Blockade Runmng 487

486 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

North Carolina, which drew so much water that she could never
get over the bars of the Cape Fear River inlets, except, possibly,
at the highest spring tide, and then the chances were —
her ever getting back again; the Raledgh, another iron-clad,
not completed until late in the spring of 1864; and pig or
three little steam-tugs. They all came to grief. The North
Carolina, the bottom of which was neither sheathed nor pre-

But the cargoes of those white-painted, bird-like-looking
steamers that floated monthly into Wilmington, producing such

excitement and joy among its population, unfortunately for the
Confederates, did not contain government stores and munitions
of war alone, bad as the bacon and much of the stuff bought
abroad by worthless Confederate agents were. The public
freight compared with the private was small. By them were

brought in the cloth that made the uniforms of those gaily-
decked clerks that swarmed the streets of Richmond with mili-
tary titles, and read the battle bulletins and discussed the war
news. Irom that source came the braid, buttons, and stars for
the host of “majors,” who were truly fifth wheels and did not
even have the labor of “following the colonel around,” with
which the Confederacy was aftlicted.

As for ourselves, we never had the pleasure of this sort of
thing but twice. Once by invitation of our friend George
Baer, alias Captain Henry, who immortalized himself by writ-
ing that celebrated protest concerning the capture of the Grey-
hound, and by his escape from his captors in Boston. Baer
invited us to a fashionable 10 o’clock breakfast on the Index,

The Confederate Government used to send some queer agents
abroad at the expense of the people. A Mrs. Grinnell was sent
out by the surgeon general—so she stated—to get bandages,
etc., which nobody else, we suppose, but Mrs. Grinnell could
get. She was an English woman of that class and with those
manners which any man, if he has traveled much, has often
seen. She gave herself out as a daughter of an English baronet,
and had first come to New York several years prior to the war.
Then there was Belle Boyd, who represented herself, we believe,
as an agent sent out by Mr. Benjamin. She was captured,
with our friend George Baer, on the Greyhound. Another was
a Mrs. Baxley, of Baltimore. She represented herself, we be-
lieve, as an agent of old Mr. Memminger.

Mr. Mallory’s navy was always the laughing-stock of the
army, and many were the jeers that the Confederate “mud-

pared to resist the worms, was pierced by them till her hull was
like a honeycomb, and finally she sunk opposite Smithville.
The Raleigh was beached and lost on a bar near Fort Fisher.
The tugs were burned on the river subsequent to the evacuation

of the town.
Whiting and Lynch, from some cause or other, never were

on good terms, jealous of each other’s authority, we suppose.
It finally came near culminating seriously. There had been an
order sent by Mr. Mallory to Lynch, in pursuance of an act
of the Confederate Congress, not to let any vessel go out with-
out taking on a certain proportion of government cotton.
Lynch was commander of the naval defenses of the Cape Fear.
By some oversight the Adjutant General’s office at Richmond
had sent no such order to Whiting, who commanded the de-
partment, and consequently the port and its regulations. One
of Collie’s steamers was about to go out without complying
with the law. Old Lynch sent a half company of marines on
board of her and took possession. This Whiting resented rather
haughtily as an unwarrantable interference with his authority
as commander of the port, and, marching in a battalion of the
Seventh North Carolina Regiment, under Lieut. Col. John C.
Lamb, ejected the marines and took possession of the steamer,
hauling her up stream to her wharf. Lynch said he did not
care how far Whiting took her up the river, but he vowed if any
attempt was made to take her to sea, he would sink her, and
he shotted his guns. Matters looked squally and excitement
was high. A collision was feared. They were both summoned
to Richmond to explain, and both returned apparently satisfied.
Lynch, however, was shortly afterward relieved, and Commo-
dore Pinckney took his place.
We had often wondered why the port was not more effectually
closed. To tell the truth it was hardly closed at all. Many of

the blockade runners continued their career till the fall of
Fisher. An experienced captain and a good engineer invariably
brought a ship safely by the blockading squadron. Wilkinson

crushers” let off at his iron-clads, formidable things as they
were, had he properly managed the Confederate Navy. Cap-
tain Lynch was the flag officer of the Cape Fear squadron when

we first went there. His fleet consisted of the ironclad ram