From the very beginning of our captures, an order had been issued, that no sailor should lay his hand on any article of property, to appropriate it to his own use, unless by permission of an officer; and especially that no spirituous liquors should be brought on board the Alabama. It was made the duty of every boarding-officer, upon getting on board a prize, to demand possession of the keys of the liquor-lockers, and either to cause the liquor to be destroyed, or thrown overboard. To the rigid enforcement of this rule, I attribute much of the good order which prevailed on board my ship. It was enforced against the officers, as well the men, and no officer’s mess was allowed to supply itself with liquor, by purchase, or otherwise, unless by my consent; and I never gave this consent to the midshipmen’s mess. We burned, on one occasion, a ship, whose entire cargo consisted of French brandies, and champagne, and other wines, without allowing a bottle of it to be brought on board. But whilst I used these precautions, I caused a regular allowance of “grog” to be served out to the crew, twice in each day. I was quite willing that Jack should drink, but I undertook to be the judge of how much he should drink.
Such articles of clothing and supplies as were captured, were turned over to the paymaster, to be credited to the Government, and duly issued and charged to the crew, as if they had been purchased in the market. In spite of all these precautions, however, a sailor would now and then be brought on board from a prize, drunk, would manage to smuggle liquor to his comrades, and would be found arrayed in all sorts of strange garbs, from whaler’s boots, and red flannel shirts and comforters, to long-tailed coats and beaver hats. Notwithstanding the discipline of the ship, the gravity of the crew would sometimes give way to merriment, as one of these fellows, thus ludicrously apparelled, would have to be hoisted or lifted on board, being too comfortably drunk to attend to his own locomotion. Each offender knew that he would have to walk straight into the “Brig,” upon being thus detected in the violation of these orders, and that punishment would speedily follow the offence; and yet I found it one of the most difficult parts of my duty, to convince some of these free-and-easy fellows, who had mistaken the Alabama, when they signed the articles off Terceira, (after that stump speech before referred to,) for what Mr. Seward and Mr. Adams insisted she was, a “privateer,” that everything was captured in the name of the Confederate States, and that nothing belonged to them personally. The California-bound ships frequently had on board boxes and bales of fine clothing, boots, shoes, and hats, but not a garment was allowed to be brought on board except such as the paymaster might need for issue. It seemed hard to consign all these tempting articles to the flames, without permitting the sailors to help themselves, but if such license had been permitted, disorder and demoralization would have been the consequence.
I had no chaplain on board, but Sunday was always kept as a day of abstinence from labor, when the exigencies of war and weather would permit, and it was my uniform practice on this day, to have the ship thoroughly cleansed, in every part, for inspection—particularly the sleeping apartments, and the engine-room—and to require the officers and seamen to appear on the quarter-deck for muster; the former in their appropriate uniforms, and the latter in clean duck frocks and trousers, or other clothing adapted to the latitude and climate. The reader has already been present at several of these musters. The boys of the ship, of whom I had quite a number on board, were placed under the special charge of the master-at-arms—a subordinate officer, with police-powers, in charge of the berth-deck—whose duty it was to inspect them, in every morning watch, with reference to personal cleanliness; turning down the collars, and rolling up the trousers of the youngsters, to see that they had duly performed their ablutions. These boys had been taken from the stews, and haunts of vice about Liverpool, and were as great a set of scamps as any disciplinarian could desire to “lick into shape,” but it is astonishing what a reformation soap and water and the master-at-arms effected in them, in a short time. Many of them became very respectable young fellows, for which they were indebted almost entirely to the free use of soap and water.
As a hygienic precaution, when we were cruising in warm latitudes, where the dews were heavy, the whole crew was required to appear, every evening, at sunset muster, in blue flannel shirts and trousers. They could then sleep in the dews, without the fear of colds or rheumatisms. We were always supplied with the best of provisions, for, being at war with a provision-producing people, almost every ship we captured afforded us a greater or less supply; and all the water that was drank on board the Alabama was condensed by the engine from the vapor of sea-water. The consequence of all this care was highly gratifying to me, as, in the three years I was afloat, I did not lose a man by disease, in either of my ships! When it is recollected that I cruised in all parts of the world, now fencing out the cold, and battling with the storms of the North Atlantic and South Indian Oceans, and now being fried, and baked, and stewed within the tropics, and on the equator, and that, besides my own crews, some two thousand of the enemy’s sailors passed through my hands, first and last, as prisoners, this is a remarkable statement to be able to make. My excellent surgeon, Dr. Galt, and, after him, Dr. Llewellyn, ably seconded me by their skill and experience.
On week days we mustered the crew at their quarters twice a day—at nine A. M., and at sunset, and when the weather was suitable, one division, or about one fourth of the crew, was exercised, either at the battery, or with small arms. This not only gave them efficiency in the use of their weapons, but kept them employed—the constant employment of my men being a fundamental article of my philosophy. I found the old adage, that “Idleness is the parent of vice,” as true upon the sea as upon the land. My crew were never so happy as when they had plenty to do, and but little to think about. Indeed, as to the thinking, I allowed them to do very little of that. Whenever I found I had a sea-lawyer among them, I got rid of him as soon as possible—giving him a chance to desert. I reserved the quids, and quos, and pros and cons, exclusively for myself.
But though I took good care to see that my men had plenty of employment, it was not all work with them. They had their pastimes and pleasures, as well as labors. After the duties of the day were over, they would generally assemble on the forecastle, and, with violin, and tambourine—and I always kept them supplied with these and other musical instruments—they would extemporize a ball-room, by moving the shot-racks, coils of rope, and other impediments, out of the way, and, with handkerchiefs tied around the waists of some of them, to indicate who were to be the ladies of the party, they would get up a dance with all due form and ceremony; the ladies, in particular, endeavoring to imitate all the airs and graces of the sex—the only drawback being a little hoarseness of the voice, and now and then the use of an expletive, which would escape them when something went wrong in the dance, and they forgot they had the aprons on. The favorite dancing-tunes were those of Wapping and Wide Water Street, and when I speak of the airs and graces, I must be understood to mean those rather demonstrative airs and graces, of which Poll and Peggy would be likely to be mistresses of. On these occasions, the discipline of the ship was wont to be purposely relaxed, and roars of laughter, and other evidences of the rapid flight of the jocund hours, at other times entirely inadmissible, would come resounding aft on the quarter-deck.
Sometimes the recreation of the dance would be varied, and songs and story-telling would be the amusements of the evening. The sea is a wide net, which catches all kinds of fish, and in a man-of-war’s crew a great many odd characters are always to be found. Broken-down gentlemen, who have spent all the money they have been able to raise, upon their own credit, or that of their friends; defaulting clerks and cashiers; actors who have been playing to empty houses; third-class musicians and poets, are all not unfrequently found in the same ship’s company. These gentlemen play a very unimportant role in seamanship, but they take a high rank among the crew, when fun and frolic, and not seamanship, are the order of the day—or rather night. In the Alabama, we had a capital Falstaff, though Jack’s capacious pouch was not often with “fat capon lined;” and as for “sherry-sack,” if he now and then got a good glass of “red-eye” instead, he was quite content. We had several Hals, who had defied their harsh old papas, and given them the slip, to keep Falstaff company; and as for raconteurs, we had them by the score. Some of these latter were equal to the Italian lazzaroni, and could extemporize yarns by the hour; and there is nothing of which a sailor is half so fond as a yarn.
It was my custom, on these occasions, to go forward on the bridge—a light structure spanning the deck, near amidships—which, in the twilight hours, was a sort of lounging-place for the officers, and smoke my single cigar, and listen to whatever might be going on, almost as much amused as the sailors themselves. So rigid is the discipline of a ship of war, that the captain is necessarily much isolated from his officers. He messes alone, walks the quarter-deck alone, and rarely, during the hours of duty, exchanges, even with his first lieutenant, or officer of the deck, other conversation than such as relates to the ship, or the service she is upon. I felt exceedingly the irksomeness of my position, and was always glad of an opportunity to escape from it. On the “bridge,” I could lay aside the “captain,” gather my young officers around me, and indulge in some of the pleasures of social intercourse; taking care to tighten the reins, gently, again, the next morning. When song was the order of the evening, after the more ambitious of the amateurs had delivered themselves of their solos and cantatas, the entertainment generally wound up with Dixie, when the whole ship would be in an uproar of enthusiasm, sometimes as many as a hundred voices joining in the chorus; the unenthusiastic Englishman, the stolid Dutchman, the mercurial Frenchman, the grave Spaniard, and even the serious Malayan, all joining in the inspiring refrain,—
“We’ll live and die in Dixie!”
and astonishing old Neptune by the fervor and novelty of their music.