The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter / From the Private Journals and Other Papers of Commander R. Semmes, C.S.N., and Other Officers

by Raphael Semmes

You will receive a further communication from me on this subject by the next mail.

The Duke of Newcastle to Sir P. Wodehouse. March 10, 1864.

In my despatch of the 4th instant, I instructed you to restore the Tuscaloosa to the Lieutenant of the Confederate States who lately commanded her, or, if he should have left the Cape, then to retain her until she could be handed over to some person having authority from Captain Semmes, of the Alabama, or from the Government of the Confederate States, to receive her.

I have now to explain that this decision was not founded on any general principle respecting the treatment of prizes captured by the cruisers of either belligerent, but on the peculiar circumstances of the case. The Tuscaloosa was allowed to enter the port of Cape Town and to depart, the instructions of the 4th of November not having arrived at the Cape before her departure. The Captain of the Alabama was thus entitled to assume that he might equally bring her a second time into the same harbor, and it becomes unnecessary to discuss whether, on her return to the Cape, the Tuscaloosa still retained the character of a prize, or whether she had lost that character, and had assumed that of an armed tender to the Alabama, and whether that new character, if properly established and admitted, would have entitled her to the same privilege of admission which might be accorded to her captor, the Alabama.

Her Majesty's Government have, therefore, come to the opinion, founded on the special circumstances of this particular case, that the Tuscaloosa ought to be released, with a warning, however, to the Captain of the Alabama, that the ships of war of the belligerents are not to be allowed to bring prizes into British ports, and that it rests with Her Majesty's Government to decide to what vessels that character belongs.

In conclusion, I desire to assure you that neither in this despatch, nor in that of the 4th November, I have desired in any degree to censure you for the course you have pursued. The questions on which you have been called upon to decide, are questions of difficulty, on which doubts might properly have been entertained, and I am by no means surprised that the conclusions to which you were led have not, in all instances, been those which have been adopted on fuller consideration by Her Majesty's Government.

Captain Semmes, C.S.N., to Rear-Admiral Sir B. Walker, dated C.S.S. Alabama; Table Bay, March 22, 1864.

Sir:—I was surprised to learn upon my arrival at this port of the detention by your order of the Confederate States barque Tuscaloosa, a tender to this ship. I take it for granted that you detained her by order of the Home Government, as no other supposition is consistent with my knowledge of the candour of your character—the Tuscaloosa having been formerly received by you as a regularly commissioned tender, and no new facts appearing in the case to change your decision. Under these circumstances I shall not demand of you the restoration of that vessel, with which demand you would not have the power to comply, but will content myself with putting this my protest against this detention on the record of the case for the future consideration of our respective Governments.

Earl Russell, in reaching the decision which he has communicated to you, must surely have misapprehended the facts, otherwise I cannot conceive him capable of so misapplying the law. The facts are briefly these:—1st. The Tuscaloosa was formerly the enemy's ship Conrad, lawfully captured by me on the high seas, as a recognized belligerent; 2dly. She was duly commissioned by me as a tender to the Confederate States steamer Alabama, then, as now, under my command; and 3dly. She entered English waters not only without intention of violating Her Britannic Majesty's orders of neutrality, but was received with hospitality, and no question was raised as to her right to enter under the circumstances. These were the facts up to the time of Earl Russell's issuing to you his order in the premises. Let us consider, then, a moment, and see if we can derive from them, or any of them, just ground for the extraordinary decision to which Earl Russell has come.

My right to capture and the legality of the capture will not be denied. Nor will you deny, in your experience as a naval officer, my right to commission this, or any other ship lawfully in my possession, as a tender to my principal ship. Your admirals do this every day, on distant stations; and the tender, from the time of her being put in commission, wears a pennant, and is entitled to the immunities and privileges of a ship of war, the right of capture inclusive.