Thought may the minds of men divide,
Love makes the heart of nations one,
And so, thy soldier grave beside,
We honor thee, Virginia's son.
Julia Ward Howe.
CHAPTER XI
WINSLOW AND FARRAGUT
During the Civil War, the Confederates commissioned a large number of privateers to prey upon Northern commerce, the most famous of which was the Alabama, commanded by Raphael Semmes. Semmes had orders to sink, burn, and destroy everything flying the Stars and Stripes, and carried them out in the most thorough-going way. On June 11, 1864, the Alabama entered the harbor of Cherbourg, France. Three days later, the United States sloop-of-war Kearsarge, Captain John A. Winslow, appeared in the offing, and both ships prepared for battle. The Alabama steamed out of the harbor on the morning of Sunday, June 19, and was soon reduced to a wreck by the deadly fire from the Kearsarge. She sank while trying to run inshore.
THE EAGLE AND VULTURE
[June, 1864]
In Cherbourg Roads the pirate lay
One morn in June, like a beast at bay,
Feeling secure in the neutral port,
Under the guns of the Frenchman's fort;
A thieving vulture; a coward thing;
Sheltered beneath a despot's wing.
But there outside, in the calm blue bay,
Our ocean-eagle, the Kearsarge, lay;
Lay at her ease on the Sunday morn,
Holding the Corsair ship in scorn;
With captain and crew in the might of their right,
Willing to pray, but more eager to fight.