Ot a tsa Es, Reet iis

 

436 Norra Carorina Troops, 1861-’65.

teries belonging to the Southerners kept them at a respectable
distance.

“Blockade-running into Charleston was quite at an end at
the time I am writing about. Not that I think the cruisers
could have kept vessels from getting in, but for the reason
that the harbor was a perfect net-work of torpedoes and in-
fernal machines (the passage through which was only known
to a few persons), placed by the Southerners to prevent the
Northern fleet from approaching the city.

‘Having had a good look at the attacking and defending
parties, I went down from the tower and paid a visit to a bat-
tery where two Blakely guns of heavy calibre, which had
lately been run through the blockade in the well known Sum
ter (now the Gibraltar) were mounted. These guns threw a
shot of 720 pounds weight, and were certainly masterpieces
of design and execution.

‘Unhappily, proper instruction for loading had not accom-
panied them from England, and on the occasion of the first
round being fired from one of them, the gun not being prop-
erly loaded, cracked at the breech, and was rendered use
less; the other, however, did good service, throwing shot with
accuracy at a great distance.

“T saw much that was interesting here, but more able pens
than mine have already described fully the details of that
long siege, where on one hand all modern appliances of war
that ingenuity could conceive or money purchase were put
into the hands of brave and determined soldiers; on the other
hand were bad arms, bad powder, bad provisions, bad every-
thing; desperate courage and unheard-of self-denial being all
the Southerners had to depend upon.

“These poor Southerners never began to open their eyes
to their cause till Sherman’s almost unopposed march showed
the weakness of the whole country. Even strangers like my-
self were so carried away with the enthusiasm of the moment
that we shut our eyes to what should have been clearly mani-
fest tous. We could not believe that men who were fighting
and enduring as these men were could ever be beaten. Some
of their leaders must have foreseen that the catastrophe was

BLocKADE RUNNING. 437

coming months before it oceurred; but, if they did so, they
were afraid to make their opinions public.”

THE CRUISERS TALLAHASSEE AND CHICKAMAUGA,

It is a well known fact that the Army of Northern Virginia
was saved from starvation and surrender by the blockade-
runner Banshee, which made a special run through the fleet
and returned to Wilmington with a cargo of commissary
stores sixteen days after the government at Richmond had
confidentially disclosed to her commander its dire necessity.

When General Whiting’s inadequate force was taxed to
the utmost in protecting the blockaderunners upon whose
service the fate of the Confederacy largely depended, two of
these valuable ships, the Atalanta and Edith, were armed and
commissioned as cruisers by the Confederate States Navy
Department under the names Tallahassee and Chickamauga,
and were sent out along the coast to prey upon the enemy’s
commerce, which the Alabama, Florida and Shenandoah had
already swept from the high seas. These untimely cruisers,
erroneously referred to by General Whiting and Governor
Vance as privateers, set in motion the entire Federal navy
and caused, if possible, a more stringent blockade of the Cape
Fear river and probably the final reduction of Fort Fisher.

General Whiting wrote to Secretary Seddon 11 October,
1864, an urgent request that the attention of President Davis,
the Secretary of the Navy and General Lee be asked at once
tu the subject of the expedition of the Tallahassee and Chick-
amauga, which would deprive him of their valuable assist-
ance in the defence of the blockade breakers and of the Con-
federate works, and would inevitably cause the concentration
of the enemy’s naval force at Cape Fear for the capture of
these “privateers” and the destruction of Fort Fisher. He
also asked attention to the fact that it was then extremely
difficult to obtain supplies through the blockade, and that the
expedition of the two eruisers mentioned which made Wil-
mington the base of their operations, would result in the loss
of the Cape Fear inlets upon which the Confederacy de-
pended for the necessities of life. General Whiting’s warn-
ing was unheeded at Richmond, and subsequent events proved