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an angry mood, and the day of compromises was evidently at an end. I had made up my mind to retire from the Federal service, at the proper moment, and was only waiting for that moment to arrive. Although I had been born in the State of Maryland, and was reared on the banks of the Potomac, I had been, for many years, a resident citizen of Alabama, having removed to this State, in the year 1841, and settled with my family, on the west bank of the Perdido; removing thence, in a few years, to Mobile. My intention of retiring from the Federal Navy, and taking service with the South, in the coming struggle, had been made known to the delegation in the Federal Congress from Alabama, early in the session of 1860-1. I did not doubt that Maryland would follow the lead of her more Southern sisters, as the cause of quarrel was common with all the Southern States, but whether she did or not, could make no difference with me now, since my allegiance, and my services had become due to another St
ment, with whom I had been associated, and embarked on the afternoon of the same day on which I had received my orders, on board the steamer Southern Republic for Mobile. At Mobile I fell in with Lieutenant Chapman, one of the officers who had been detailed to report to me, and he, being a minute-man like myself, took a hasty leaMobile I fell in with Lieutenant Chapman, one of the officers who had been detailed to report to me, and he, being a minute-man like myself, took a hasty leave of a young wife, and we continued our journey together. I found Mobile, like the rest of the Confederacy, in a great state of excitement. Always one of the truest of Southern cities, it was boiling over with enthusiasm; the young merchants had dropped their daybooks and ledgers, and were forming, and drilling companies, by Mobile, like the rest of the Confederacy, in a great state of excitement. Always one of the truest of Southern cities, it was boiling over with enthusiasm; the young merchants had dropped their daybooks and ledgers, and were forming, and drilling companies, by night and by day, whilst the older ones were discussing questions of finance, and anxiously casting about them, to see how the Confederate Treasury could be supported. The Battle House, at which I stopped for a few hours, previous to taking the steamer for New Orleans, was thronged with young men in military costume, and all seem
it impossible, owing to the stringent orders of neutrality that were being enforced, to do anything in the way of increasing his crew, or refitting his ship. Getting his ship under way, again on the 1st of September, he now resolved to run into Mobile. At two P. M. on the 4th of that month Fort Morgan was made, when it was found that three of the enemy's cruisers lay between the Florida and the bar. Maffitt was assisted on deck, being too weak yet to move without assistance. Having determineo the very walls of the Moro Castle by the Mobile blockading squadron, nine in number. The chase was a most exciting one, but, unfortunately, without the result so much to be desired. It appears that the pirate Maffitt came out of the port of Mobile with as much impudence as he entered it. The steamer seems to have been well punished with shot and shell from the Federal ships, and it is reported that she lost her first lieutenant, and sixteen men killed by a shell from one of the men-of-war.
dication? the reader may ask. Certainly. The enemy has no right to adjudication at all. Courts of Admiralty are not established for him. He has, and can have no standing in such court. He cannot even enter an appearance there, either in person, or by attorney; and if he could, he would have nothing to show, for his very status as an enemy would be sufficient ground for condemning all the property he might claim. It is only neutrals who can claim adjudication, and it is for the benefit of these alone that Courts of Admiralty have been established. And if any neutrals have suffered in the late war, for want of adjudication, the fault is with their own government, and not with the Confederate cruisers, as the reader has just seen. To instance the Cienfuegos cases: what detriment could have arisen to Spain, if she had permitted my prizes to remain within her jurisdiction, in the custody of my own prize agent, until a prize court in New Orleans, or Mobile could have adjudicated them?
that it was impossible for him to catch her. He served in the Georgia, a while, under Captain William Lewis Maury, and, when that ship was laid up and sold, he returned to the Confederate States, and rendered gallant and efficient service, in the last days of the war, in doing what was possible for the defence of Wilmington, against the overwhelming fleet of Porter. Stribling, the third of the Sumter, was assigned by me to Maffitt's command, as already related. He died of yellow fever in Mobile, deeply regretted by the whole service. Evans, the fourth of the Sumter, missed me as Chapman had done, and like Chapman, he took service on board the Georgia, and afterward returned to the Confederate States. He served in the naval batteries on the James River, until the evacuation of Richmond. I took with me to the Alabama, as the reader has seen, my old and well-tried First Lieutenant, Kell. He became the first lieutenant of the new ship. Lieutenant Richard F. Armstrong, of Geo
an. We received from the Parks, sure enough, the mail we had been waiting for. There must have been a barrel-full, and more of newspapers and periodicals, going to the Montevideans and Buenos Ayreans— many of them in the best of Spanish, and all explaining the great moral ideas, on which the Southern people were being robbed of their property, and having their throats cut. We gleaned one gratifying piece of intelligence, however, from these papers. The Pirate Florida had put to sea from Mobile, to assist the British Pirate, in plundering, and burning the innocent merchant-ships of the United States, pursuing their peaceful commerce, as Mr. Charles Francis Adams, so often, and so naively expressed it to Earl Russell. Whilst the Parks was still burning, an English bark passed through the toll-gate, the captain of which was prevailed upon, to take the master of the burning ship, his wife, and two nephews, to London. We were glad, on the poor lady's account, that she was so soon rel
the river, until after dark; and so we held ourselves under cover of the forest, until the proper moment, and then embarked in a small skiff, sending back the greater part of our escort. Our boat was scarcely able to float the numbers that were packed into her. Her gunwales were no more than six inches above the water's edge. Fortunately for us, however, the night was still, and the river smooth, and we pulled over without accident. As we shot within the shadows of the opposite bank, our conductor, before landing, gave a shrill whistle to ascertain whether all was right. The proper response came directly, from those who were to meet us, and in a moment more, we leaped on shore among friends. We found spare horses awaiting us, and my son and myself slept that night under the hospitable roof of Colonel Rose. The next morning the colonel sent us to Woodville, in his carriage, and in four or five days more, we were in Mobile, and I was at home again, after an absence of four years!
aimed that I had not been paroled at all! that I had deceived the paroling officer, and obtained my parole under false pretences; the said paroling officer not dreaming, when he was paroling one Brigadier-General Semmes, that he had the veritable pirate before him. I dispersed my command, on the same afternoon, and with my son, and half a dozen of my officers, a baggage-wagon, and the necessary servants, made my way to Montgomery, in Alabama, and, at that point, took steamer for my home, in Mobile, which I reached in the latter days of May. Andrew Johnson, the Vice-President of the United States, had succeeded Mr. Lincoln as President. He was a Southern man, born in the State of North Carolina, and a citizen of Tennessee. He had been elected to the Senate of the United States, a short time before the breaking out of the war. He had belonged to the Democratic party, and had arisen from a very low origin—his father having belonged to the common class of laborers, and he having lear