Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3., page 432

Let us now turn a moment, from the consideration of the struggle on the land, to that of some events of the war on the ocean, carried on by pirate ships, and also some important naval events near Mobile.

We have noticed the organization of a so-called Navy Department by the Conspirators, at Montgomery, early in 1861, the measures taken for providing a naval force, and the commissioning of pirates to prey upon the National property on the ocean.¹ Also the doings of some of these cruisers in the earlier part of the war,² and the aid given to the Conspirators by British ship-builders, within the tacit consent of their Government, in constructing powerful sea-going pirate ships for the Confederate service.³ The latter, as we have observed, were fitted out by British hands, and their commanders bore commissions from the Confederate Government so-called.⁴

These ships were provided with the best armament known to the British marine — Armstrong, Whitworth, Blakely, and other rifled cannon of heaviest weight — which were also liberally furnished to the Confederates for land service, from British arsenals by the swift blockade-runners. By men of the same nation, every other material for destructive use by the pirate

Armstrong gun.⁵

ships, was supplied, even to the most approved fire-balls for burning merchant vessels. These outrages

1 See pages 372 to 374, inclusive, volume I.

2 See pages 555 to 558, inclusive, volume I.

3 See pages 567 to 571, inclusive, volume II.

4 See page 570, volume II. The Confederate Navy Department was organized with S. R. Mallory, formerly a National Senator, at its head, and he continued in office until the close of the war. His department according to “A Register of the Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the Navy of the Confederate States, to January 1, 1864,” printed at Richmond, was composed as follows: S. R. Mallory, Secretary of the Navy, with a chief clerk, three inferior clerks, and messenger; an Office of Orders and Details; Office of Ordnance and Hydrography; Office of Provisions and Clothing, and Office of Medicine and Surgery. The Register contains severa hundred names of officers, including all ranks known in our navy, from admiral down. There was but one admiral (Franklin Buchanan), twelve captains, three provisional captains, and forty-one commanders. A large number of these were formerly in the National service.

5 so called from its inventor, Sir William Armstrong.

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Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

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Chapter 16: career of the Anglo-Confederate pirates.--closing of the Port of Mobile — political affairs.