Among the working classes, though they suffered heavily when the supply of cotton was diminished, we had many firm and devoted friends, who saw and felt, however imperfectly, that the cause of free labor was their own cause, no matter on which side of the Atlantic the battlefield might lie.
To those who had for years endured the taunts of Englishmen who pointed to American slavery and its tolerance in the American Constitution, while they boasted that no slave could breathe on British soil, it was a strange sight, when our country was at war over the question, to see almost everything that had power and influence in England arrayed on the side of the slaveholders. A few famous Englishmen—notably John Bright and Goldwin Smith—were true to the cause of liberty, and did much to instruct the laboring classes as to the real nature and significance of the conflict. Henry Ward Beecher, then at the height of his powers, went to England and addressed large audiences, enlightening them as to the real nature of American affairs, concerning which most of them were grossly ignorant, and produced an effect that was probably never surpassed by any orator. The Canadians, with the usual narrowness of provincials, blind to their own ultimate interests, were in the main more bitterly hostile than the mother country.
Louis Napoleon, then the despotic ruler of France, was unfriendly to the United States, and did his utmost to persuade the English Government to unite with him in a scheme of intervention that would probably have secured the division of the country. How far his plans went beyond that result, can only be conjectured; but while the war was still in progress (1864) he threw a French force into Mexico, and established there an ephemeral empire with an Austrian archduke at its head. That the possession of Mexico alone was not his object, is suggested by the fact that, when the rebellion was subdued and the secession cause extinct, he withdrew his troops from Mexico and left the archduke to the fate of other filibusters.
The Russian Government was friendly to the United States throughout the struggle. The imperial manifesto for the abolition of serfdom in Russia was issued on March 3, 1861, the day before President Lincoln was inaugurated, and this perhaps created a special bond of sympathy.
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CHAPTER VIII.
THE FIRST UNION VICTORIES.
FEDERAL NAVY—BLOCKADE-RUNNING—BALLS, POWDER, AND EQUIPMENTS BROUGHT FROM ENGLAND FOR CONFEDERATES—THE FIRST HATTERAS EXPEDITION—CAPTURE OF FORT HATTERAS AND FORT CLARK—CAPTURE OF HILTON HEAD AND PORT ROYAL—GENERAL BURNSIDE'S EXPEDITION TO ROANOKE ISLAND—FEDERAL VICTORY AT MILL SPRINGS, KY.—CAPTURE OF FORT HENRY BY FEDERAL FORCES UNDER GENERAL GRANT—FALL OF FORT DONELSON—BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE.
When the war began, the greater part of the small navy of the United States was in distant waters—off the coast of Africa, in the Mediterranean, on the Asiatic station—and for some of the ships to receive the news and return, many months were required. Twelve vessels were at home—four in Northern and eight in Southern ports. The navy, like the army, lost many Southern officers by resignation or dismissal. About three hundred who had been educated for its service went over to the Confederacy; but none of them took with them the vessels they had commanded. The Government bought all sorts of merchant craft, mounting guns on some and fitting up others as transports, and had gunboats built on ninety-day contracts. It was a most miscellaneous fleet, whose principal strength consisted in the weakness of its adversary. The first purpose was to complete the blockade of Southern ports. Throughout the war this was never made so perfect that no vessels could pass through; but it was gradually rendered more and more effective. The task was simplified as the land forces, little by little, obtained control of the shore, when a few vessels could maintain an effective blockade from within. But an exterior blockade of a port in the hands of the enemy required a large fleet, operating beyond the range of the enemy's fire from the shore, in a line so extended as to offer occasional opportunities for the blockade-runners to slip past. But blockade-running became exceedingly dangerous. Large numbers of the vessels engaged in it were captured or driven ashore and wrecked. The profit on a single cargo that passed either way in safety was very great, and special vessels for blockade-running were built in England. The Confederate Government enacted a law providing that a certain portion of every cargo thus brought into its ports must consist of arms or ammunition, otherwise vessel and all would be confiscated. This insured a constant supply; and though the Southern soldier was often barefoot and ragged, and sometimes hungry, he never lacked for the most improved weapons that English arsenals could produce, nor was he ever defeated for want of powder. A very large part of the bullets that destroyed the lives and limbs of National troops were cast in England and brought over the sea in blockade-runners. Clothing and equipments, too, for the Confederate armies came from the same source. Often when a burial party went out, after a battle, as they turned over one after another of the enemy's slain and saw the name of a Birmingham manufacturer stamped upon his buttons, it seemed that they must have been fighting a foreign foe. To pay for these things, the Confederates sent out cotton, tobacco, rice, and the naval stores produced by North Carolina forests. It was obvious from the first that any movement that would shut off a part of this trade, or render it more hazardous, would strike a blow at the insurrection. Furthermore, Confederate privateers were already out, and before the first expedition sailed sixteen captured merchantmen had been taken into the ports of North Carolina.
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| ON BOARD THE FIRST BLOCKADE-RUNNER CAPTURED. |
Vessels could enter Pamlico or Albemarle Sound by any one of several inlets, and then make the port of Newbern, Washington, or Plymouth; and the first of several naval and military expeditions was fitted out for the purpose of closing the most useful of these openings, Hatteras Inlet, thirteen miles south of Cape Hatteras. Two forts had been erected on the point at the northern side of this inlet, and the project was to capture them; but, so new was everybody to the art of war, it was not at first intended to garrison and hold them.
The expedition, which originated with the Navy Department, was fitted out in Hampton Roads, near Fortress Monroe, and was commanded by Flag-officer Silas H. Stringham. It numbered ten vessels, all told, carrying one hundred and fifty-eight guns. Two were transport steamers, having on board about nine hundred troops commanded by Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, and two were schooners carrying iron surf-boats. It sailed on the 26th of August, 1861, with sealed orders, arrived at its destination before sunset, and anchored off the bar. Early the next morning an attempt was made to land the troops through the surf, at a point three miles from the inlet, whence they might attack the forts in the rear. But it was not very successful. The heavy surf dashed the clumsy iron boats upon the shore, drenching the men, wetting the powder, and endangering everything. About one-third of the troops, however, were landed, with two field-guns, and remained there under protection of the fire from the ships. The forts were garrisoned by about six hundred men, and mounted twenty-five guns; but they were not very strong, and their bomb-proofs were not constructed properly. Stringham's flag-ship, the frigate Minnesota, led off in the attack, followed by the Susquehanna and Wabash, and the guns of the smaller fort were soon silenced. The frigates were at such a distance that they could drop shells into it with their pivot-guns, while the shot from the fort could not reach them. Afterward the larger work, Fort Hatteras, was bombarded, but with no practical effect, though the firing was kept up till sunset. But meanwhile the troops that had landed through the surf had taken possession of the smaller work, Fort Clark. They also threw up a small earthwork, and with their field-pieces fired upon some Confederate vessels that were in the Sound. The next morning (the 28th) the frigates anchored within reach of Fort Hatteras, and began a deliberate and steady bombardment. As before, the shot from the fort fell short of the