The blockade twice broken.
Again and again the
Confederate Commissioners urged upon
England and
France the rights of their governments under the terms of the
Paris Convention.
It was shown that now in the third year of the alleged blockading,
Flag Officer Ingraham, of the Confederate navy, had attacked the blockading squadron off
Charleston, destroyed some of its vessels, and entirely dispersed the others from view.
The next winter, it may not be amiss at this place to say,
Captain Dixon and crew ran the submarine torpedo boat
Hunley, the first boat of the kind known to naval warfare, under the blockader
Housatonic, a powerful warship, off the harbor of
Charleston.
The
Housatonic and all on board, about 400 persons, went to the bottom, carrying the
Hunley with it. Every blockader, taking fright, fled, and the port was open for several days.
At the same season in which
Ingraham opened the port of
Charleston,
Semmes opened
Galveston.
But neither
England or
France enforced the terms of the
Paris Convention.
In the winter of 1862-63 the improvised navy of the
Confederacy destroyed eleven warships of the
United States, while the
Alabama and the
Sumter drove the merchant marine of the enemy off the high seas.
