December 1st.—Another beautiful, bright, morning, with a glassy sea, and a calm. This being the first of the month, the sailors are drawing their clothing, and “small stores” from the paymaster, under the supervision of the officers of the different divisions. The paymaster’s steward is the shopman, on the occasion, and he is “serving” a jacket to one, a shirt to another, and a pair of shoes to a third. His assortment is quite varied, for besides the requisite clothing, he has tobacco, and pepper, and mustard; needles, thimbles, tape, thread, and spool-cotton; ribbons, buttons, jack-knives, &c. Jack is not allowed to indulge in all these luxuries, ad lib. He is like a school-boy, under the care of his preceptor; he must have his wants approved by the officer of the division to which he belongs. To enable this officer to act understandingly, Jack spreads out his wardrobe before him, every month. If he is deficient a shirt, or a pair of trousers, he is permitted to draw them; if he has plenty, and still desires more, his extravagance is checked. These articles are all charged to him, at cost, with the addition of a small percentage, to save the Government from loss. When the monthly requisitions are all complete, they are taken to the Captain, for his approval, who occasionally runs his pencil through a third, or a fourth pound of tobacco, when an inveterate old chewer, or smoker is using the weed to excess; he rarely interferes in other respects. On the present occasion, woollen garments are in demand; Jack, with a prudent forethought, preparing himself for the approaching change in the climate. Much of the clothing, which the sailor wears, is made up with his own hands. He is entirely independent of the other sex, in this respect, and soon becomes very expert with the needle.
The 3d of December brought us another prize. The wind was light from the south-east, and the stranger was standing in our direction. This was fortunate, as we might hope to capture him by stratagem, without the use of steam. The Sumter, when not under steam, and with her smoke-stack lowered, might be taken for a clumsy-looking bark. Throwing a spare sail over the lowered smoke-stack, to prevent it from betraying us, we hoisted the French flag, and stood on our course, apparently unconscious of the approaching stranger. We were running free, with the starboard studding-sails set, and when the stranger, who, by this time, had hoisted the United States colors, crossed our bows, we suddenly took in all the studding-sails, braced sharp up, tacked, and fired a gun, at the same moment. The stranger at once hauled up his courses, and backed his main-topsail. He was already under our guns. The clumsy appearance of the Sumter, and the French flag had deceived him. The prize proved to be the Vigilant, a fine new ship, from Bath, Maine, bound to the guano island of Sombrero, in the West Indies; some New Yorkers having made a lodgment on this barren little island, and being then engaged in working it for certain phosphates of lime, which they called mineral guano. We captured a rifled 9-pounder gun, with a supply of fixed ammunition, on board the Vigilant, and some small arms. We fired the ship at three P. M., and made sail on our course. The most welcome part of this capture was a large batch of New York newspapers, as late as the 21st of November. The Yankees of that ilk had heard of the blockade of the “Pirate Sumter,” by the Iroquois, but they hadn’t heard of Captain Palmer’s rueful breakfast on the morning of the 24th of November.
These papers brought us a graphic description of the gallant ram exploit, of Commodore Hollins, of the Confederate Navy, at the mouth of the Mississippi, on the 12th of October. This exploit is remarkable as being the first practical application of the iron-clad ram to the purposes of war. Some ingenious steamboat-men, in New Orleans, with the consent of the Navy Department, had converted the hull of a steam-tug into an iron-clad, by means of bars of railroad iron fastened to the hull of the boat, and to a frame-work above the deck fitted to receive them; a stout iron prow being secured to the bow of the boat, several feet below the water-line. In this curious nondescript, which the enemy likened to a smoking mud-turtle, the gallant Commodore assaulted the enemy’s fleet, lying at the old anchorage of the Sumter, at the “Head of the Passes,” consisting of the Richmond, Vincennes, Preble, and Water Witch. The assault was made at four o’clock in the morning, and caused great consternation and alarm among the enemy. The Richmond, lying higher up the Pass than the other ships, was first assaulted—some of her planks being started, below the water-line, by the concussion of the ram, though the blow was broken by a coal-schooner, which, fortunately for her, was lying alongside. As the ram drew off, a broadside of the Richmond’s guns was fired into her, without effect. After this harmless broadside, the ships all got under way, in great haste, and fled down the Pass, the ram pursuing them, but Hollins was unable, from the effect of the current, and the speed of the fleeing ships, to get another blow at them. The Richmond and the Vincennes grounded, for a short time, on the bar, in their hurry to get out, but the former was soon got afloat again. In the confusion and panic of the moment, the Vincennes was abandoned by her captain, who left a slow match burning. Commodore Hollins, finding that nothing more could be accomplished, threw a few shells at the alarmed fleet, and withdrew. The Vincennes, not blowing up, and the enemy recovering from his panic, her captain was ordered to return to her, and she was finally saved with the rest of the fleet. This little experiment was the avant courier of a great change, in naval warfare—especially for harbor and coast defence. The enemy, with his abundant resources, greatly improved upon it, and his “monitor” system was the result.
December 4th.—Weather clear, and becoming cool—thermometer, 76°. We have run some 140 miles to the eastward, during the last twenty-four hours, under sail, and as we are dragging our propeller through the water, I need not tell the reader what a smacking breeze we have had. It is delightful to be making so much easting, under sail, after having been buffeted so spitefully, by the east wind, for the last five months, whenever we have turned our head in that direction. Ten of the crew of the Vigilant are blacks, and as our ship is leaking so badly that the constant pumping is fagging to the crew, I have set the blacks at the pumps, with their own consent. The fact is, some of these fellows, who are runaway slaves, have already recognized “master,” and whenever I pass them, grin pleasantly, and show the whites of their eyes. They are agreeably disappointed, that they are not “drawn, hung, and quartered,” and rather enjoy the change to the Sumter, where they have plenty of time to bask in the sun, and the greasiest of pork and beans without stint. In arranging the Vigilant’s crew into messes, a white bean and a black bean have been placed, side by side, at the mess-cloth, my first lieutenant naturally concluding, that the white sailors of the Yankee ship would like to be near their colored brethren. Cæsar and Pompey, having an eye to fun, enjoy this arrangement hugely, and my own crew are not a little amused, as the boatswain pipes to dinner, to see the gravity with which the darkies take their seats by the side of their white comrades. This was the only mark of “citizenship,” however, which I bestowed upon these sons of Ham. I never regarded them as prisoners of war—always discharging them, when the other prisoners were discharged, without putting them under parole.
December 5th.—Weather thick and ugly—the wind hauling to the north, and blowing very fresh for a while. Reefed the topsails. At noon, the weather was so thick, that no observations could be had for fixing the position of the ship—latitude, by dead reckoning, 30° 19′; longitude 53° 02′. During the afternoon and night, it blew a gale from N. E. to E. N. E. Furled the mainsail, and set the reefed trysail instead; and the wind still increasing, before morning we hauled up and furled the foresail. For the next two or three days, we had a series of easterly gales, compelling me to run somewhat farther north than I had intended. We carried very short sail, and most of the time we were shut down below—that is, such of the crew as were not on watch—with tarpaulin-covered hatches, and a cold, driving rain falling almost incessantly. What with the howling of the gale, as it tears through the rigging, the rolling and pitching of the ship, in the confused, irregular sea, and the jog, jog, jog of the pumps, through half the night, I have had but little rest.
December 8th.—This is an anniversary with me. On this day, fifteen years ago, the United States brig-of-war Somers, of which I was the commander, was capsized and sunk, off Vera Cruz, having half her crew, of 120 officers and men, drowned. It occurred during the Mexican war. I was left alone to blockade the port of Vera Cruz—Commodore Connor, the commander of the squadron, having gone with his other ships on an expedition to Tampico. There being every appearance of a norther on that eventful morning, I was still at my anchors, under Isla Verde, or Green Island, where I had sought refuge the preceding night. Suddenly a sail was reported, running down the northern coast, as though she would force the blockade. It would never do to permit this; and so the little Somers—these ten-gun brigs were called coffins in that day—was gotten under way, and under her topsails and courses, commenced beating up the coast, to intercept the stranger. I had gone below, for a moment, when the officer of the deck, coming to the companion-way, called to me, and said that “the water looked black and roughened ahead, as though more wind than usual was coming.” I sprang upon deck, and saw, at the first glance, that a norther was upon us. I immediately ordered everything clewed down and brailed up, but before the order could be executed, the gale came sweeping on with the fury of a whirlwind, and in less time than I have been describing the event, the little craft was thrown on her beam-ends, her masts and sails lying flat upon the surface of the sea, and the water pouring in at every hatchway and scuttle. I clambered to the weather side of the ship, and seeing that she must go down in a few minutes, set my first lieutenant at work to extricate the only boat that was available—the weather-quarter boat, all the others being submerged—from her fastenings, to save as much life as possible. This was fortunately done, and the boat being put in charge of a midshipman, the non-combatant officers, as the surgeon and paymaster; the midshipmen, and such of the boys of the ship as could not swim, were permitted to get into her. So perfect was the discipline, though death, within the next ten minutes, stared every man in the face, that there was no rush for this boat. A large man was even ordered out of her, to make room for two lads, who could not swim, and he obeyed the order as a matter of course! This boat having shoved off from the sinking ship, the order was given, “Every man save himself, who can!” whereupon there was a simultaneous plunge into the now raging sea, of a hundred men and more, each struggling for his life. The ship sank out of sight in a moment afterward. We were in twenty fathoms of water. Divesting myself of all my clothing, except my shirt and drawers, I plunged into the sea with the rest, and, being a good swimmer, struck out for and reached a piece of grating, which had floated away from the ship as she went down. Swimming along, with one arm resting on this grating, I felt one of my feet touch something, and, at the same moment, heard a voice exclaiming, “It is I, Captain; it is Parker, the second lieutenant—give me a part of your grating, I am a good swimmer, and we shall get along the better together.” I, accordingly, shared my grating with Parker, and we both struck out, manfully, for the shore, distant no more than about a mile; but, unfortunately, the now raging gale was sweeping down parallel with the coast, and we were compelled to swim at right angles with the waves and the wind, if we would save ourselves; for once swept past the coast of the island, and the open sea lay before us, whence there was no rescue!
As we would rise upon the top of a wave, and get a view of the “promised land,” the reader may imagine how anxious our consultations were, as to whether we were gaining, or losing ground! In the meantime, the boat, which had shoved off from the ship, as described, had reached the island, half-swamped, and discharging her passengers, and freeing herself from water as soon as possible, pushed out again into the raging caldron of waters, under the gallant midshipman, who had charge of her, in the endeavor to rescue some of the drowning crew. She came, by the merest accident, upon Parker and myself! We were hauled into her more dead than alive, and after she had picked up two, or three others—all that could now be seen—she again returned to the shore. My first lieutenant, Mr. G. L. Claiborne, was saved, as by a miracle, being dashed on shore—he having struck out, in the opposite direction, for the mainland—between two ledges of rock, separated only by a span of sand beach. If he had been driven upon the rocks, instead of the beach, he must have been instantly dashed in pieces. The reader will, perhaps, pardon me, for having remembered these eventful scenes of my life, as I wrote in my journal, on board the leaky little Sumter, amid the howling of another gale, the “eighth day of December.”
On this eighth day of December, 1861, however, the record is very different, it being as follows: “At ten A. M. descried a sail from the deck, startlingly close to; so thick has been the weather. The stranger being a bark, taunt-rigged, with sky-sail poles, and under top-sails, we mistook him at first for a cruiser, and raised our smoke-stack, and started the fires in the furnaces. Having done this, we approached him somewhat cautiously, keeping the weather-gauge of him, and showed him the United States colors. He soon hoisted the same. Getting a nearer view of him, we now discovered him to be a whaler. The engineer at once discontinued his “firing up,” and the smoke-stack was again lowered, to its accustomed place. Upon being boarded, the bark proved to be the Eben. Dodge, twelve days out, from New Bedford, and bound on a whaling voyage to the Pacific Ocean. She had experienced a heavy gale, had sprung some of her spars, and was leaking badly—hence the easy sail she had been under. Although the sea was still very rough, and the weather lowering, we got on board from the prize, some water, and provisions, clothing, and small stores. The supply of pea-jackets, whalers’ boots, and flannel over-shirts, which our paymaster had been unable to procure in the West Indies, was particularly acceptable to us, battling, as we now were, with the gales of the North Atlantic, in the month of December. We brought away from her, also, two of her fine whale-boats, so valuable in rough weather; making room for them on deck, by the side of the Sumter’s launch. The crew of the Dodge, consisting of twenty-two persons, made a considerable addition to our small community. We fired the prize at half-past six, P. M., as the shades of evening were closing in, and made sail on our course. The flames burned red and lurid in the murky atmosphere, like some Jack-o’-lantern; now appearing, and now disappearing, as the doomed ship rose upon the top, or descended into the abyss of the waves.
Having now forty-three prisoners on board, and there never being, at one time, so many of the Sumter’s crew on watch, it became necessary for me to think of precautions. It would be easy for forty-three courageous men, to rise upon a smaller number, sleeping carelessly about the decks, and wrest from them the command of the ship. Hitherto I had given the prisoners the run of the ship, putting no more restrictions upon them, than upon my own men, but this could no longer be. I therefore directed my first lieutenant to put one-half of the prisoners in single irons—that is, with manacles on the wrists only—alternately, for twenty-four hours at a time. The prisoners, themselves, seeing the necessity of this precaution, submitted cheerfully to the restraint—for as such only they viewed it—and not as an indignity.
We received another supply of late newspapers, by the Dodge. They were still filled with jubilations over Dupont’s great naval victory. We learned, too, that New England had been keeping, with more than usual piety and pomp, the great National festival of “Thanksgiving,” which the Puritan has substituted for the Christian Christmas. The pulpit thundered war and glory, the press dilated upon the wealth and resources of the Universal Yankee Nation, and hecatombs of fat pigs and turkeys fed the hungry multitudes—pulpit, press, pig, and turkey, all thanking God, that the Puritan is “not like unto other men.”