of the courage, enterprise, and persistence of the men on both sides. There was the case of John Taylor Wood, who, with a party of Confederates, boarded and destroyed the Union gunboat Underwriter under the eyes of the Union forces afloat and ashore. As another instance, there is also the story of Cushing’s trip up the New River Inlet with the Ellis, where he got into the wrong channel and had to destroy her, and then row in an open boat for a mile and a half under fire of the Confederates to escape. They were all brilliant, but none of them was decisive in any way.

Eventually it became apparent that no dashing exploit could restore Confederate supremacy there, and their hope was dying, when two flatboat-builders living at Edward’s Ferry, on the Roanoke River, offered to build an ironclad, somewhat on the plan of the Merrimac, that should be able to navigate the shoal waters of the Sound and yet be invulnerable to the shot of the Union gunboats. Because the water at Hatteras Inlet was too shoal for any of the Union ironclads to pass, it was reasonable to suppose a well-built craft could clear the Union wooden gunboats from the waters of North Carolina.

The chief contractor for the boat that was, in accordance with these ideas, laid down at Edward’s Ferry, was Mr. Gilbert Elliott. Naval Constructor John L. Porter, who had rebuilt the Merrimac, was sent to work out the plans, and Commander J. W. Cooke was appointed to gather the outfit and supervise the construction.