The exploits of the rebel steamer Alabama, so destructive to our commerce and so humiliating to our pride as a great naval power, sufficiently attest the vital importance of the element of speed in ships of war. Her capacity under steam is beyond that of our best vessels, and she therefore becomes, at her pleasure, utterly inaccessible to anything we may send to pursue her. We have built our steamers strong and heavy; but proportionately slow and clumsy. The Alabama could not safely encounter any one of them entitled to the name of a regular cruiser; but she does not intend to risk such a contest, and, most unfortunately for us, she cannot be compelled to meet it. Of what real use are all the costly structures of our navy with the tremendous ordnance which they carry, if this comparatively insignificant craft can go and come when and where she will, and sail through and around our fleets without the possibility of being interrupted? They are perfectly well suited to remain stationary and aid us in blockading the Southern ports; but the frequent escape of fast steamers running the blockade, serves still further to demonstrate the great and palpable deficiency in the speed of our ships of war. We may start a hundred of our best steamers on the track of the Alabama, and, without an accident, they can never overtake her. The only alternative is to accept the lesson which her example teaches, and to surpass her in those qualities which constitute her efficiency and make her formidable as a foe. This we must do, or we must quietly surrender our commerce to her infamous depredations, and acknowledge ourselves beaten on the seas by the rebel confederacy without an open port, and without anything worthy to be called a navy. The ability of our naval heroes, and their skill and valor, so nobly illustrated on several occasions during the present war, will be utterly unavailing against superior celerity of motion. Their just pride must be humbled, and their patriotic hearts must chafe with vexation, so long as the terrible rebel rover continues to command the seas, as she will not fail to do so long as we are unable to cope with her in activity and speed. Nor is it certain we have yet known the worst. Ominous appearances abroad, and thick-coming rumors brought by every arrival, indicate the construction in England of numerous other ships like the Alabama, destined to run the blockade and afterward to join that renowned cruiser in her work of destruction. Stores of cotton held in Southern ports offer a temptation to the cupidity of foreign adventurers which will command capital to any amount, and the best skill of English engineers and builders will be enlisted to make the enterprise successful—a skill not embarrassed by bureaucratic inertia and stolidity.
Let the genius of American constructors and engineers be brought to bear on the subject, and the important problem will be solved in sixty days. Indeed, there are plans in existence, at this very hour, by which the desired end could be at once accomplished. But the inertia of official authority, and especially of the bureaus in the Navy Department, is such that any novel idea, however demonstrably good and valuable, is usually doomed to battle for years against opposition of all kinds before it can hope to secure an introduction. In all probability, the war will have been ended before anything of great importance ever can be accomplished through those channels. The adoption of the Monitor principle was not due to the skill and intelligence found in official quarters; it was forced upon the Navy Department from the outside. And like the boa constrictor, after having swallowed its prey, the Department must sluggishly repose until that meal is digested before another can be taken. One idea, of the magnitude of this, is enough for the present crisis. We shall not have another, if the stubborn resistance and fixity of ideas in the bureaus can prevent it. The invulnerability of the Monitors, and the peculiar arrangement by which this important end is obtained, are but one of the items necessary to make up the complete efficiency of war steamers. They are only one half what is required. They accomplish one of the great desiderata in armaments afloat; but they leave another equally important demand utterly unsatisfied. There is a counterpart to this achievement—its complement, equally indispensable to the efficiency of the navy, and waiting to be placed by the side of the recent improvement. It must and will be brought forth, whether the naval authorities assist or oppose. American genius, only give it fair play, is equal to all emergencies.
The immense activity of thought and ingenuity elicited by the war, and extending to all the departments of enterprise appropriate to the great crisis, is a phenomenon peculiar to the American people. It could be exhibited nowhere else, to the same extent, among civilized nations, because nowhere else is the same stimulus applied with equal directness to the popular masses. The operation of this peculiar cause is conspicuously plain. The Government of the United States is the people's Government; the war is emphatically the people's war. Every man feels that he has a personal interest in it. He understands, more or less clearly, the whole question involved, and has fixed opinions, and perhaps strong feelings, in regard to it. His friends and neighbors and brothers are in the army, and they have gone thither voluntarily, perhaps impelled by enlightened and conscientious convictions of duty. His sympathies follow them; he ardently prays for their success; and he is stimulated to provide, as well as he can, for their comfort. All other business being greatly interrupted, if not wholly suspended, he thinks continuously of the mighty operations of the war. He dwells on them night and day, and in the laboratory of his active mind, excited by the mighty stimulus of personal and patriotic feeling natural to the occasion, he produces those extraordinary combinations which distinguish the present era.
In addition to these impulses which operate so generally, there is the still more universal and all-pervading love of gain which stimulates his inventive faculties, and causes them to operate in the direction in which his hopes and sympathies are turned. Aroused by motives of all kinds, the whole mind and heart of the country is absorbed in the great contest, and all its energies are applied in every conceivable way to the work of war. The man who carries the gun and uses it on the battle field is not more earnestly engaged in this work than he who racks his brain and sifts his teeming ideas for the purpose of making the instrument more destructive. Even the victims who fall in the deadly strife and give their mangled bodies to their country, are not more truly martyrs to a glorious cause than the inventors who sometimes sacrifice themselves in the course of their perilous experiments, or by the slower process of mental and physical exhaustion during the long years of 'hope deferred,' while vainly seeking to make known the value of their devices. A great power is at work, operating on the character and capacity of each individual, and affecting each according to the infinite diversity which prevails among men. A common enthusiasm, or, at least, a common excitement pervades the whole community to its profoundest depths, and arouses all its energy and all its intellect, whatever that energy and intellect may be capable of doing. It carries multitudes into the army full of patriotic ardor; it inspires others with grand ideas, which they seek to embody in combinations of power, useful and effective in the great work which is the task of the nation, and for the accomplishment of which all noble hearts are laboring earnestly and incessantly.
But in this tempestuous hour, as in more peaceful times, good and bad ideas, valuable and worthless devices, noble and generous as well as sinister and mercenary purposes are mingled in the vast multitude of projects which are presented for acceptance and adoption. The power of the nation is magnified by the impulse which arouses it; but in its exaltation it still retains its errors and defects. It is the same people, with all their characteristic faults and virtues, stimulated to mighty exertions in a sacred cause, who have been so often engaged in petty partisan contests, swayed by dishonest leaders, and carried astray by the base intrigues of ambition and selfishness. Yet, as the masses, at all times, have had no interest but that of the nation which they chiefly constitute, and have sought nothing but what they at least considered to be the public good, so even now, in these mad and perilous times, the predominating sentiment and purpose of the people, in whatever sphere they move, are, on the whole, good and worthy of approval. Every one must at least pretend to be controlled by honest and patriotic motives; and in such an emergency hypocrisy cannot possibly be universal or even predominant. Although men may seek chiefly their own interest and profit, they must do so through some effort of public usefulness. They must commend themselves, their works, and ideas, as of superior importance to the cause of the country; and in this universal struggle and competition—this mighty effervescence of popular thought and action, it would be strange and unexampled, if some great, new conceptions should not dawn upon us. The very condition, physical, social, and moral, of our twenty millions of people in the loyal States is unlike all that has ever preceded it. Their general intelligence, the result of universal education, makes available their unlimited freedom, and establishes their capacity for great achievements. The present momentous occasion makes an imperative demand upon all their highest faculties, and they cannot fail to respond in a manner which will satisfy every just expectation.
What the Government has undertaken in this crisis is worthy of a great people and springs from the large ideas habitual to Americans. The blockade of the whole Southern coast, with its vast shore line, and its intricate network of inlets, harbors, and rivers; the controlling of the mighty Mississippi from Cairo to the gulf; the campaigns in Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas; and the pending attacks on Charleston and Savannah—these gigantic and tremendous operations have something of that grandeur which is familiar to our thoughts—which, indeed, constitutes the staple of the ordinary American speech, apparently having all the characteristics of exaggerated jesting and idle boast. We frequently hear our enthusiastic countrymen talk of anchoring Great Britain in one of our northern lakes. They speak contemptuously of the petty jurisdictions of European powers contrasted with the magnificent domain of our States, and they sneer at the rivers of the old continent as mere rills by the side of the mighty 'father of waters.' The men whose very jests are on a scale of such magnitude, do not seem to find the extensive military operations too large for their serious thoughts. No American considers them beyond our power, or for one moment hesitates to admit their ultimate success. No difficulties discourage us, no disasters appal. We move on with indomitable will and determination, looking through all the obstacles to the grand result as already accomplished. Does slavery stand in the way, and cotton seek to usurp the throne of universal empire, dictating terms to twenty millions of freemen, and demanding the acquiescence of the world? The first is annihilated by a word proclaiming universal liberation; the second is blockaded in his ports, surrounded by a wall of fire, suffocated and strangled, and dragged helpless and insensible from his imaginary throne. A proud and desperate aristocracy, rich and powerful, and correspondingly confident, undertake to measure strength with the democratic millions whom they despise. These Northern people, scorned and detested, have ideas—grand and magnificent as well as practical ideas, nurtured by universal education and unlimited freedom of thought and act. The fierce and relentless aristocracy rave in their very madness, and defy the people whom they seek to destroy; but these bear down upon the haughty enemy, slowly and deliberately—awkwardly and blunderingly, it may be, at first, but learning by experience, and moving on, through all vicissitudes, with the certainty and solemnity of destiny to the hour of final and complete success. The confidence in this grand result dominates every other thought. All ideas and all purposes revolve around it as a centre. It is the internal fire which warms the patriotism, strengthens the purpose, stimulates the invention, sustains the courage, and feeds the undying confidence of the nation, in this, the hour of its desperate struggle for existence.
PROMOTED!
'You will not bid me stay!' he said,
'She calls for me—my native land!
And stay? ah, better to be dead!
A coward dare not ask your hand!
'My crimson sash you'll tie for me,
My belted sword you'll fasten, love!
I swear to both I'll faithful be,
To these below! to God above!
'And if, perchance, my sword shall win
A laurel wreath to crown your name,
He will not count it as my sin,
That I for you have prayed for fame!'