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

[476] to touch our mast-heads. The best description I can give of the sea, is that of a number of huge watery cones—for the waves seemed now in the diminished pressure of the atmosphere in the vortex to jut up into the sky, and assume a conical shape— that were dancing an infernal reel, played by some necromancer. They were not running in any given direction, there being no longer any wind to drive them, but were jostling each other, like drunken men in a crowd, and threatening, every moment, to topple, one upon the other.

With watch in hand I noticed the passage of the vortex. It was just thirty minutes in passing. The gale had left us, with the wind from the south-west; the ship, the moment she emerged from the vortex, took the wind from the north-west. We could see it coming upon the waters. The disorderly seas were now no longer jostling each other; the infernal reel had ended; the cones had lowered their late rebellious heads, as they felt the renewed pressure of the atmosphere, and were being driven, like so many obedient slaves, before the raging blast. The tops of the waves were literally cut off by the force of the wind, and dashed hundreds of yards, in blinding spray. The wind now struck us ‘butt and foremost,’ throwing the ship over in an instant, as before, and threatening to jerk the little storm-sail from its bolt-ropes. It was impossible to raise one's head above the rail, and difficult to breathe for a few seconds. We could do nothing but cower under the weather bulwarks, and hold on to the belaying pins, or whatever other objects presented themselves, to prevent being dashed to leeward, or swept overboard. The gale raged, now, precisely as long as it had done before we entered the vortex —two hours—showing how accurately Nature had drawn her circle.

At the end of this time, the Alabama found herself in position No. 3. The reader will observe that she is still on the starboard tack, and that from east, she has brought her head around to nearly west. The storm is upon the point of passing away from her. I now again sent an officer below, to inspect the barometer, and he reported 29. 70; the instrument having risen a little more than an inch in two hours! This, alone, is evidence of the violence of the storm. During the