THE CRUISE OF THE ALABAMA?*
DIMING her brief, though busy, career of two years the Alabama' attracted a considerable amount of attention and interest in this country. Had we known that we should ultimately have to pay the bill, our interest in her exploits would have been, perhaps, of a less flattering character, and our attention might have taken a more practical form. As it was, being blissfully unconscious at the time of any respon- sibility, and haunted by no dreams of future "l Alabama' claims," Geneva arbitrators, and a compensation of over three millions sterling, we watched her course of devastation across the ocean with more admiration for her audacity than sym- pathy with her victims. For thirty years and more the Alabama' herself has been lying at the bottom of the English Channel, and more than twenty years have passed since we paid the price of her diversions, so that it is possible now to look back upon her his,- tory in a fairly cheerful spirit and ask ourselves whether, since it was played at our expense, the game bad any interest or lesson worthy of our remembrance. But perhaps it would be well, first of all, to briefly sketch the history of the 'Alabama' for the benefit of any one who may have forgotten it. In May, 1862, there was launched on the Mersey a vessel known, during the time of its construction in the Liverpool doakya.rds, as "No, 290," • Two Years on the ' Alabama.' By Arthur finclair. Lon,:en Gay and Bird.
and pretty generally understood to be built for the Con- federate service. She was a screw-steamer, with full sailing powers, her tonnage being about one thousand, and her possible speed a little more than thirteen knots,—a rate in those days considered extremely high. She never re- turned from her trial trip, for the good reason that a few hours after she was launched the British Government made up its mind to detain her, but shaped her course for the Azores, where she was taken over by a few Confederate officers and converted by them into a Confederate war-ship.
Flying the Confederate flag, she was commanded by Captain Semmes—the sole originator of her plan of warfare—
officered by American naval officers, and manned, for the most part, by British seamen who had yielded to the persuasion of Semmes or the attraction of high pay. Her method of proceeding was a very simple one. She hoisted the British flag and decoyed the Yankee merchant ships within her reach, or—if the latter proved too wary— gave chase and persuaded them to stop by a blank cartridge, or, if necessary, a shot through the rigging. She then hoisted the Confederate flag, and boarding her victim decided whether it could be considered as a prize or not. Thanks to the skill with which her captain eluded the Federal war-ships, the 'Alabama' succeeded in playing havoc with the United States commerce. During the two years that she was afloat she captured more than seventy of the Northern vessels, burning fifty-seven of them and releasing on ransom-bond the rest which happened to have neutral cargo on board. Besides the actual loss which she thus inflicted upon the Northern shipping, she thoroughly demoralised it by the terror of her name, obliging large fleets of merchant ships to lie idle for weeks together in some neutral port as long as it pleased her to remain in the neighbourhood. Only twice did she risk an engagement,—the first time with the 'Hatteras,' a small Federal blockading ship, which, owing to its inferiority in guns, was sunk by the 'Alabama' in less than fifteen minutes ; the second and last time with the ' Kearsage,' about her equal in size and armament, whom she challenged outside the harbour of Cherbourg. The duel between the two vessels was of short duration ; after an hour's hard pounding the Alabama' was sent to the bottom, her crew being rescued partly by her opponent and partly by an English yacht lying near them.
Such a career can hardly be called a glorious one, and yet a good deal of romance has been attached to the story of the 'Alabama.' The author of the book before us has succeeded rather in dispelling that romance than in justifying it. Lieutenant Arthur Sinclair joined the 'Alabama' at the Azores, and never left her till she sank off Cherbourg, so that he is well qualified to tell her story; but in spite of the enthusiasm which he has brought to bear upon the task, and the dramatic, not to say florid, style in which he has described life on the Confederate rover, his account of her two years' cruise is almost as prosaic as the dry and businesslike statement once rendered by her commanding officer, Captain Raphael Semmes. Moreover, the reticence of Captain Semmes at least left a certain atmosphere of mystery over the real history of his famous craft, which altogether disappears in the hands of Lieutenant Sinclair. He makes his readers rather too much at home upon the deck and in the ward- room of the Alabama ; ' there is hardly a member of the crew to whom they are not introduced, and hardly a detail of the ship's life which is not pressed upon their notice. The author is not very modest about the outward graces and moral qualities of his shipmates, and one gets a little weary of hearing their praises perpetually sung, and being sum. moned to admire a valour which was hardly ever put to the test. The only remarkable figure upon the 'Alabama' was her captain, a strange, saturnine, and masterful character, whose wonderful seamanship was only equalled by his know- ledge of international law. It is evident, from the author's description of the man, that the whole success of the enter- prise was entirely owed to the rare genius he displayed in evading the enemy's cruisers and maintaining the discipline and efficiency of his own ship. The recital of the actual exploits of the Alabama' becomes a little monotonous, and one quotation will suffice to illustrate most of the contents of Lieutenant Sinclair's book r- " The sail gives us a long chase, and is only overhauled after repeated warnings in the way of blank cartridges, and finally the ominous screech of a rifle-shell. The wind has been strong, necessitating, as usual, a long chase, and, as usual, working Old Beeswax ' into a temper, which later will expend itself on the unfortunate skipper of the prize, if not in a manner serious, at least facetious ; for Semmes sometimes lets off the explosion in some such words Well, Captain ! so you wanted to be un- sociable! Didn't want to call to see me ! Well, never mind, I've come to you. By the way, Captain, you had probably forgotten my little tea-kettle below, where I get my hot water. No use, skipper, running. Steam will fetch you when canvas fails.' The screech of the rifle-shell has had its effect ; and the vessels are within a stone's throw of each other, motionless, held by the backing of the after-sail. Speculation is rife as to whether neutral cargo or otherwise. Our sea-lawyer will soon settle this point, for here comes the boarding-master back, with the skipper of our victim bringing along the vessel's papers. The suspense is soon over, and we need not ask any questions. The visiting Captain is making no motion to leave the side of our ship as he comes up the companion ladder from the cabin minus his ship's papers, and Fulham returns to the prize with orders to apply the torch. Some queer pranks are cut now on board the captured vessel. We are in need of small stores.
Overboard go pianos, pier-glasses, cases of fine boots and shoes, etc., articles of high value, for what ? Why, to get at a few boxes of soap Oh! War is the most deplorable misfortune that can overtake a people, and senseless in that the final arrangement has to be reached after all by peaceful methods. We have transferred the crew of the Amazonian, relieved her of such stores as were needed in our several departments, applied the torch, and are now standing along under reduced sail in the strong breeze."
The captain's facetiousness and the lieutenant's moralising seem about on a par with each other. It is satisfactory to learn, however, that Captain Semmes was always most careful to respect the "personal property" of crew and passengers, and that he allowed a very liberal interpretation to be put on the term. It may very well have happened that more than one skipper, of no very scrupulous honesty, was not sorry to have fallen into his hands. The proceedings were sometimes varied by the presence of ladies on the captured vessel, in which case our author invariably gives us to understand that the charms of the captors entirely reconciled the fair prisoners to the unpleasant side of the adventure.
It was impossible, in spite of all the efforts of a master's mate, whose faculty for distinguishing a Yankee ship from another amounted almost to genius, to avoid overhauling a great many neutral vessels whose papers did not justify arrest, and the incessant labour involved in boarding some hundreds of vessels, sometimes in heavy weather, told rather hardly upon the crew of the Alabama.' However, they seemed to have buoyed themselves up with delusive hopes of their share in prize-money, never to be realised, and to have formed a very contented and happy family party on board. The only prize-money that was ultimately distributed among them came from the sale of a colleation of more than seventy chronometers taken from the captured vessels and preserved by Captain Semmes with a kind of superstitious reverence. They, and the personal effects of the crew, were left on shore when the 'Alabama' steamed out of Cherbourg to her first and last real fight. Our author makes the most of the dramatic character of the duel with the Kearsage ; ' but the odds were fairly equal, and the defeated vessel gave no striking proof of her powers as a fighting machine. All that can be. said for the Alabama' is that her end was eminently re- spectable,—more respectable at any rate than her life. The success of her life's work suggests matter for reflection. The author writes in one place :-
"AU this panic was the result of the existence of one insigni. cant vessel. Well may the value of even one formidable cruiser of the present day force itself on the powers that be. What a havoc she would make against the commerce of such a nation as England or the German Empire ! If we may take the career of one ship as a criterion, the number and power of the pursuers does not seem to be a factor towards success. The difficulty of overhauling seems the puzzle. A ship at sea is like a needle in a haystack."
Nevertheless, we do not think a seeond Alabama ' will be very long-lived. The conditions are too much changed, especially as regards the average rate of speed, a rate which would render auxiliary sail-power quite useless, and oblige a regular call upon coaling-stations. Lieutenant Sinclair tells his story pleasantly enough, in spite of a very unattractive literary style. He is doubtless better skilled in navigation than in writing books, and it is hardly fair to subject his work to very severe criticism, either in the matter of grammar or construction. Still, though we admire his very original use of the term sui generis, also his new rendering of Danaos et
Jona ferentes, we cannot but deplore his love of rather tawdry ornamentation. "Foot," for instance, may be a common word, but we still prefer it to "pedal extremity." His book is supplied with some thirty portraits of members of the 4Alabama's ' crew, whose outward appearance is fully in keeping with the mildness of manners upon which the author so eagerly insists.
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