CHAPTER V
CHASING A BLOCKADE RUNNER
IN November, 1862, while we were lying off Baton Rouge in the Richmond, I was officially notified from Washington of my promotion to the grade of acting lieutenant. A week later I was ordered by Admiral Farragut to the command of the W. G. Anderson, then at the Pensacola Navy Yard.
The Anderson, a beautiful clipper bark built in Boston for the Cape of Good Hope trade, had been lately purchased by the government. She had been fitted out as a cruiser, her decks strengthened to carry an armament of six 32-pounders, two 24-pounder howitzers, and a 30-pounder Parrott rifle gun on the forecastle, and she had a full complement of fifteen officers and one hundred and forty men.
My orders were to proceed to the coast of Texas to join the fleet on the blockade, with my station at Aransas Bay. This was welcome news, as there was a great deal of blockade running in that quarter, which offered us a fine prospect for excitement and prize money. Our preparations were quickly completed, and a week after I had taken command we weighed anchor, saluted the flag officer’s pennant, and sailed for our station.
The first few days passed quietly, with nothing to interrupt the usual routine of sea life on board of a man-of-war. As we were now in the direct track of the blockade runners bound from the coast of Texas to Havana, their favorite port, I issued an order that a lookout should be kept at each masthead from daylight until dark; and I also offered a prize of twenty-five dollars to the man sighting any vessel that we should afterward capture.
As a result of these precautions the cry of “Sail ho!” was constantly heard from our vigilant lookouts; but the sails thus discovered proved, after much chasing, to be all legitimate traders, or at least their papers represented them as such, and we had our labor for our pains.
As I looked at our track, as laid out on the chart by the navigating officer, at the end of the fourth day, it resembled a Chinese puzzle much more than the course of a vessel bound to a certain point with a leading wind. So as I felt that I had no more time to lose, I laid my course for Galveston, where I was to report to Commodore Bell before going down to my station.
The following morning I was aroused by my orderly, who reported that the officer of the deck had made out a schooner on the lee beam standing to the eastward. Sending up word to keep away in chase, I bundled on my clothes, and hurrying on deck found our ship with yards squared standing down for the schooner.
The vessel was so far to the leeward of us that her hull was scarcely visible above the horizon, but the breeze was fresh and our canvas was drawing well, and it was soon apparent that we were gaining on her. By the time we piped to breakfast we had raised her hull, and I felt confident of overhauling her in a few hours.
But it now became evident that the schooner was by no means anxious that we should come to closer quarters, and proposed to prevent it if possible. Suddenly putting her helm up, she kept away before the wind and crowded on canvas until she looked like a great white gull.
This convinced us that we had at last fallen into luck, and that the schooner was what we had been so diligently seeking,—a blockade runner. To make assurance doubly sure, I gave the Parrott rifle its extreme elevation and sent a shell screaming down toward her, at the same time hoisting our colors, as a polite invitation for her to heave to and allow us to overhaul her.
But our courtesy passed unnoticed, and she displayed no colors in return. So we followed her example in making sail, and every yard of duck that could be boomed out from any part of the ship was brought into play.
We were evidently gaining on our chase, and everything seemed to promise well, when there was an ominous sound of slatting canvas, and looking aloft, I saw that the breeze was failing us. This was unfortunate, for a stern chase is proverbially a long chase, the forenoon was already well-nigh spent, and we were yet several miles astern of the schooner.
I ordered that all our sails should be hoisted taut and sheeted close home, but the wind continued to get lighter until there was scarcely enough breeze to give us steerage-way. Occasionally we could feel a slight puff of air, and, remembering the experience of the frigate Constitution when she was chased by two English ships in 1813, I ordered that whips be rigged aloft and the sails thoroughly drenched with salt water. Still, with all our efforts, it was evident that we were not materially lessening the difference between the two vessels, if indeed we were not losing ground.
After consultation with my executive officer, I decided that my only hope of securing our prize before dark, when she would easily evade us, was to send a party in one of our boats in chase. Accordingly Mr. Bailey had the first cutter called away, the crew carefully armed, and a small Butler machine gun mounted in the bow of the boat.
The chase was now, as we estimated, nearly six miles distant; and as she was all the time forging ahead two or three knots an hour, there was a prospect of a good long pull for it. But the bait was a tempting one and the boat crew were very ready to make the effort.
I arranged with Acting Master Taylor, who was to go in charge of the boat, that if night should overtake him before he could return to the ship I would lay her to, fire guns at intervals, and hoist signal lanterns so that we could easily be seen. He also took with him a number of rockets and Coston’s signals to burn if needed.
With my best wishes for his success Mr. Taylor shoved off, and his men pulled lustily toward the schooner. It was not necessary to give the order to keep a sharp lookout on the movements of the boat, for every man in the ship felt a personal interest in her, and all hands were watching her progress, from the masthead lookouts to the mess cooks, who hung gazing out of the ports whenever they could escape for a moment from their duties.
To pull a heavy man-of-war cutter six or eight miles in a seaway is not child’s play; and although the men buckled to their oars like heroes, it was slow work. The sun was getting low when the officer of the deck called my attention from the boat I was watching so anxiously through the glass to a heavy bank of black clouds making to the northward.
“I am afraid that we are going to have our wind, now that we don’t want it, sir,” he said.
A vivid flash of lightning, emphasized by a rattling clap of thunder, followed hard upon this remark.
“Yes, indeed; you must get in your studding sails and flying kites at once, Mr. Allen, for it is coming down upon us by the run!”
Mr. Bailey came on deck and took the trumpet, as executive officer, the boatswain’s call sounded shrill, and the light sails came rapidly in.
“Furl the topgallant sails, sir!” I cried. And they were barely in when the wind was howling.
“Stand by topsail halyards fore and aft, clew lines and reef tackles. Let go, clew down and haul out. Aloft, topmen, and put in two reefs!” was the next order.
I looked in vain for any sign of our boat. “Masthead there, can you see the cutter?”
“No, sir, the cutter and schooner are both entirely shut in!” was the reply.
By this time we were tearing through the water under our double reefs, keeping our course as nearly as possible toward where the boat had last been seen. The squall brought rain with it in torrents, and, as the darkness closed in, the desire to overhaul the schooner became second to that of picking up my boat and her crew. So I decided to heave the ship to and let Mr. Taylor find me, as I certainly could not expect to find him.
I ordered lanterns hoisted at each masthead and at the ends of the topsail yards, and directed that a gun be fired and a Coston signal burned every ten minutes.
By this time the squall had passed to leeward, the rain had ceased, and the moon was struggling out of the ragged-looking clouds.
Boom! went our first gun, and at the same time the Coston signal was ignited and flamed up, lighting all about us with its deep crimson glare.
“Sail ho!” yelled the forecastle lookout.
“Where away?”
“Close aboard on the starboard bow, sir!”
And there, sure enough, loomed the sails of a schooner on the port tack standing directly across our bow.
“And it’s the Johnnie!” exclaimed Mr. Bailey, as he gazed down from the forecastle in astonishment upon the vessel almost under our bowsprit, her decks piled up with cotton bales, and her crew standing thunderstruck at their perilous position.
I sprang upon the forecastle and hailed: “Heave to, or I’ll sink you! Ready with No. 1 gun, Mr. Allen!”
“All ready, sir!”
“Don’t fire! we surrender!” came quickly from the schooner, as she flew up in the wind and lay bobbing helplessly on our port bow.
“Send a boat at once to me with your captain. And let him bring his papers, if he has any!” I called out.
“We stove our boat the other day, sir, and she won’t float,” they replied.
“Very well; I will send my boat to you. Mr. Bailey, have the second cutter lowered, and send Mr. Allen on board that schooner to take charge of her with a dozen well-armed men. Let her captain and his crew come back here in our boat. Take a master’s mate with you, Mr. Allen!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” and the boat was called away and made ready.
“By the way, Mr. Allen,” I called out as the boat shoved off, “see if you can find out from them anything about Mr. Taylor. In dodging him they have probably run afoul of us.”
I had gone aft to see the boat off and to give these orders; and as they were executed I looked to see where the schooner lay, but could not find her.
“Forecastle there! where away is the schooner?” I hailed.
There was a moment’s pause, and then the hesitating reply came from the lookout, “She has drifted out of sight, sir; I can’t make her out!”
I hastened forward, and, sure enough, nothing could be seen of her.
“Schooner ahoy!” I hailed and listened, but no response came back.
A signal was burned, but it only served to show us our second cutter that I had just sent away, pulling aimlessly in the direction where we had last seen the schooner.
It was very evident that we were duped. While we had been lowering our boat she had quietly filled away, and had already such a start as to render a search for her in the darkness well-nigh hopeless, more particularly as two of my boats were now away from the ship.
Thoroughly vexed at the stupidity of the forecastle lookout, whose carelessness had permitted such a ruse to succeed, I recalled the second cutter, and paced my quarter deck, my mind occupied with most unpleasant reflections.
It was evident that I must remain with my ship hove to, or I should probably lose my first cutter, if she had not already gone to the bottom in the squall! It was certainly a remarkably bad quarter of an hour that I was having just then.
“C-r-r-r-a-c-k!” came the sound of firing to leeward, and up shot a rocket, leaving a trail of fire behind it like a meteor.
“Hurrah! there’s Taylor down there with his Butler coffee-mill! Fill away, Mr. Bailey, and make all sail! Be alive about it, or we shall not be in at the death! There he goes again! I don’t believe that schooner will get away from us this time!”
The yards flew round and we filled, as the topmen sprang aloft to turn out the reefs. The topsail yards flew to the mastheads, the topgallant sails were sheeted home with lightning speed, and we bore down upon the scene of conflict with all possible dispatch.
But the firing had already ceased, and we soon saw signal lanterns hoisted from the masts of the schooner that had given us such a chase.
“Well, sir, we have got her at last!” came over the water in Mr. Taylor’s familiar tones, as we approached.
“Glad to hear it, Mr. Taylor,” I replied; “but what have you got?”
“The schooner Royal Yacht, sir. She ran out of Galveston, through the whole blockading fleet, night before last. She has a cargo of one hundred and fifty bales of cotton, sir!”
“Give the cutter’s crew three cheers, men!” I said, and our crew sprang into the rigging and gave three as hearty cheers as ever came from one hundred throats.
“I will send Mr. Allen on board the schooner with a prize crew, Mr. Taylor, and you can return in your own boat with the schooner’s captain and crew.”
This exchange was soon made, and Mr. Taylor came on board with his prisoners, and gave me the particulars of the capture. When the squall struck us, he had been already five hours in chase. He lost sight of the schooner, and for a time had his hands full in keeping his boat from filling. When the wind lulled, as nothing was in sight, he determined to return to the ship, and, hearing our guns and seeing our signals, he was making the best of his way back to us, when the schooner that was escaping from us almost ran him down.
He at once opened fire from his Butler gun at short range, and drove the schooner’s crew from the deck by a well-directed rifle fire. Left without a steersman, the vessel yawed, the cutter dashed alongside, the boat’s crew sprang on board, and the prize was taken!
Upon investigation, it proved that the Royal Yacht had run out from Galveston two nights before; and, skillfully piloted by her captain, who was very familiar with the intricacies of the bay, she had passed through our entire blockading squadron, under cover of the darkness, and had got to sea unnoticed.
By ten o’clock we were again on our course for Galveston, with the Royal Yacht following in our wake, the cynosure of many watchful eyes. There was a good leading breeze, and by the same hour the following night we anchored among the Galveston fleet, and I reported my arrival to Commodore Bell.
The officers of the various vessels of the blockading fleet were very positive in their assertions that the Royal Yacht could not by any possibility have escaped from Galveston. But we found Galveston papers on board, printed the morning of the day she escaped, and much to their mortification the doubters were compelled to acknowledge the unwelcome fact.
The next day I dispatched the schooner to Key West with a prize crew, where in due time she was libeled, condemned, and sold with her cargo for nearly sixty thousand dollars. Of the proceeds of the sale the government received one half, and the other moiety was divided among my officers and crew.
As I had captured her on the high seas, out of sight of any other vessel, I received, as commanding officer, one tenth of our half, which made a very agreeable addition to my bank account, and was a pleasant souvenir of my first capture of a blockade runner.