416 Norra Carorina Troops, 1861-65.

tropics, although she faced every climate. | The a fogs *
the Newfoundland banks, the steaming moisture of the one
torial belt, the burning sun of the Malacca and — ee
all these in quick succession tested her endurance an ee
ity. The wear and tear of such a cruise, with no shia 0
repair injuries except what might be found in ee bs oO =
sels, told upon the little craft at last, so that early in :
Captain Semmes began to think of her ee 5
coming back round the Cape of Good Hope into the an
tic, worked leisurely up through the paths of —, —
turing a prize now and then, but finding few; for - a
time the American mercantile flag had well aigh disap
?
ae passage will, I hope, call renewed attention * ene
ential quarters to Captain Bulloch’s monumental aa u
justice requires that I should turn to its correlaliye ~~ a
Northern pen, and afterwards to their two lighter sis =
Prof. Soley’s little book is valuable, because, published eigh-
teen years after the end of the war, it gives paemagh a s S
statements of the strength of the N orthern Navy in —
1861, and what it grew to in March, 1865. Kighteen “8
ing vessels and twenty-seven steamers ( forty-two in a ,
was the available complement at the beginning, and ef 1 ves
sels of all kinds at the end of the war. ‘In 1865,’ writes
Prof. Soley, ‘there were 7,600 officers and 50,000 seamen =
the naval service of the Federal Government. The wor
should also be studied because it gives a capital description
of the four intermediary points, Bermuda, Nassau, Havana
and Matamoras, from which the neutral trade into and out
of the South was conducted. Every detail, showing the i
ter inadequacy of the Northern navy with only 42 ees
(37 of which were modern) to maintain at first an effective
blockade over more than 3,000 miles of indented coast, is
given with perfect frankness by Prof. Soley, and his book :
as fair and reasonable as that of Captain Bulloch, thoug
ite so entertaining.
nthe ‘Never Caught’ of Captain Roberts and the ‘Running
the Blockade’ of Mr. Thomas E. Taylor, are equally amus-
ing; but the latter is of higher value and more full of instruc-

BiockKaDE RuNNING. 417

tion than its tiny predecessor. Hobart Pasha was born to
be a pirate, and in self-confidence and audacity none could
surpass him. Mr. Taylor, on the other hand, though quite
as brave as the object of his well deserved admiration, Cap-
tain Steele, or as that universal favorite, Admiral Aynesley-
Murray (who called himself for the purpose of the blockade
Captain Murray, and was one of the most undemonstratively

courageous men that I ever came across), possessed little of
the bounce of Hobart Pasha. For instance, ‘R

tunning the
Blockade’ would have been better without its introduction,

which, although intended apparently to serve as

an endorse-
ment, is the least satisfactory part of the little volume. Oth-

erwise, Mr. Taylor’s 176 pages are so modest and so full of
interest that they might safely be recommended for Christ-
mas reading to old and young. It is high time, however, in
‘order to justify the words at the head of this paper, that I
should now give my own experience in connection with the
first time that I ran the blockade inwards by sea.

“Karly in 1864 I started from Richmond, in Virginia,
and making my way across the Potomac, reached New York
via Washington, without mishap, though I had a still nar-
rower escape from capture at Marlborough, in Maryland,
than that from which Lord Wolseley, and I emerged un-
seathed about seventeen months before near Port Tobacco,
and which I have already described in another paper. Upon
the twentieth day after I left Richmond, I landed on Brit-
ish soil at Liverpool, and can well remember how ‘the sacred
calm that breathed around’ as I journeyed on a lovely sum-
mer night from Liverpool to London, contrasted with the
constant roar of angry cannon, the rattle of musketry, and the
thousand daily incidents of grim-visaged war which I had
just left behind me. After passing néarly four months in
Enrope, half in England and half in Rome, I started again
from Liverpool for ‘Secessia,’ where, in truth, my heart,
touched by the splendid courage of her sons and the tender-
ness and devotion of her daughters, had remained all the time
of my absence. As I was carrying back with me to Rich-
mond several presents, such as hooks for Mr. Jefferson Davis
and Mr. Benjamin, and little souvenirs to be given to some

27