The next day Mr. Arthur Lynn, the British consul, gathered together the Hanoverian and Oldenburg consul, the Swiss consul, the Mexican consul; the deputy consul for Bremen, Saxony, Belgium, and Holland; the consul pro tem. for Electoral Hesse, and the consul for Nassau, besides representatives of some other countries, and wrote and signed the following:
“The undersigned, consuls and vice-consuls at Galveston, consider it their duty to enter their solemn protest against your bombardment of this city on the evening of the 3d instant, without having given any notice, so that the women and children might have been removed, and also against your firing a shell in the midst of a large crowd of unarmed citizens, amongst whom were many women and children, causing thereby the death of an unoffending Portuguese and wounding boys and peaceably disposed persons, as acts of inhumanity, unrecognized in modern warfare, and meriting the condemnation of Christian and civilized nations.”
A copy of the protest was sent to Alden, another to the reporters, of course, and then each official sent one under seal to his government in such fashion that it would appear in the papers there also.
It was a small affair in itself. The Confederate authorities made no protest about it. So far as the attack on the blockading squadron and the return of the fire were of interest from a historical point of view, the matter was not worth mention. But because this was the first case in which a British consul, acting in his official capacity, undertook the work of misrepresenting the deeds of the government officers, it may not be omitted. For the official attitude of the European governments has a very important part in the naval history of the Civil War.
The next event of interest that occurred in the Gulf region might very well be termed the battle of Bull Run afloat, because a squadron of American naval ships became involved in a panic and fled precipitately before a force so utterly insignificant that the shame of it was felt by every man who wore the uniform.
The mouths of the Mississippi were at first blockaded by the Brooklyn, Captain Poor, and the Powhatan, Capt. D. D. Porter, but when the Powhatan was away, one day, the Brooklyn went chasing a strange sail, and the watchful Semmes carried the Sumter, the first of the noted Confederate cruisers, out to sea. As the Confederates had before this carried fifteen ships, two barks, and three schooners from the Gulf to New Orleans as prizes, the government was moved to place a sufficient force in the river to close it absolutely.
This force included the flagship Richmond, a screw steamer of 2,000 tons, carrying twenty large guns, Capt. John Pope; the sailing sloop-of-war Vincennes, ten guns, Capt. Robert Handy; the sailing sloop-of-war Preble, eleven guns, Capt. H. French, and the little screw steamer Water Witch, of four guns (howitzers). In all, there were forty-five guns in the squadron, of which twenty were nine-inch Dahlgrens.
As the reader will remember, a chart of the mouth of the Mississippi is marvellously like a picture of the roots of a crooked tree. The waters divide into three main channels, with a host of offshoots. To effectually close all the entrances to the river it was necessary only to anchor the squadron in the river itself above the point where it was split up, and this was done. There were no Confederate forts near the anchorage, and the officers and men, so far as is known, possessed their souls in peace until the month of October.
Meantime the Confederates had been working against very great difficulties to prepare a squadron fit to clear the river. They had incidentally striven to get a steamer called the McRae in commission for a cruiser, but had failed in making her machinery work well, and she was relegated to the work of harbor defence.
