The Confederacy on the waters.
There is no music so sweet to Southern cars at the rear of Confederate guns on the waters.
There is no constellation so bright to Southern eyes as the
Battle Cross of the
South flying at the masthead of such a Sea King as . There is no arena more full of hope, promise and vengeance to the
Southern cause than the broad highway of the Ocean, and no ally in
Europe who can do half as much for us an old
Neptune, who is constantly throwing into our hands rich argosies, and speeding us with propitious inspirations ever his vast race track, to vex, and torment, and overwhelm the flying coursers of Northern commerce.
We have always believed that the straight road in New York,
Philadelphia, and
Boston, was not over the valleys and mountains of the land, but straight out upon the blue waves of the great deep.
Give us the ships and the seamen, and we can cut the pipes that supply all the
Yankee cities with their wealth, without any of the difficulties of transportation and the vast force requisite to keep open lines of communication which are essential to an invasion by land.
A ship-of-war or a privateer furnishes her own transportation, keeps opener own lines of communication, and can advance or retreat as is most expedient.
If she sees fit to fall back the wilderness of waves furnishes her a thousand recesses of concealment; if she desires to swoop down upon unprotected merchantmen they lie scattered on every sea, and as helpless as chickens when the hawk hovers over their heads.
No people ever had so keen an appreciation of the value of privateers as the
Yankees in our former wars with
Great Britain, and they let them loose every day of the week and on every wave of the sea. The Confederacy should now commend that potent chalice to their own lips.
The decision of the
English Judges in the
Alexandria case gives us full command of British ship yards, and we shall be idiots and dolls if we do not avail ourselves to the full of this golden opportunity.
The immense gains of these enterprises will bring seamen in abundance to our flag, if we only have the wisdom and energy to devotes our whole resources and power to the one grand object of the destruction of Northern commerce on the seas.
At the beginning of this war the
South had no navy and no privateers, whilst the
North was almost as strong upon the waters as
Great Britain when the last war between
England and the
United States commenced.
Never was
England more arrogant in her claims of exclusive dominion to the deep than was the
North, so far as Southern pretensions were concerned, two years ago. But she is now beginning to find that it is not on the land alone that Southern prowess and enterprise are to be dreaded.
We have the flower of the old navy under the
Southern flag — in
Maury and
Brooks, the most scientific; in
Semmes,
Maffit, and others, the most chivalric and energetic of naval commanders.
Other names will arise, as opportunities are afforded, which will emblazon with new glory the ocean flag of the
South.
In
Semmes alone we have produced a naval prodigy not surpassed since the days of
Paul Jones.
If a Government and people will but lend their whole energies and resources to the organization of a navy and privateers, we shall drive Yankee commerce from the ocean and inflict more injury upon the great cities of the
North than ten years campaigning by land.
We may lose ships, but every ship, property manned and managed, will have more than balanced her destruction before she can fall into an enemy's hand.
A cloud of privateers let loose upon a nation whose chief wealth is derived from its commerce, are worse than a swards of mosquitoes upon a fat man in the swamps of
Louisiana.
He may work himself into a fury, and crush between his sweating palms half a dozen or more of the vexatious assailants, but he will be blinded and bled to death in the end by the host of nimble and ravenous persecutors.
There are no such terrors for the
North in all the armies the
South can raise as in the ships of war and privateers that are beginning to hover about her commerce.
We might slaughter whole hecatombs of Yankee rank and file, but, being mostly poor men and foreigners, their loss does not amount to a flea bite on the sensibilities of the nation.
Touch the
Almighty Dollar however, and the iron enters their soul.
Perforate their pockets and you breach their hearts.
And their pockets are their merchantmen afloat on every sea; there is the seat of their vitality, their sensibility, their soul, and when that is smitten, a universal pang cramps and collapses the whole Yankee nation.
If, then, we must maintain the defensive line on land, let us at once, and with indomitable will and energy, assume the aggressive on the water.
Let us attack New York,
Boston and
Philadelphia, on the
Atlantic, the
Pacific, the
Indian ocean, and wherever a Yankee ship traverses the deep.
Let private enterprise back up the
Government in this, the most direct, the most practical and the most pungent method of making the
North feel this war.
