In addition to the forts, there were a lot of torpedoes, beginning in the channel off Fort Wagner and continuing around to a line of logs and chains stretched from Fort Sumter across the channel to Sullivan’s Island. It makes the gray-haired men of Charleston smile, in these days, when these channel obstructions are mentioned; for, as Bishop John Johnson—he who wrote “The Defence of Charleston Harbor,” a work that is entirely fair and most interesting—said to the writer: “The moral effect of these obstructions was excellent—excellent.” And so it was.
The first thing of importance done in Charleston harbor after establishing the blockade was in the line of strengthening the blockade, and not an attempt to reduce the city. This was the sinking of the “Stone Fleet.” On December 20, 1861, twenty old hulks of ships, well loaded with stone, were sunk in the channels. The importance of this work is found only in the fact that it brought out conspicuously the exact attitude of the British government toward that of the United States.
Let the reader observe, first of all, that the hulks were “so disposed as to obstruct navigation without impeding the flow of water.” They were “intended to establish at Charleston a combination of artificial interruptions resembling on a small scale those of Hell Gate or Holmes Hole, and producing, like them, eddies, whirlpools and counter currents, such as to render the navigation of an otherwise difficult channel hazardous and uncertain.” The last quotation is from a letter from Lord Lyons at Washington to the British Prime Minister.
Whether a nation has a right to close permanently a channel of commerce wholly within its own borders is a question that has never been decided by any international court, or any writer on international law, for that matter. At any rate, it is quite certain that if England chose to dam permanently a harbor as a war measure, she would not receive in kindly spirit any interference from a foreign power. But the fact is that the “Stone Fleet” was not sunk in Charleston’s channels with any idea that the hulks would “permanently injure” the harbor. It was well known to engineers in England, as well as in the United States, that when tidal currents over such sands as those at Charleston were interrupted in one place, they would cut new channels. It was further well known that these obstructions could be removed readily whenever there was need of doing so. With these facts in mind, the following extract from a letter of instructions written by Lord Russell to Lord Lyons about the “permanent” closing of Charleston harbor is of interest:
“Such a cruel plan would seem to imply despair of the restoration of the Union, the professed object of the war; for it never could be the wish of the United States government to destroy cities from which their own country was to derive a portion of its riches and prosperity. Such a plan could only be adopted as a measure of revenge and of irremediable injury against an enemy. Lord Lyons was further told that even as a scheme of embittered and sanguinary war such a measure would not be justifiable. It would be a plot against the commerce of all maritime nations, and against the free intercourse of the Southern States of America with the civilized world.”
The protest of France was of the same tenor, and when the French Chambers and the British Parliament met in January and February, 1862, the subject was vehemently discussed.
This was one of the first of a series of attempts made by the British government to aid in the destruction of the Union—a series that did not end until the United States laid the keels of a fleet of ships of which the Wampanoag was the type—ships that could carry a few one-hundred-pounder rifles and steam at the then unequalled rate of seventeen knots per hour. That the British government became friendly after the trial trip of the Wampanoag had been described in print is one of the most instructive incidents in the history of the American navy. If it be coupled with the facts that before the building of the modern Yankee White Squadron the British government refused even to consider a proposition for a general arbitration treaty between the two English-speaking nations, and that since the efficiency of the Yankee ships has been demonstrated the British were particularly in favor of such a treaty, the incident proves—but let the candid reader consider this matter in all its bearings for himself. The hull of the Wampanoag was designed by Constructor Delano, and the machinery by Engineer Isherwood. And it is written, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
For a year after the sinking of the Stone Fleet the Union squadron off Charleston did nothing but the tedious work of interrupting commerce. During this time the Confederates, although Charleston had had nothing in the semblance of a shipyard, had been building two ironclads there, called the Palmetto State and the Chicora. Commodore D. N. Ingraham supervised the work. They were from plans by John L. Porter, the enterprising constructor of the Merrimac, and they were somewhat like her, though but 150 feet long by thirty-five broad, with a draft of twelve feet. They had the same kind of iron armor, backed by twenty-two inches of wood, and their guns included sixty-pounder and eighty-pounder rifles and some larger shell guns. The plating covered the ram-shaped bows, and was continued five feet below the water-line.
On the morning of January 31, 1863, the warships Housatonic, Ottawa, and Unadilla, with the armed merchantmen Mercedita, Keystone State, Quaker City, Memphis, Augusta, Stettin, and Flag were lying at wide intervals off Charleston harbor. There was a heavy fog lying low on the water. At 4.30 o’clock a ship suddenly appeared in the mists abeam of the Mercedita, Capt. Henry S. Stellwagen. The officer of the deck on the Union ship, manifestly believing the stranger was one of the blockading force, shouted:
“What steamer is that? Drop your anchor or you will be into us!” The reply that came was startling. It was made by Commodore Ingraham, and he said: