The Alabama and the Kearsage.
That has happened which we were confident would happen, as soon as we learned that the
Alabama had gone out to meet the
Kearsage.
She has been sunk, after a desperate resistance — sunk, as the
Yankees, in the true spirit of gasconade, announce, "In 150 fathoms of water,"--as if it made any difference whether she were sunk in one hundred fathoms or one hundred thousand.
As soon as we saw that the weight of metal on board the
Kearsage was so much greater than the weight of metal on board the
Alabama, we could fore see no other result, unless
Captain Semmes could succeed in boarding.
This he would no doubt have effected had he not been crippled by the passage of a shot through the boiler of the
Alabama, early in the action, thus rendering the proper working of the ship impossible.
Foiled in this effort, he had no resource but to fight his ship under all disadvantages, as long as she could float.
This he did. He struck her colors only when she was sinking, and even then with the sole object of saving the lives of his brave and devoted crew.
With a barbarism perfectly characteristic, the
Yankees continued to fire on the
Alabama after she had struck, and while she was rapidly sinking, the object evidently being to destroy as many lives as possible.
She sunk at last, before a Yankee hand had been laid upon her. "Shrined in her own grand element," after a career such as no ship of modern days has run, she sleeps the sleep of glory, to be forgotten when ware are a dream of the past, and the record of battles no longer excites the curiosity or stimulates the order of mankind, but not till then.
The injury she has done the enemy during her long and glorious career is without example in the history of a single ship.
Drake,
Hawkins, Dampierre, Anson, and
Porter, all put together, never took so many prizes or destroyed so much property.
When before did two ships ever render it so utterly unsafe for the nation having the largest commercial navy in the world to navigate the ocean, as to make it absolutely necessary to discontinue sea voyages, and transfer all commodities of merchandize to neutral bottoms?
This the
Alabama and the
Florida have done.
They have driven Yankee commerce from the ocean, and Yankee merchants can only ensure safety to their ventures by covering them with the
British flag.
The high spirit of
Captain Semmes would not allow him to decline a challenge, and we are hardly sorry, notwithstanding the issue of the contest, that he did not.--Yet he might have felt assured that no Yankee would send him a challenge unless he were and knew himself to be greatly his superior in every possible respect.
The
Kearsage is built for a war ship.
She has bulwarks of enormous strength, capable of resisting the heaviest shot, and was, besides, protected by chain plate of formidable resisting capacity.
On the contrary, the
Alabama was built entirely for speed, and was intended merely to pursue and destroy the
Yankee commerce, not to fight their ships of war. The
Kearsage had a picked crew — a crew picked out of 40,000 sailors — the best crew, beyond a doubt, that could have been selected from the whole Yankee navy.
But, above all, the metal of the
Kearsage was immensely heavier than the metal of the
Alabama, and no superiority of courage or seamanship can overcome a great inferiority in that respect.
That was the reason why, in the war of 1812, the
Constitution took the Guerrero in twenty-nine minutes. The Constitution carried 32's and 24's; the Guerrero 24's and 18's. The weight of broadside of the former was 728, of the latter 504.
The difference carried the day. It was a grown man beating a child.
The
Guerrero became unmanageable at the first broadside, and her gigantic adversary lay to and struck her where she wished, cutting her up so entirely in thirty minutes that she was obliged to be burned.
So it was with the
United States and
Macedonian, and with the
Constitution and
Java.
These boasted victories were all owing to the superior metal of the American ships, and to no superior valor or seamanship of either officers or crew.
And so it has proved now.
Capt. Semmes's only chance was to board.
That failing, he had none left but to let his ship go down, as it did, in "150 fathoms of water." It is some consolation that the
Yankees did not lay their infamous hands upon her.
But for the yell of exultation which the
Yankees will raise over this success, we should scarcely be sorry for the event.--Never since the commencement of this war has Confederate valor been more gloriously illustrated.
Inferior as she was in weight of metal, with a hole through her boiler, exposed in a condition comparatively defenceIess to an enemy greatly her superior in weight of metal, and fitted out especially to capture her, she fought as long as she could float.
To have prolonged a contest so unequal for an hour and three quarters would have been sufficient to have immortalized any sea captain that ever lived.
Neither
Nelson nor
Decatur ever did more.
Besides, we have the
Captain and a large part of his crew still, and we can manage to get another ship for them.
But the exultation of the cowardly, sneaking Yankees, their loud boasting, their spread eagle, fourth-of-July newspaper rant, are what is likely to prove most annoying to us. They boast that they have a navy of five hundred vessels, and yet they will exult over the capture of this one ship as loudly as though they had sunk the whole marine of
England, just as they exulted over
Vicksburg, where 85,000 men captured 18,000, although they are continually boasting that they number twenty-five million, and we but six million, while at the same time they are compelled to get the help of our negroes.
All honor to
Capt. Semmes and his glorious crew.
