Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

The list of hostages, as returned by General Winder, was as follows: Colonels Corcoran, Lee, Cogswell, Wilcox, Woodruff, and Wood; Lieutenant-Colonels Bowman, and Neff; Majors Potter, Revere, and Vogdes, and Captains Ricketts, McQuade, and Rockwood. These measures had the desired effect; the necessity, that the Federal Government was under of conciliating the Irish interest, contributing powerfully thereto—Colonel Cor coran, the first hostage named, being an Irishman of some note and influence, in New York. President Lincoln was accordingly obliged to take back his proclamation, and the Savannah prisoners, and Smith, were put on the footing of prisoners of war. But this recantation of an attempted barbarism had not been honestly made. It was not the generous taking back of a wrong principle, by a high-minded people. The tiger, which had come out of his jungle, in quest of blood, had only been driven back by fear; his feline, and bloodthirsty disposition would, of course, crop out again, as soon as he ceased to dread the huntsman's rifle. Whilst we were strong, but little more was heard of ‘pirates,’ and ‘piracy,’ except through Mr. Seward's long-winded and frantic despatches to the British Government, on the subject of the Alabama, but when we became weak, the slogan was taken up again, and rung, in all its changes, by an infuriated people.

To return now to the Sumter. Our decks were crowded with visitors, on the afternoon of our arrival; some of these coming off to shake us warmly by the hand, out of genuine sympathy, whilst others had no higher motive than that of mere curiosity. The officers of the garrison were very civil to us, but we were amused at their diplomatic precaution, in coming to visit us in citizens' dress. There are no people in the world, perhaps, who attach so much importance to matters of mere form and ceremony, bluff and hearty as John Bull is, as the English people. Lord Russell had dubbed us a ‘so-called’ government, and this expression had become a law to all his subordinates; no official visits could be exchanged, no salutes reciprocated, and none other of the thousand and one courtesies of red-tapedom observed toward us; and, strange to say, whilst all this nonsense of form was being practised, the substance of nationality, that is to say, the acknowledgment