Part 47 (1/2)
I had thus travelled all the way from the eastern boundary of Mexico, to Richmond, by land, a journey, which, perhaps, has seldom been performed.
In this long and tedious journey, through the entire length of the Confederacy, I had been painfully struck with the changed aspect of things, since I had left the country in the spring of 1861. Plantations were ravaged, slaves were scattered, and the country was suffering terribly for the want of the most common necessaries of life. Whole districts of country had been literally laid waste by the barbarians who had invaded us. The magnificent valley of the Red River, down which, as the reader has seen, I had recently travelled, had been burned and pillaged for the distance of a hundred and fifty miles. Neither Alaric, nor Attila ever left such a scene of havoc and desolation in his rear.
Demoniac Yankee hate had been added to the thirst for plunder.
Sugar-mills, saw-mills, salt-works, and even the grist-mills which ground the daily bread for families, had been laid in ashes--their naked chimneys adding ghastliness to the picture. Reeling, drunken soldiers pa.s.sed in and out of dwellings, plundering and insulting their inmates; and if disappointed in the amount of their plunder, or resisted, applied the torch in revenge. Many of these miscreants were foreigners, incapable of speaking the English language. The few dwellings that were left standing, looked like so many houses of mourning. Once the seats of hospitality and refinement, and the centres of thrifty plantations, with a contented and happy laboring population around them, they were now shut up and abandoned. There was neither human voice in the hall, nor neigh of steed in the pasture. The tenantless negro cabins told the story of the war. The Yankee had liberated the slave, and armed him to make war upon his former master. The slaves who had not been enlisted in the Federal armies, were wandering, purposeless, about the country, in squads, thieving, famis.h.i.+ng, and dying. This was the character of the war our _brethren_ of the North--G.o.d save the mark--were making upon us.
To add to the heart-sickening features of the picture, our own people had become demoralized! Men, generally, seemed to have given up the cause as lost, and to have set themselves at work, like wreckers, to save as much as possible from the sinking s.h.i.+p. The civilians had betaken themselves to speculation and money-getting, and the soldiers to drinking and debauchery. Such, in brief, was the picture which presented itself to my eyes as I pa.s.sed through the Confederacy. The _Alabama_ had gone to her grave none too soon. If she had not been buried with the honors of war, with the howling winds of the British Channel to sing her requiem, she might soon have been handed over to the exultant Yankee, to be exhibited at Boston, as a trophy of the war.
My first official visit in Richmond was, of course, to the President. I found him but little changed, in personal appearance, since I had parted with him in Montgomery, the then seat of government, in April, 1861. But he was evidently deeply impressed with the critical state of the country, though maintaining an outward air of cheerfulness and serenity. I explained to him briefly, what, indeed, he already knew too well, the loss of my s.h.i.+p. He was kind enough to say that, though he deeply regretted her loss, he knew that I had acted for the best, and that he had nothing with which to reproach me. I dined with him on a subsequent day. There was only one other guest present. Mrs. Davis was more impressed with events than the President. With her womanly instinct, she already saw the handwriting on the wall. But though the coming calamity would involve her household in ruin, she maintained her self-possession and cheerfulness. The Congress, which was in session, received me with a distinction which I had little merited. Both houses honored me by a vote of thanks for my services, and invited me to a privileged seat on the floor. The legislature of Virginia, also in session, extended to me the same honors.
As soon as I could command a leisure moment, I paid General Lee a visit, at his headquarters near Petersburg, and spent a night with him. I had served with him in the Mexican war. We discussed together the critical state of the country, and of his army,--we were now near the end of January, 1865,--and I thought the grand old chieftain and Christian gentleman seemed to foreshadow, in his conversation--more by manner than by words--the approaching downfall of the cause for which we were both struggling. I had come to him, I told him, to speak of what I had seen of the people, and of the army, in my transit across the country, and to say to him, that unless prompt measures could be devised to put an end to the desertions that were going on among our troops, our cause must inevitably be lost. He did not seem to be at all surprised at the revelations I made.
He knew all about the condition of the country, civil and military, but seemed to feel himself powerless to prevent the downward tendency of things. And he was right. It was no longer in the power of any one man to save the country. The body-politic was already dead. The people themselves had given up the contest, and this being the case, no army could do more than r.e.t.a.r.d the catastrophe for a few months. Besides, his army was, itself, melting away. That very night--as I learned the next morning, at the breakfast table--160 men deserted in a body! It was useless to attempt to shoot deserters, when demoralization had gone to this extent.
After I had been in Richmond a few weeks, the President was pleased to nominate me to the Senate as a rear-admiral. My nomination was unanimously confirmed, and, in a few days afterward, I was appointed to the command of the James River fleet. My commission ran as follows:--
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, NAVY DEPARTMENT, RICHMOND, February 10, 1865.
REAR-ADMIRAL RAPHAEL SEMMES.
SIR:--You are hereby informed that the President has appointed you, by and with the advice of the Senate, a _Rear-Admiral_, in the Provisional Navy of the Confederate States, ”_for gallant and meritorious conduct, in command of the steam-sloop Alabama_.” You are requested to signify your acceptance, or non-acceptance of this appointment.
S. R. MALLORY, _Secretary of the Navy_.
An old and valued friend, Commodore J. K. Mitch.e.l.l, had been in command of the James River fleet, and I displaced him very reluctantly. He had organized and disciplined the fleet, and had accomplished with it all that was possible, viz., the protection of Richmond by water. I a.s.sumed my command on the 18th of February, 1865. My fleet consisted of three iron-clads and five wooden gunboats. I found my old first lieutenant, Kell, who had preceded me to Richmond, and been made a commander, in command of one of the iron-clads, but he was soon obliged to relinquish his command, on account of failing health. As reorganized, the fleet stood as follows:--
_Virginia_, iron-clad, flag-s.h.i.+p, four guns, Captain Dunnington.
_Richmond_, iron-clad, four guns, Captain Johnson.
_Fredericksburg_, iron-clad, four guns, Captain Gla.s.sel.
_Hampton_, wooden, two guns, Captain Wilson, late of the _Alabama_.
_Nansemond_, wooden, two guns, Captain b.u.t.t.
_Roanoke_, wooden, two guns, Captain Pollock.
_Beaufort_, wooden, two guns, Captain Wyatt.
_Torpedo_, wooden, one gun, Captain Roberts.
The fleet was a.s.sisted, in the defence of the river, by several sh.o.r.e batteries, in command of naval officers; as Drury's Bluff; Battery Brooke; Battery Wood, and Battery Semmes--the whole under the command of my old friend, Commodore John R. Tucker.
I soon had the mortification to find that the fleet was as much demoralized as the army. Indeed, with the exception of its princ.i.p.al officers, and about half a dozen sailors in each s.h.i.+p, its _personnel_ was drawn almost entirely from the army. The movements of the s.h.i.+ps being confined to the head-waters of a narrow river, they were but little better than prison-s.h.i.+ps. Both men and officers were crowded into close and uncomfortable quarters, without the requisite s.p.a.ce for exercise. I remedied this, as much as possible, by sending squads on sh.o.r.e, to drill and march on the river-bank. They were on half rations, and with but a scanty supply of clothing. Great discontent and restlessness prevailed.
Constant applications were coming to me for leaves of absence--almost every one having some story to tell of a sick or dest.i.tute family. I was obliged, of course, to resist all these appeals. ”The enemy was thundering at the gates,” and not a man could be spared. Desertion was the consequence. Sometimes an entire boat's crew would run off, leaving the officer to find his way on board the best he might. The strain upon them had been too great. It was scarcely to be expected of men, of the cla.s.s of those who usually form the rank and file of s.h.i.+ps' companies, that they would rise above their natures, and sacrifice themselves by slow but sure degrees, in any cause, however holy. The visions of home and fireside, and freedom from restraint were too tempting to be resisted. The general understanding, that the collapse of the Confederacy was at hand, had its influence with some of the more honorable of them. They reasoned that their desertion would be but an antic.i.p.ation of the event by a few weeks.
To add to the disorder, the ”Union element,” as it was called, began to grow bolder. This element was composed mainly of Northern-born men, who had settled among us before the war. In the height of the war, when the Southern States were still strong, and when independence was not only possible, but probable, these men pretended to be good Southerners. The Puritan leaven, which was in their natures, was kept carefully concealed.
Hypocrisy was now no longer necessary. Many of these men were preachers of the various denominations, and schoolmasters. These white-cravatted gentlemen now sprang into unusual activity. Every mail brought long and artfully written letters from some of these scoundrels, tempting my men to desert. Some of these letters came under my notice, and if I could have gotten hold of the writers, I should have been glad to give them the benefit of a short shrift, and one of my yard-arms. If I had had my fleet upon the sea, it would have been an easy matter to restore its discipline, but my s.h.i.+ps were, in fact, only so many tents, into which entered freely all the bad influences of which I speak. I was obliged to perform guard-boat duty on the river, and picket duty on sh.o.r.e, and these duties gave my men all the opportunities of escape that they desired.
With regard to the defence of Richmond by water, I felt quite secure. No fleet of the enemy could have pa.s.sed my three iron-clads, moored across the stream, in the only available channel, with obstructions below me, which would hold it under my fire, and that of the naval batteries on sh.o.r.e by which I was flanked. Indeed, the enemy, seeing the hopelessness of approach by water, had long since given up the idea. The remainder of the winter pa.s.sed slowly and tediously enough. A few months earlier, and I might have had something to occupy me. For a long time, there was no more than a single iron-clad in the lower James, the enemy being busy with Charleston and Wilmington. An attack on City Point, Grant's base of operations, and whence he drew all his supplies, would have been quite practicable. If the store-houses at that place could have been burned, there is no telling what might have been the consequences. But now, Charleston and Wilmington having fallen, and the enemy having no further use for his iron-clad fleet, on the coasts of North and South Carolina, he had concentrated the whole of it on the lower James, under the command of Admiral Porter, who, as the reader has seen, had chased me, so quixotically, in the old frigate _Powhattan_, in the commencement of the war. At first, this concentration looked like a preparation for an attempted ascent of the river, but if any attempt of the kind was ever entertained by Porter, he had the good sense, when he came to view the ”situation,” to abandon it.