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destroyed, estimated at seven millions of dollars, was the least of the loss to the one and the gain to the other.
It also swelled amazingly the balance of advantages for the insurgents, who were quick to discern and to be encouraged by it. And it was made the topic of special discourses from the pulpit, from which disloyal ministers were continually giving words of encouragement to the conspirators.1
Only a portion of the vessels at the Gosport station were absolutely destroyed.
The New York, on the stocks in one of the ship-houses, was totally consumed.
The Pennsylvania, Dolphin, and Columbia had nothing saved but the lower bottom timbers; the Raritan was burnt to the water's edge; the Merrimack was burnt to her copper-line and sunk; the Germantown was also burnt and sunk; while the useless old United States, in which Decatur won glory, was not injured; and the Plymouth was not burned, but scuttled and sunk.
The same fate overtook the Columbus and Delaware. The Plymouth was afterward raised; so was the Merrimack, and converted into a powerful iron-clad vessel of war.2
The insurgents seized old Fort Norfolk, situated a short distance below the city of Norfolk, on the 21st.
It had been used as a magazine, and contained about three hundred thousand pounds of gunpowder and a large quantity of loaded shells and other missiles.
On the same day, General Taliaferro issued an order prohibiting the Collector of the port of Norfolk from accepting drafts from the National Government, or allowing the removal of money or any thing else from the Custom House.
At the same time troops were hastening to Norfolk from lower Virginia; and on the 22d, three companies of soldiers from Georgia arrived in the express train from Weldon, a portion of whom took post at the Marine Hospital on the Portsmouth side of the river.
The hull of the old ship United States was towed down the river, and moored and sunk in the channel, a mile below Fort Norfolk; and a battery of heavy guns was immediately erected at Sewell's Point, and another on Craney Island, to command the entrance to the Elizabeth River and the harbor of Norfolk.
The insurgents had now secured a most important military position, as well as valuable materials
1 On the 13th of June, 1861, a fast-day proclaimed by Jefferson Davis, Dr. Elliott, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Georgia, preached a sermon on “God's presence with the Confederate States,” in which he gave, as instances of that manifest presence, the ease with which Twiggs, the traitor, accomplished the destruction of the National Army in Texas; the downfall of Fort Sumter; the easy manner in which the “Confederates” had been enabled to plunder the arsenals and seize the forts, mints, and custom houses of the United States, in the absence of competent force to protect them, and the advantages gained through this most dishonorable act of treachery at the Gosport Navy Yard. In all these iniquities the venerable prelate saw “God's presence with the Confederate States,” and spoke of the failure of a handful of men against multitudes, and of human wisdom against the diabolical plottings of perjured men, as the result of fear. “Fear seemed to fall upon our enemies — unaccountable fear,” he said. Then, looking down from that lofty “Presence” to temporal things, the prelate said, referring to the Gosport affair, “Nowhere could this panic have occurred more seasonably for us, because it gave us just what we most needed, arms, and ammunition, and heavy ordnance in great abundance. All this is unaccountable upon any ordinary grounds.” He likened the action of the Government servants, who hastily fired and abandoned the Navy Yard and vessels, to the panic of the Syrians on one occasion, when the Lord, in order to deliver Israel, made them hear a noise like that of a mighty host coming upon them:--“Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight, and left their tents, and their horses, and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life.” The preacher did not heed the wise injunction of the king of Israel (1 Kings, XX. 11):--“Let not him that girdeth on his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.”
2 Report of the Select Committee of the United States Senate for investigating the facts in relation to the loss of the Navy Yard, et coetera, submitted by Senator Hale, of New Hampshire, April 18, 1862.
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