The Sea Hunters Part 7

Samuel Whiting, United States consul at Na.s.sau, was pleading his case. "The Oreto is a gunboat, pure and simple."

Bayley sipped at his china cup of Pekoe tea. "Any ship with a cannon can be called a gunboat. We have no evidence the ship is armed.

"You know that she secretly belongs to the Confederacy," Whiting said angrily.

"I know of no such thing, sir," Bayley replied, his face reddening.

"Furthermore, my office has not received word from London on any such a.s.sumption." The governor rose from behind his desk. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have a cricket match to attend."

Frustrated by Bayley's obvious prejudice toward the Confederacy, Whiting stormed from the room.

Not every Englishman sided with Jefferson Davis and Richmond.

Suspecting skulduggery, a pro-Union commander in the British Navy seized the Oreto. But the governor pointed out that she was registered as a British ship and flew the Cross of Saint George. He gave orders for her immediate release. Charges and countercharges flew back and forth. The ship was seized again, and just as quickly released. A trial was held, giving United States agents another crack at condemning Oreto.

Feigning innocence, Captain Duguid testified that he knew of nothing irregular about the vessel. He agreed that she might make a perfect warship, but that without guns he saw her only as an ordinary merchant ship. The trial judge was satisfied and Oreto was released once again.

Quietly, Captain Duguid turned the ship over to John Maffitt, a dashing and successful Confederate blockade runner. Mission accomplished, Duguid caught the first steamer bound for England.

John Newland Maffitt was the son of a sailor, born at sea.

Entering the United States Navy as a midshipman at age thirteen, he was especially fascinated by currents and underwater hydrography.

After making the rank of lieutenant, he spent fifteen years on coastal survey of the Eastern and Gulf coasts. Maffitt knew every inlet and bay from Portsmouth, Maine, to Galveston, Texas, like the palm of his right hand.

Maffitt was of average height and weight, but carried himself erect and gave the appearance of a much larger man. He had a strong chin covered by a thick, dark beard. There was a c.o.c.kiness about him and a sparkle in his eyes, which always seemed to scan the horizon when he was staring directly at you. Intelligent, canny as a fox, John Newland Maffitt was second only to Raphael Semmes of the Alabama as a commerce raider, and was the most successful blockade runner of them all. He was, perhaps, the only Confederate skipper who never lost a ship.

Feared and at the same time respected by his former friends in the Union Navy, he was a gentleman to the core.

Not about to wait for another seizure of his new command, Maffitt slipped out of the harbor, cleverly eluded a Union warship, and sailed to a small, uninhabited outer island off the Grand Bahamas Bank, where he rendezvoused with the Prince Albert, a coastal schooner that was carrying guns and munitions. As soon as the two ships anch.o.r.ed, the armament was transferred from the schooner to Oreto.

The haste cost Maffitt. He was forced to sail with a crew that was woefully short-handed. He had so few hands that he and his few officers sweated alongside the ordinary seamen at getting the guns on board.

But on August 16, 1862, mounting six six-inch and two seven-inch Blakely rifled guns and one twelve-pound howitzer, Oreto was officially christened Florida and commissioned into the Confederate Navy.

The first voyage of the C.S.S. Florida was a nightmare. Essential equipment required to fire the guns had not arrived on Prince Albert.

The South's newest sea raider looked mean and had a big bite, but no teeth. Maffitt's situation quickly went from bad to worse. During the loading, his already undermanned crew was struck down by yellow fever.

When he finally got underway and steamed away from the Bahamas, Florida carried the deadly scourge with her.

Maffitt ran the ship into Havana to set his sick ash.o.r.e and recruit new crew members. But Cuban officials ordered him to sail before he infected the entire city. As Cuba faded in the distance Maffitt [email protected] the ache in his joints that signaled infection by the fever.

Maffitt lay in his berth most of the voyage, too ill to walk the deck.

With a decimated crew (only twenty-one were still on their feet), he reckoned that his only hope was to run the Union blockade into a major southern port before a Yankee warship discovered and took advantage of his ship's impotent condition. An almost impossible feat under any circ.u.mstances, but made all the more perilous by his ship's inability to fight back. His decision made, he ordered his first officer, Lieutenant Jubal Haverly, to set a course for Mobile, Alabama.

Late in the afternoon of September 4, 1862, after a three-day cruise across the Gulf from Havana, Maffitt sighted the ruins of the lighthouse off the entrance to Mobile Bay near Fort Morgan. He also spotted three Union warships that were blockading the harbor. Still recovering from his bout with yellow fever and looking like a ghost, Maffitt was too weak to walk the deck. Propped up in a chair by a railing on the quarter deck, his gaze traveled from the heavily an-ned enemy ships across the fifteen miles of water separating Florida from the protective Confederate guns mounted on Fort Morgan and the sanctuary of the harbor beyond.

Maffitt turned to Lieutenant John Stribling, who had served with Raphael Semmes on board the raider Sumter, and had volunteered his services so he could return home to South Carolina and see his bride.

"Tell me, sir, how would you describe our prospects?"

Stribling stared at the three warships bleakly. "We're a ship crewed by sick and cripples, we can't fire a gun. I'd say our chances of being blown out of the water in a matter of minutes are inevitable.

"You don't think it wise to make a run into Mobile Bay?"

"No, sir, I suggest we come about and make a try after dark."

Maffitt shook his head. "Blundering around in the dead of night while groping for the channel would put us aground on a shoal for sure.

"Either that, or run the ship ash.o.r.e and burn her," Stribling said somberly.

Maffitt stared thoughtfully at the distant harbor entrance. Then he nodded bravely. "I'm a gambler who likes high odds. I do believe we can run a bluff."

"Sir, "We're the spitting image of a British gunboat. We'll run up the English flag and make straight for them."

In the little time remaining, Maffitt a.s.sembled the few of his officers who were still able to move under their own power. "We're going in," he announced. "Hoist the English colors. Every minute we can fool the Union ship captains saves us a broadside from their guns.

The instant they get wise and open fire, give me a full head of steam.

All men, including the sick, will be sent belowdecks. Only the officers will stay topside with me."

There was no word of protest. There wasn't a man who would hesitate to walk through h.e.l.l with John Newland Maffitt.

"Mr. Stribling, will you do the honor of securing me to the rail?"

"But, sir, if the ship goes to the bottom ...

"Then we'll sink as one," Maffitt said with a grim smile. Then he talked to James Billups and Samuel Sharkey, Florida's tough young helmsmen. "Gentlemen, I wish you to steer toward the largest ship in the Union squadron. Aim our bow directly at her beam."

"Aye, sir," replied Billups. "You say the word, and we'll cut her amidships." The captain of Winona, the first Union ship approached by Florida, Itepped to the railing and hailed the Confederate raider.

[email protected], "What ship are "Her Britannic Majesty's steamer Vixen, " Maffitt replied.

Taken in, Winona's captain signaled the other Union warships that the stranger was friendly.

"One down, two to go," said Maffitt as Florida pa.s.sed Winona. The captain of the second Union ship, Rachel Seaman, also took the bait and stood off to port while seeing nothing suspicious in the English ship, whose guns sat idle and unmanned. The last hurdle was Oneida, a big sloop-of-war, mounting ten guns, two of them huge eleveninchers. Her captain, Commander George Preble, took no chances and ordered his helmsman to veer across the bows of the intruding Englishman.

Down in Florida's engine room, unseeing of the drama above, the fever-racked firemen, their sweating bodies caked with coal dust, fed the fireboxes like men possessed. The new engines responded with a burst of speed that sent the ship's bow surging through the swells, throwing off great sheets of spray.

Billups and Sharkey grimly clutched the spokes of the helm and aimed Florida's bowsprit directly at the hull of Oneida. Stunned at seeing the "Englishman" intent on ramming his ship, Commander Preble ordered his engines reversed. It had yet to dawn on him the stranger could be anything but British. She was a little ship, he thought, too innocent-looking to belong to the Confederacy. Seeing her captain at the railing, Preble hailed him as had the captain of Winona.

"Heave to! What ship are you?"

Maffitt stared as if in a hypnotic trance at the big eleven-inch guns, seeing their crews ready to fire. The point of no return had been crossed.

There could be no turning back. The two ships were steaming parallel now, less than a hundred yards separated them. Preble ordered a shot fired across Florida's bow, then a second shot splashed the water in front of the speeding ship. Maffitt had played his last card.

At that moment, the war suddenly caught up with Florida. Her destiny was in the hands of fate.

At the command of Preble, Oneida unleashed a broadside. The blast devastated the fleeing Confederate ship. Luckily for Maffitt and his crew, Oneida's gunners had aimed high. If the guns had been depressed, Florida's career would have ended on the seafloor of the Gulf. Sh.e.l.ls smashed her boats and railings to splinters, her rigging was shredded, spars fell on her open deck, narrowly missing Maffitt. In an instant, the once-beautiful ship was pounded into an unsightly ugly duckling.

Then the Union gunners lowered their aim and eleven-inch sh.e.l.ls smashed into more vulnerable parts of Florida. One huge sh.e.l.l crashed through the starboard hull bare inches above the waterline, denting the port boiler, decapitating one man and grievously wounding nine others, before exiting the port side and leaving a hole as large as a horse before exploding. If it had burst a moment sooner, the resulting havoc would have plunged Florida beneath the waves. 6 As calmly as if he'd been watching a parade, Maffitt called out, 'Mr.

Stribling. It's time we showed them who we are. Haul down the British colors and raise our ensign."

Helmsman Sharkey leaped across the deck, grasped the halyards, and lost a finger to shrapnel. Ignoring his bleeding wound, he pulled the flag into the sky. When the emblem of the Confederacy unfurled over Florida, the officers on the Union warships realized how deeply they had been conned. To save their reputations they were determined more than ever to terminate the raider as quickly as their guns could be loaded and fired.

Winona and Rachel Seaman opened with every gun they could bring to bear. A sh.e.l.l smashed into Florida's galley as another exploded near her port gangway. Soon wreckage littered her decks and splashed into the water alongside. As if to add insult to injury, Oneida's marines began sniping at any man who appeared abovedecks. Men that Maffitt sent aloft to set the sails were peppered with musket b.a.l.l.s and shrapnel.

Five were hit but managed to climb down after lowering the sails.

They were helped below and laid out beside those stricken with yellow fever.

Drawing on every trick he could create, Maffitt dodged and maneuvered to throw off the Union gunners, gaining precious Minutes as the faster Florida began to pull away from her pursuing hounds.

Twenty-one eleven-inch sh.e.l.ls struck the defenseless ship. An incoming broadside from Oneida seemed to lift Florida free of the water in a crescendo Of detonations. The irony of battle. Ironic because none of the Union seamen could believe the impotent target they were pounding so outrageously was still surging through the sea in the face of inevitable defeat, shaking off her terrible injuries with no apparent show of surrender.

While concussions echoed and reverberated all around Maffitt and under him, he ignored the fiery storm and gave orders to his helmsmen in a voice utterly devoid of fear. Officers on board Oneida reported after the one-sided fight seeing a man sitting by the quarter rail as cool and commanding as if he were observing a horse race. They could not help but admire the bravery of the man who sat alone on the deck, gesturing to his helmsmen.

For a solid hour Florida was hammered and mauled by three enemies who could concentrate their aim without the distraction of incoming fire.

As she raged ahead at fourteen knots, her superior speed was beginning to tell. Union crewmen had to elevate their guns after each shot now as their quarry pulled away.

Fort Morgan was drawing closer. On the ramparts, Confederate gunners cheered on their ship, their guns loaded and primed to fire the instant the Union ships sailed into range. They watched with growing optimism as they saw sh.e.l.ls missing and splashing in the wake of Florida as they began to fall short.

Incredible as it seemed, a miracle had happened. Maffitt had gambled with fate and won. He watched as the Union warships, frustrated and outfoxed, came about and turned back into the Gulf as a sh.e.l.l from a rifled gun soared from Fort Morgan and dropped in the water between the hounds and their prey. Florida had reached safe harbor at last.

Maffitt untied the rope around his waist and rose to his feet, swaying weakly as his officers, who had stuck to their stations throughout the chase, surrounded him. "Gentlemen," he said, smiling broadly, "if our supply of rum wasn't destroyed, I propose we indulge ourselves."

Then, staggering unsteadily to the helm, he shook the hand of James Billups, who had courageously steered the ship through the maelstrom of shot and sh.e.l.l. "My congratulations, Billups. You're a brave man."

"You don't know how happy I am to have been of service, sir."

"Mind the channel buoys and take her around Fort Morgan. We'll anchor there."

Maffitt ordered the engines reduced to slow speed as Florida proudly steamed into Mobile Bay, her flag taut in an offsh.o.r.e breeze.

The men manning the guns of Fort Morgan gave her a mighty cheer as she limped past. Then the cannon began thundering as they gave the battered little ship a twenty-one-gun salute. Maffitt and his crew had achieved the impossible. Honors and tributes poured in from all over the South. England rang with praise for the ship they had built.

People everywhere admired the underdog who beat the odds. Even enemies to the north could not help but be fascinated. Tough, hard-bitten Union Admiral David Porter was impressed with Maffitt's unparalleled audacity. He stated, "There was never a case where a man, under all the attending circ.u.mstances, displayed more energy or more bravery."

It took three and a half months to repair the more than fourteen hundred different injuries inflicted on Florida. Not until January 16, 1863, did Maffitt slip out of Mobile Bay during a rainstorm and thread his way through the Yankee blockading fleet. She then began her first cruise as a raider, which added a grand chapter to naval annals.

"She's flying the stars and stripes," Maffitt said, studying the graceful lines of a clipper ship under full sail. "Fire a shot across her bow."

A puff of smoke was followed by a loud blast, and a sh.e.l.l flew from the muzzle of the twelve-pound howitzer and splashed in the water fifty yards in front of the clipper ship's bow.

"Her captain got the message," said Lieutenant Charles Morris, Maffitt's second in command. "He's bringing her into the wind."

"She appears heavily laden," observed Maffitt.

As Florida pulled closer, a lone seaman on the deck of the merchant ship hoisted a white flag. "No chase this time," Maffitt said cheerfully.

He turned to Morris. "Board her and recover the manifest."

"Very well, sir." Morris quickly a.s.sembled a crew and lowered the sh.o.r.e boat into the rolling waves. As he rowed over to the Yankee ship, he read the name lettered in gold on her port bow. The clipper was called the Jacob Bell. Bad luck, having a man's name, he thought.

Captain Charles Frisbee, a crusty New Englander, met Morris as the Confederate stepped onto the deck. "I won't say, 'Welcome aboard,"

d.a.m.n you," said Jacob Bell's captain.

"I am Lieutenant Charles Morris of the C.S.S. Florida, captained by John Maffitt," said Morris in an official tone. "We are taking your ship as a prize."

"I have heard of your devil ship," snapped the New Englander, "and I've heard of Maffitt."

"May I have your cargo list, please?"

The captain handed Morris a sheaf of papers. "I knew you'd be asking for it."

Morris scanned the manifest. "I see you're carrying a full cargo of tea." Jacob Bell's captain nodded. "Over a million and a half dollars' worth.

Morris's eyes widened at the incredibly high figure. "A great pity it will never see tea cups."

"You're not providing me with the opportunity to post bond in a foreign port to get her back?"

"Sorry, captain, the risk of being intercepted by a Union warship is too great."

"You intend to sink her?" the captain muttered in outrage.

"We intend to burn her."

After food stores and any objects of value were transferred to the Confederate raider, Jacob Bell was set to the torch. John Maffitt was deeply saddened by the sight of the flames consuming such a beautiful clipper ship. An old sea dog, he hated to see a ship, any ship, die.

The fact that the Jacob Bell was to be the most valuable prize taken by any of the Confederate raiders during the entire war did not console him.

Florida's first cruise was successful beyond expectations.

Maffitt had an uncanny knack at finding and capturing Union merchant vessels. In just six months he captured twenty-five cargo ships, whose combined cargo values approached $5 million. He set a record that was broken only by Raphael Semmes and his Alabama.

Two of the captured ships were given prize crews and operated as satellite raiders. One was commanded by the ubiquitous Charles Read, who had fought Farragut at the battle of New Orleans and manned the stern gun battery on Arkansas. Read captured twenty-one ships before he was caught during a daring raid in a New England harbor.

By August of 1863, Florida's engines were badly in need of an overhaul, and her hull required the removal of several inches of marine growth. Although Maffitt preferred the work be done in a British shipyard, the political conflict between the United States and Britain made it impossible. So he sailed his ship into the French port of Brest.

The repairs on the raider were expected to take only eighteen days, but complications with the French stretched it to five months.

During this time, Maffitt became ill with a variety of ailments caused in part by recurring symptoms from his bout with yellow fever.