"Great excitement on board, the Kearsarge having made her appearance off the eastern entrance of the breakwater, at about 11 A.M. Sent an order on shore immediately for coal (one hundred tons), and sent down the yards on the mizen-mast, and the topgallant yards, and otherwise preparing the ship for action.
"Wednesday, June 15th.—The Admiral sent off his aide to say that he considered my application for repairs withdrawn upon my making application for coal, to which I assented. We commenced coaling this afternoon. The Kearsarge is still in the offing; she has not been permitted to receive on board the prisoners landed by me, to which I had objected in a letter to the Admiral. Mailed a note yesterday afternoon for Flagofficer Barrow, informing him of my intention to go out to engage the enemy as soon as I could make my preparations, and sent a written notice to the U.S. consul, through Mr. Bonfils, to the same effect. My crew seems to be in the right spirit, a quiet spirit of determination pervading both officers and men. The combat will no doubt be contested and obstinate; but the two ships are so equally matched, I do not feel at liberty to decline it. God defend the right, and have mercy upon the souls of those who fall, as many of us must!"
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It has been denied that the captain of the Kearsarge sent a challenge to the Alabama. Captain Semmes, indeed, says nothing of it himself. What the Kearsarge did—and with a particular object, there cannot be a doubt—was, as recorded, to enter the breakwater at the east end, and "at about 11 A.M., on Tuesday, she passed through the west end without anchoring." These are the words of a French naval captain, who speaks of what he saw. Few will deny that among brave men this would be considered something equivalent to a challenge. It was more than a challenge—it was a defiance. The officer we have quoted adds, that "anyone could then see her outside protection." It is easy to see everything after the event. The Kearsarge looked bulky in her middle section to an inspecting eye; but she was very low in the water, and that she was armed to resist shot and shell it was impossible to discern. It is distinctly averred by the officers of the Alabama that from their vessel the armour of the Kearsarge could not be distinguished. There were many reports abroad that she was protected on her sides in some peculiar way; but all were various and indistinct, and to a practical judgment untrustworthy. Moreover, a year previous to this meeting, the Kearsarge had lain at anchor close under the critical eye of Captain Semmes. He had on that occasion seen that his enemy was not artificially defended. He believes now that the reports of her plating and armour were so much harbour-gossip, of which during his cruises he had experienced enough.
Now the Kearsarge was an old enemy, constantly in pursuit, and her appearance produced, as Captain Semmes has written, great excitement on board the Alabama. And let us here call attention to what the officers and men of the illustrious Confederate ship had been enduring for the space of two years. During all this time they had been homeless, and without a prospect of reaching home. They had been constantly crowded with prisoners, who devoured their provender—of which they never had any but a precarious supply. Their stay in any neutral harbour was necessarily short as the perching of a hawk on a bough. Like the hawk's in upper air, the Alabama's safety as well as her business was on the high seas. Miserably fed, hunted, eluding, preying, destroying—is this a life that brave men would willingly have to be continuous? They were fortified by the assurance of a mighty service done to their country. They knew that they inflicted tremendous damage upon their giant foe. They were, perhaps, supported by the sense that their captain's unrivalled audacity had done more harm to the United States than the operations of many thousand men. But their days were wretched; their task was sickening; it demands an imagination that can fix its eye upon stern, barren duty as a planet never darkened, always visible, for such a life as this to be carried on uncomplainingly and without a passionate longing for the bare exercise of hard blows. In addition, they read of the reproaches heaped upon them by comfortable shore-men. They were called pirates, and other gloomy titles. The execrations of certain of the French and English, and of all the United States press, sounded in their ears across the ocean; but from their own country they heard little. The South was a sealed land in comparison with the rest of the world. Opinion spoke loudest in Europe, and though they knew that they were faithfully, gallantly, and marvellously serving their country in her sore need, the absence of any immediate comfort, either physical or moral, helped to make them keenly sensitive to virulent criticism, even to that of avowed and clamorous enemies.
It was this state of mind through the whole crew which caused the excitement on board the Alabama when the Kearsarge steamed in and out of the breakwater. Now, and at last, our day of action has come! was the thought of every man on board. The chivalrous give and take of battle was glorious to men who had alternately hunted and fled for so dreary a term. They trusted for victory; but defeat itself was to be a vindication of their whole career, and they welcomed the chances gladly.
The application for coal at a neutral port was in itself a renunciation of any further hospitality from the harbour, as Captain Semmes was aware. The Port-admiral contented himself with pointing it out to him. A duel is not an unpopular thing in France. The prospective combat of two apparently equally-matched ships of war would have been sufficient to have melted any scruples entertained by Frenchmen in authority; they were only too happy to assist towards an engagement between Federals and Confederates, the latter being as popular in France as in England, to say nothing for the sympathy excited for the Alabama. French officers agreed with Captain Semmes in thinking that there was marked offence and defiance in the manoeuvres of the Kearsarge, and that he could hardly do less than go out and meet her. We have done our best to show that the Captain, whether in his heart he felt the mere chances to be equal or not, was anxious to persuade himself that they were so. He knew his opponent to be the heavier in ship, battery, and crew, but "I did not know that she was also iron-clad," he says. Personally he desired the battle; the instigations of an enthusiastic crew, unanimous for action, as also of friendly foreign officers, are to be taken into account. Those who venture, now that we are enabled to measure by results, to cast blame upon him, should first, in justice, throw themselves into his position. President Davis may deplore the loss of a vessel that did a mighty service, but we doubt not that he will endorse the honourable words of Mr. Mason in his justification of Captain Semmes, and rejoice that the man who was the ship, is saved for further service to the Confederacy.
On Sunday, in the morning, being the 19th June, the Alabama steamed out of Cherbourg harbour by the opening to the west, and steered straight to meet the Kearsarge, accompanied by the French iron-clad La Couronne. The late foul weather had given way to a gentle breeze, and the subsiding swell of the Atlantic wave under a clear sky made the day eminently favourable for the work in hand. All Cherbourg was on the heights above the town and along the bastions and the mole. Never did knightly tournament boast a more eager multitude of spectators. It chanced fortunately that an English steam-yacht, the Deerhound, with its owner, Mr. John Lancaster, and his family, on board, was in harbour at the time. The Deerhound followed the Alabama at a respectful distance, and was the closest witness of the fight. Some French pilot-boats hung as near as they considered prudent. At the limit of neutral waters the Alabama parted company with her, escort, and the Couronne returned to within a league of the shore.
Left to herself at last, the Alabama made her final preparations for the coming struggle. Mustering all his ship's company upon the deck, Captain Semmes addressed them as follows;—