Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States

by Raphael Semmes

Great rejoicing was had in Yankeedom, when it was known that the Alabama had been beaten. Shouts of triumph rent the air, and bonfires lighted every hill. But along with the rejoicing there went up a howl of disappointed rage, that I had escaped being made a prisoner. The splendid victory of their iron-clad over a wooden ship was shorn of half its brilliancy. Mr. Seward was in a furor of excitement; and as for poor Mr. Adams, he lost his head entirely. He even conceived the brilliant idea of demanding that I should be delivered up to him by the British Government. Two days after the action, he wrote to his chief from London as follows:—

“The popular excitement attending the action between the Alabama and the Kearsarge has been considerable. I transmit a copy of the “Times,” of this morning, containing a report made to Mr. Mason, by Captain Semmes. It is evidently intended for this meridian. The more I reflect upon the conduct of the Deerhound, the more grave do the questions to be raised with this Government appear to be. I do not feel it my duty to assume the responsibility of demanding, without instructions, the surrender of the prisoners. Neither have I yet obtained directly from Captain Winslow, any authentic evidence of the facts attending the conflict. I have some reason to suspect, that the subject has already been under the consideration of the authorities here.”

Mr. Seward and Mr. Adams were both eminently civilians. The heads of both of them were muddled, the moment they stepped from the Forum to the Campus Martius. Mr. Adams was now busy preparing another humiliation for the great American statesman. Some men learn wisdom by experience, and others do not. Mr. Adams seems to have been of the latter class. He had made a great many demands about the Alabama, which had been refused, and was now about to make another which was more absurd even than those that had gone before. The “instructions” coming from Mr. Seward in due time, the demand was made, and here is the reply of Lord Russell:—

“Secondly,”—[his lordship had been considering another point, which Mr. Adams had introduced into his despatch, not material to the present question,]—“I have to state, that it appears to her Majesty’s Government, that the commander of the private British yacht, the Deerhound, in saving from drowning some of the officers and crew of the Alabama, after that vessel had sunk, performed a praiseworthy act of humanity, to which, moreover, he had been exhorted by the officer commanding the Kearsarge, to which vessel the Deerhound had, in the first instance, gone, in order to offer to the Kearsarge any assistance which, after her action with the Alabama, she might stand in need of; and it appears further, to her Majesty’s Government, that, under all the circumstances of the case, Mr. Lancaster was not under any obligation to deliver to the captain of the Kearsarge the officers and men whom he had rescued from the waves. But however that may be, with regard to the demand made by you, by instructions from your Government, that those officers and men should now be delivered up to the Government of the United States, as being escaped prisoners of war, her Majesty’s Government would beg to observe, that there is no obligation by international law, which can bind the government of a neutral State, to deliver up to a belligerent prisoners of war, who may have escaped from the power of such belligerent, and may have taken refuge within the territory of such neutral. Therefore, even if her Majesty’s Government had any power, by law, to comply with the above-mentioned demand, her Majesty’s Government could not do so, without being guilty of a violation of the duties of hospitality. In point of fact, however, her Majesty’s Government have no lawful power to arrest, and deliver up the persons in question. They have been guilty of no offence against the laws of England, and they have committed no act, which would bring them within the provisions of a treaty between Great Britain and the United States, for the mutual surrender of offenders, and her Majesty’s Government are, therefore, entirely without any legal means by which, even if they wished to do so, they could comply with your above-mentioned demand.”

This reasoning is unanswerable, and adds to the many humiliations the Federal Government received from England during the war in connection with the Alabama, through the bungling of its diplomatists. The Deerhound, a neutral vessel, was not only under no obligation, in fact, to deliver up the prisoners she had rescued from the water, but she could not, lawfully, have put herself under such obligation. The prisoners had rights in the premises as well as the Deerhound. The moment they reached the deck of the neutral ship, by whatever means, they were entitled to the protection of the neutral flag, and any attempt on the part of the neutral master, whether by agreement with the opposite belligerent or not, to hand them over to the latter, would have been an exercise of force by him, and tantamount to an act of hostility against the prisoners. It would have been our right and our duty to resist any such attempt; and we would assuredly have done so if it had been made. It will be observed that Lord Russell does not discuss the question whether we were prisoners. It was not necessary to his argument; for even admitting that we were prisoners, hospitality forbade him to deliver us up.

But we were not prisoners. A person, to become a prisoner, must be brought within the power of his captor. There must be a manucaption, a possession, if even for a moment. I never was at any time, during the engagement, or after, in the power of the enemy. I had struck my flag, it is true, but that did not make me a prisoner. It was merely an offer of surrender. It was equivalent to saying to my enemy, “I am beaten, if you will take possession of me, I will not resist.” Suppose my ship had not been fatally injured, and a sudden gale had sprung up, and prevented the enemy from completing his capture, by taking possession of her, and I had escaped with her, will it be pretended that she was his prize? There have been numerous instances of this kind in naval history, and no one has ever supposed that a ship under such circumstances would be a prize, or that any person on board of her would be a prisoner. Nor can the cause which prevents the captor from taking possession of his prize, make any difference. If from any cause, he is unable to take possession, he loses her. If she takes fire, and burns up, or sinks, she is equally lost to him, and if any one escapes from the burning or sinking ship to the shore, can it be pretended that he is a prisoner? And is there any difference between escaping to the shore, and to a neutral flag? The folly of the thing is too apparent for argument, and yet the question was pressed seriously upon the British Government; and the head of Mr. Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Federal Navy, was, for a long time, addled on the subject. I question, indeed, whether the head of the old gentleman has recovered from the shock it received, to this day. He afterward had me arrested, as the reader will see in due time, and conveyed to Washington a prisoner, and did all in his power to have me tried by a military commission, in time of peace, because I did not insist upon Mr. Lancaster’s delivering me up to Captain Winslow! Will any one believe that this is the same Mr. Welles who approved of Captain Stellwagen’s running off with the Mercedita, after he had been paroled?

But here is another little incident in point, which, perhaps, Mr. Welles had forgotten when he ordered my arrest. It arose out of Buchanan’s gallant fight with the enemy’s fleet in Hampton Roads, before alluded to in these pages. I will let the Admiral relate it, in his own words. He is writing to Mr. Mallory, the Secretary of the Navy, and after having described the ramming and sinking of the Cumberland, proceeds:—

“Having sunk the Cumberland, I turned our attention to the Congress. We were some time in getting our proper position, in consequence of the shoalness of the water, and the great difficulty of manœuvring the ship, when in or near the mud. To succeed in my object, I was obliged to run the ship a short distance above the batteries on James River, in order to wind her. During all this time her keel was in the mud; of course she moved but slowly. Thus we were subjected twice to the heavy guns of all the batteries, in passing up and down the river, but it could not be avoided. We silenced several of the batteries, and did much injury on the shore. A large transport steamer, alongside of the wharf, was blown up, one schooner sunk, and another captured and sent to Norfolk. The loss of life on shore we have no means of ascertaining. While the Virginia was thus engaged in getting her position for attacking the Congress, the prisoners state it was believed on board that ship, we had hauled off; the men left their guns, and gave three cheers. They were sadly undeceived, for, a few minutes after, we opened upon her again, she having run on shore, in shoal water. The carnage, havoc, and dismay, caused by our fire, compelled them to haul down their colors, and hoist a white flag at their gaff, and half-mast another at the main. The crew instantly took to their boats and landed. Our fire immediately ceased, and a signal was made for the Beaufort to come within hail. I then ordered Lieutenant-Commanding Parker to take possession of the Congress, secure the officers as prisoners, allow the men to land, and burn the ship. He ran alongside, received her flag and surrender from Commander William Smith, and Lieutenant Pendergrast, with the side-arms of these officers. They delivered themselves as prisoners of war, on board the Beaufort, and afterward were permitted, at their own request, to return to the Congress, to assist in removing the wounded to the Beaufort. They never returned, and I submit to the decision of the Department, whether they are not our prisoners?”

Aye, these paroled gentlemen escaped, and Mr. Welles forgot to send them back. There was some excuse for Mr. Seward and Mr. Adams making the blunder they did, of supposing that the rescued officers and men of the Alabama were prisoners to the Kearsarge, but there was none whatever for Mr. Welles. He was the head of the enemy’s Navy Department, and it was his business to know better; and if he did not know better, himself, he should have called to his assistance some of the clever naval men around him. Nay, if he had taken down from its shelf almost any naval history in the library of his department, he could have set himself right in half an hour. James’ “English Naval History” is full of precedents, where ships which have struck their flags, have afterward escaped—the enemy failing to take possession of them—and no question has been raised as to the propriety of their conduct. So many contingencies occur in naval battles, that it has become a sort of common law of the sea, that a ship is never a prize, or the persons on board of her prisoners, until she has actually been taken possession of by the enemy. A few of these cases will doubtless interest the reader, especially as they have an interest of their own, independently of their application.

THE REVOLUTIONNAIRE AND THE AUDACIOUS.