Chapter One Hundred and Forty Four Some Wreckage from the Great Storm
Chapter One Hundred and Forty Four
Some Wreckage from the Great Storm
Some Wreckage from the Great Storm
Taken from "A Revolution at Sea: How the Confederate States Navy changed the making of war at sea" by Admiral Sir James Sinclair-Davies RN KCMG
Portsmouth Press 1978
“With the examples of the Petrel, Jefferson Davis, and Savannah before them, Confederate authorities and ship-owners alike concluded that privateering was no longer profitable, and the practice soon died out. Some privateers did sail during the remainder of the war, but none had even the qualified success of the Jefferson Davis…
The reason for the demise of privateering was not purely economic. Privateering represented a decentralization of power that was inconsistent with both technology and the evolution of the modern state. It fell victim to changes: steam power and gunnery in ships, more rapid communications that enabled greater central control, and the increasing reluctance of governments, even a Confederate one, to relinquish power. It was this last that doomed privateering. The effort of the Confederate government turned from privateers to their regularly commissioned raiders, which had spectacularly more success in attacking the northern mercantile fleet…”
From "The Fallen Idols" by Teddy Braddock
Grosvenor 2003
“The fate of crew of the privateer Savannah in 1861 was a lucky one. They had been spared execution as pirates primarily because of the fear of Confederate retribution against Union prisoners. By the end of the war the difference between a privateer and a commissioned raider had become critical. A privateer would inevitably face the capital charge of piracy if captured whereas a commissioned raider could still expect to be treated as a prisoner of war. It was not just the authorities of the United States that enforced this distinction. The self-styled “Captain” Thomas Egenton Hogg was wanted by the Imperial authorities in Mexico for seizing Union shipping within their territorial waters. It would however be the British authorities that would hang him and 18 of his men (mostly Irishmen) for the bungled attempt to seize the Union ship Attica in the British port of Belize…
Many members of the Confederate States Navy would follow their army counterparts into obscurity in their Mexican exile. However there seemed to be a greater number that would take any opportunity to take up their former career in any navy that would have them…
Commodore John Mercer Brooke of the Imperial Mexican Navy: The intellectual Brooke had a deep and long term impact of the Mexican Navy as a result of his founding of a Naval Academy. Funded, to a limited extent by the Mexican government, after Maury’s recommendation of Brooke to the Emperor, Brooke set up a class of 32 cadets in Veracruz (though class was moved into the hills of the interior during the “yellowjack” season)…
Admiral George Washington Gift of the Taiping Fleet: Gift’s obsession with China and his belief that a Chinese peasant class, albeit free, could replace the negro slave drew him to the conflict between the Taipings and Imperials. Short of money he agreed to form the first serious attempt at a seagoing Taiping squadron. The squadron’s fate is notable because…
Captain Catesby ap Roger Jones: A naval adventurer and seagoing counterpart in many ways to General Patrick Cleburne, his memoirs “Service Under Five Flags” is a classic of the era…
Admiral John Randolph Tucker
Admiral John Randolph Tucker: Recruited by the military government of Peru to command their fleet against the Spanish Tucker reluctantly commanded the fleet notwithstanding the resignations of several leading Peruvian officers who would not serve under a foreigner. Tucker had the support of the government however and raised his flag aboard the Huáscar. The naval engagements of the War of the Chincha Islands, particularly those fought on the other side of the Pacific, have led to mixed opinions on Tucker’s abilities though he remains a hero in Peru, Chile and Bolivia…”
Shore battery fire at the Battle of Manila Bay
From "Emperors of Oyster Bay" by Elizabeth Linney
New York 2002
“One fascinating little event in the Roosevelt clan is often overlooked because of the momentous events that coincided with it, but it is worthy of note. Robert B. Roosevelt had, prior to the war, seemed to be in some confusion as to his middle name: Sometime Robert Barnwell Roosevelt and sometime Robert Barnhill Roosevelt. Indeed Robert had written several letters and articles under the pseudonym “Barnwell”. After 1867 Barnwell is never heard or seen again. Robert becomes, indisputably, Robert Barnhill Roosevelt, the name Robert Barnwell (Rhett) having been forever stained…
Robert Barnhill Roosevelt
During the conflict Mittie had been terrified for her Confederate brothers, James and Irvine Bulloch. James had served the Confederacy in several offices abroad, most notably in the fitting out of blockade runners and commerce raiders. Irvine had a more direct role in the conflict as the youngest officer aboard Raphael Semmes’ CSS Alabama…
The first debilitating crisis occurred in 1863 when Thee accepted a commission from the state of New York as part of the response to Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania. There appears to have been a scene in the Roosevelt household when Thee, in full Union uniform, left the family home to join his regiment of 90 day volunteers. In unpublished correspondence, gathered by Teddy Roosevelt, his uncle Robert makes one reference to Mittie’s “extreme” response at the time: a strong word when applied to the family life of genteel New Yorkers in the 1860s. In any event we know what followed: Mittie was confined to bed and refused most sustenance for the period of Thee’s service. Her physicians generously diagnosed “nervous exhaustion”. Some less generous members of the family diagnosed treason and an unseemly loyalty to her rebel brothers as the case of her self-imposed bed rest…
Martha "Mittie" and Theodore "Thee" Roosevelt Senior
Family life in the Roosevelt household regained a veneer of stability on the return of Thee from his brief but crowded service. For a time Mittie seemed to bask in Thee’s reflected glory. However this veneer marked a growing emotional crisis. Thee’s support for the National cause was only emboldened by his experiences on the battlefield. He had viewed the battlefields of Gettysburg and Unions Mills shortly after the engagements when the full horror of war was still apparent. Deeply moved by the human and material debris of battle, his tolerance for his wife’s expressions of southern sympathies waned dramatically. Concern for family was laudable he said. Sympathy for the rebels and their terrible cause was lamentable. Relations appeared increasingly strained and when the moment of renewed crisis occurred they snapped…
A letter arrived at the Roosevelt home from James Bulloch in Cuba. In it he confirmed that Irvine has been killed when the CSS Alabama had been sunk by the Union navy in the Bay of Biscay…
Bamie Roosevelt described her mother as by parts viciously angry, lashing out verbally that “the country has murdered my little Irvine” but that these episodes would quickly collapse into long periods of whimpering and “nervous exhaustion” in bed. Thee appears to have been sympathetic for a time but when these episodes did not seem to abate after six months he took a stronger hand, “encouraging” (Bamie) his wife to move on from grief and reminding her with increasing severity that they had four children to raise. Patience was wearing thin when on June 7th, 1865 another letter arrived from James Bulloch, this time from Havana. The terms of the peace imposed on the South having become clear James had written to say he was going to remain in exile in Havana for a time in order “to seek some means of beginning my life anew”. He regretted that he did not anticipate a time when he could return to the United States but confirmed he would become a better correspondent to his sister that he heretofore been…
We know that Mittie immediately pleaded with Thee for an opportunity to visit with James, if not in Havana, then in some more salubrious location. One can only imagine given her mental and emotional condition how she might have presented that request. We have no reference to it from Thee at all. We do know that he refused outright to consider any such visit though Bamie always qualified this in her references with “at this time” (there is no evidence to suggest that Bamie was present with her parents during this confrontation)…
Mittie, emotionally volatile, distraught at the perceived prospect of never seeing her one surviving brother again, once more confined herself to her room. Her confinement was short. On the morning of June 11th, 1865 she was found dead in her room. Mittie Roosevelt had taken her own life…”
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