Charles Wilkes had all the attributes, qualities, and characteristics commonly associated with the classical, wooden-ship sea dog. In fact, when his record is examined, it is apparent that he had more than was essential to success in his profession.
Though his long, rugged, angular frame was perhaps the despair of more than one naval tailor, he strode the quarter-deck with the militarily erect austerity of the deep-sea martinet that he truly was. His features were in perfect harmony with his figure—long, irregular, strong chin and mouth, piercing eyes, and a forehead of medium height surmounted by a shock of unruly hair. In addition to being a stern, rigid disciplinarian, he was possessed with a consuming ambition and an aggressive initiative that shirked no responsibility and carried him straight through minor obstacles and technicalities to whatever objective he chose as his goal. With it all he was a scholar. As a scientist he was at one time considered a worthy rival of the great Maury. He shares with Columbus the pre honor of having proved the presence of a continent beyond a little explored sea! With a little less turbulence in his disposition and a little more luck in chasing Confederate cruisers he might have achieved admission to that small group of men whom posterity has dubbed “great admirals.” Admittedly the last sentence of the foregoing paragraph smacks of an anticlimax. So does the last year or two of Wilkes’s active career. In view of such a galaxy of talents and attainments, however, one might pause to wonder concerning the details connected with his failure to reach that goal of every midshipman, past and present. Let his record speak for itself. And keep in mind at all times that regardless of the peace-time achievements of a naval officer, his claim to fame as such must rest upon his war record. War is his profession.
Charles Wilkes was born in New York only a year or two before the advent of the nineteenth century. He entered the Navy as a midshipman in 1818, and, after a particularly promising sojourn in that relatively insignificant rank, he was commissioned a lieutenant in 1826. By 1833 he had seen his full share of sea duty, which included service on two exploring expeditions, and he was given shore duty in Washington, D.C., as superintendent of the Depot of Charts and Instruments. His duties in this position necessitated his checking the accuracy of all instruments that passed through the depot. This seems to have given a free rein to a natural inclination for science, and he made the most of it. He felt the need of a national observatory, hence he constructed “at his own expense a small observatory, fourteen feet long, thirteen feet wide, and ten feet high,” in which he installed a five-foot transit instrument that had originally been procured for the Coast Survey. Therein is demonstrated a typical Wilkes characteristic. While the Jacksonians, then in power, were still referring to John Quincy Adams’s “lighthouses of the skies” with gusty guffaws and serious denunciations of such “internal improvements” by the national government as unconstitutional, Lieutenant Wilkes was quietly building one on his own initiative.
In 1838 he was tendered the command of a long contemplated exploring expedition to the Pacific, a billet, by the way, that had been refused by some of the higher ranking officers of the Navy. The scientific-minded lieutenant, however, accepted and began organizing the expedition with characteristic vigor. It consisted of the sloops-of-war Vincennes, Lieutenant Wilkes, who was to function also as flag officer, and Peacock, Lieutenant W. L. Hudson; the gun brig Porpoise, Lieutenant C. Ringgold; the supply ship Relief, Lieutenant J. K. Long, and two small tenders commanded by a passed midshipman and an acting master; truly a rather pretentious flotilla to be under the command of a mere lieutenant.
From the beginning difficulties were encountered. The instruments and supplies to be carried, not to mention the conditioning of the squadron, gave Lieutenant Wilkes much concern. Then the personnel contributed its share of the trouble. Neither officers nor men had much stomach for such a protracted cruise as this promised to be. Lieutenant Hudson refused to go on the grounds that his name stood higher on the list of lieutenants than did that of the flotilla commander, who was, therefore, his junior in rank. Mr. Hudson was soothed into acquiescence when, for his especial benefit, a general order was issued by the department to the effect that the expedition was thereby divested of all military character as its objectives were purely scientific.
The general order notwithstanding, Lieutenant Wilkes did not permit officers or men to get under the impression for a moment that they were not still in the Navy—the old, rigid, hard Navy at that. And there were times when they must have felt themselves engaged in activities that were decidedly military in character. Before reaching Cape Horn, he exercised his temporary seniority over Lieutenant Hudson to the tune of a sharp reprimand because of negligence with regard to the shore-boat routine of the Peacock. Later, he ordered back to the States, to be dismissed from the service, two midshipmen who sought to settle a private affair on the so- called field of honor; but upon the presentation of a petition from the other officers of the squadron, he had them restored to duty. In short, he dealt quickly and summarily with officers and men who found his iron discipline irksome. He reached the climax, perhaps, in Honolulu Harbor, where he broke and cashiered an acting master’s mate, and had flogged a number of unruly sailors and marines on board the Peacock, while the crews of the other ships were piped to the rails to witness the spectacle.
In the tender light of the twentieth century, our modern milk-fed, humanitarian citizenry would at once brand him as a brute. In reality he was not. Mr. Wilkes and the men with whom he dealt were the products of a vastly different age. His discipline and methods had the sanction of the customs of the Navy in which he served. He did his duty as he saw it, though he may—his enemies, and he had not a few before the four-year voyage was over, said he did—have overstepped his authority at times. However, he attained his objective. He had discipline.
All of his harshness did not fall upon those under his command. When some South Pacific islanders murdered Lieutenant Underwood and Mr. Wilkes Henry, the latter a junior officer and a nephew of the commander, a landing party of marines and sailors was ordered ashore, and the entire native village felt the weight of the white man’s vengeance, which was excessively severe when viewed in its mildest light.
Shorn of these unpleasantries and viewed in the light of its scientific objectives, the expedition was a brilliant success. In addition to Mr. Wilkes’s minutely detailed and ably presented five-volume narrative, not to mention his official reports and those of the staff of scientists attached to the squadron, the attainments of the expedition have been so well reviewed by recent authors and scientists that there is no justification for a full repetition thereof here.
Though time has verified the essentials of the scientific claims and facts presented by Wilkes' on his return from the four-year cruise, he did not receive the credit that was due him. He had visited and checked the position of hundreds of obscure islands; had carefully collected data on their history, manners, customs, and American trade possibilities with them; had observed the movements of the Pacific Ocean currents, and at the same time located the favorite cruising grounds of the all-important whales; had carefully compiled information, garnered by a thousand observations, on the origin and movements of the winds; and, to crown it all, he had, with unsurpassed seamanship and accuracy in navigation, over the official protests of medical and line officers, and in the face of adverse ice and weather conditions, established the presence of a new continent by sailing 1.700 miles along its bleak, ice-bound coast. Instead of the honors that were due him, he got a court-martial. It was an outgrowth of the enmities created on the voyage. He was charged with having exceeded his authority, unnecessary harshness, falsehood, and sundry discreditable acts such as “while yet a lieutenant wearing the uniform of a captain.”
The long tedious court-martial brought him official vindication on all charges but one, the illegal punishment of subordinates, for which he received a reprimand. Then an attack on his record as an explorer developed from an entirely unsuspected quarter. In 1847, Captain J. C. Ross, R.N., gave to the public his Voyage to the South Seas in which he not only ignored Wilkes’s contributions to antarctic knowledge, but also cast reflections on his veracity as a scientist. As a climax to this injury, Captain Ross expanded the apparently tangible results of his own voyage by cribbing from a letter and a chart that had been generously and unexpectedly given to him by Lieutenant Wilkes when they met in Sydney, after Wilkes’s return from his famous coasting voyage along Antarctica. As a result, Lieutenant Wilkes’s work was under a cloud to the day of his death, and as late as 1912 we find American scholars taking up the cudgels in his behalf.
Truly, the wrong ought to be corrected; nevertheless, the injured Wilkes, partially at least, deserved the rough handling he received at the hands of the English geographers. All of it came from his having given the letter and chart to Captain Ross. Viewed by the Simon-pure scholar, this act of aiding a fellow-explorer by putting at his disposal the most recent data available was in keeping with the scientific spirit and therefore was admirable and laudable. But Lieutenant Wilkes did not have the right to indulge in such amenities of the scientific brotherhood. He was a naval officer commanding Navy ships and men, sailing under explicit orders from the Navy Department, a very pertinent paragraph of which enjoined him to “prohibit all under your command from furnishing any person not belonging to the expedition with information which has reference to the objects or proceedings of the expedition.” Admittedly the phrase “all under your command” left him, as the commander, some discretionary powers on this point, but his act was unquestionably out of harmony with his orders. But Wilkes, for some reason or another, often failed to take seriously general instructions from the department.
With the court-martial and reprimand things of the past, Lieutenant Wilkes took up the routine assignments he had experienced prior to his colorful Pacific cruise. In July of the following year, 1843, he was raised to the grade of commander. In addition to his normal duties, much of his time was necessarily spent in preparing for publication his elaborate reports of the expedition; his five-volume “narrative, already mentioned, which was given to the public in 1849; and his Theory of Winds, which came from the press in the early fifties. In 1855 he was promoted to captain.
The early months of the Civil War found him on duty with the African squadron engaged in the suppression of the slave trade. The twenty years since he had skirted the coast of Antarctica had wrought but little change in the veteran seaman, though he had already reached the supposedly mellow age of sixty-two. But there was nothing mellow about him. He was still physically vigorous, efficient, full of initiative, and ambitious. Nor had his ideas of discipline lapsed. In fact the martinet propensities of younger days had been bolstered up by an “eccentric and independent . . . disposition,” to produce a combination that probably approached the characteristics of a truly cantankerous old sea dog, though he was very pleasant to those who enjoyed his confidence.
When the seriousness of the secession movement was fully realized by the Lincoln administration, the best of the far-flung cruisers were ordered home. As a part of this movement, Flag Officer Inman, commanding on the African station, transferred Captain Wilkes to the steam sloop San Jacinto, then temporarily commanded by her executive officer, Lieutenant D. McN. Fairfax. “You will then make the best of your way with the San Jacinto to Monrovia, Liberia, and thence to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. . . . You are authorized to stop where it may be necessary for coal or other supplies.”
After the usual delay typical of that age of slow communications, the San Jacinto arrived at Fernando Po from St. Paul de Loando, and Captain Wilkes took command. In accordance with his instructions, he proceeded to Monrovia. Toward the last of September, he was at the Cape Verde Islands, where newspapers informed him of President Davis’s having issued letters of marque to privateers, which were then preying upon Union commerce in the West Indies. Thereupon he decided to cruise by way of those islands before reporting in at Philadelphia.
The San Jacinto reached St. Thomas October 13, where Captain Wilkes found the Powhatan, Commander D. D. Porter, and the Iroquois, Commander J. S. Palmer, in search of the C.S.S. Sumpter. While they were taking on supplies, an English brig brought news of the marauder to southward. With this information, Captain Wilkes at once exercised his authority as senior officer present. He sent the Iroquois to cruise among the Lesser Antilles, while he cruised westward along the southern shores of the Greater Antilles to Cienfuegos, Cuba, the route the Iroquois would have followed, had not Wilkes interposed. The Powhatan was to make a similar search along the northern shores of Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, and Cuba to Key West. Following events justified this diversion of the Iroquois, for a few weeks later Commander Palmer actually caught and blockaded the phantom Sumpter in St. Pierre Harbor, Martinique, only to be outwitted by the elusive Semmes, subsequently of Alabama fame.
After a fruitless search, the San Jacinto reached Cienfuegos, October 23. There Captain Wilkes heard news that led to a decision to linger two weeks longer in the West Indies before “making the best of” his “way with the San Jacinto .... to Philadelphia” as Flag Officer Inman had ordered.
Since early in October, news of the appointment of Messrs. Mason and Slidell as “commissioners” to England and France respectively by President Davis, had been known in the North. It was also known that they intended to slip through the blockade off Charleston and proceed to Europe on the fast converted merchantman, C.S.S. Nashville. The blockaders off that port were increased and such a close watch kept upon the chosen steamer that the commissioners gave up hopes of getting to Europe in that manner, and chartered the privately owned, 15-knot blockade runner Gordon to carry them to Nassau. For some reason the name of this craft was changed to Theodora immediately after her charter for this trip. She carried them through the blockade, Saturday, October 12, and the following Monday afternoon at four she was off Nassau. Without landing, it was learned that there was no connecting steamer between that port and St. Thomas, as they had thought there would be at the time of their departure. The Theodora then laid a course for Havana, but a coal shortage forced her to put into Cardenas, October 16. Thence the commissioners, accompanied by much publicity, proceeded overland to Havana. A few days later the Nashville got through the blockade and started on a commerce- destroying cruise to the English Channel. Under the impression that she was carrying the diplomatic agents, Flag Officer Dupont dispatched the U.S.S. James Adger, Commander Marchand, to Europe in hopes of intercepting her outside one of the channel ports.
This was the status of affairs when Captain Wilkes reached Cienfuegos and decided to take a part in this international game of hide and seek. While “at Cienfuegos . . . I determined to intercept them [the commissioners and their secretaries] and carefully examined all the authorities on international law to which I had access, viz., Kent, Wheaton, Vattel, besides various decisions of Sir William Scott and other judges of the admiralty court of Great Britain, which bore upon the rights of neutrals and their responsibilities.” He had found that dispatches were contraband of war and made a neutral ship carrying them, if it were known to her officers, liable to seizure. He then hypothesized, without a case in point to support such a supposition, that the Confederate agents, not being accredited diplomats but merely rebels, constituted living “embodiment of dispatches.” Hence, he concluded that a neutral carrying them was subject to capture.
His first desire, however, was to capture the Theodora on her return trip. As soon as he had filled his coal bunkers, water tanks, and storerooms, he sailed for Havana “with all dispatch.” There he found that he was too late for the Theodora, but that the commissioners were still the social lions of the city, and would not leave until November 7, when they were to take passage on the English mail steamer Trent, plying regularly between Vera Cruz and St. Thomas with Havana as a call port. At St. Thomas, the Trent made connections with the regular West India packet for England. At no time did she enter Union or Confederate ports. In addition to this information, Wilkes received news of the Union amphibious expedition then in operation against Port Royal, and he began to make plans for going by there, after he had captured the Trent, in hopes of getting in on any action the men-of-war might find off that port.
With this full knowledge of the commissioners’ itinerary, Captain Wilkes made up his “mind to fill up with coal and leave the port as soon as possible, to await at a suitable position on the route of the steamer . . . to intercept her.” After leaving Havana he still had several days to wait before the arrival of the Trent in those waters. He spent the time cruising along the Cuban north coast and stopping merchantmen in hopes of hearing something of the Sumpter. Then it occurred to him that in spite of the comparatively narrow waters of the Old Bahama Channel, the Trent might slip by him under cover of darkness. Nursing this fear, he hastened to Key West where he expected to find the Powhatan or some other man-of-war that he might order out to help patrol the path of the mail steamer.
In the meantime he had confided his intentions to Lieutenant Fairfax. This officer opposed the entire scheme as being contrary to American interpretations of international law, and particularly hazardous to the Union cause should England, with her strong Navy, consider such an act sufficient cause to enter the war in favor of the Confederacy. When he found, however, that his chief had fully made up his mind, he stopped urging his views upon the captain. He took advantage of this trip to Key West, however, to reopen the question and to suggest that it might be well to consult Federal Judge Marvin, an authority on admiralty law, as to the legality of such a seizure. Captain Wilkes did not consider it worth while, however, and when he found no men-of-war at Key West, he hastened back to the Cuban coast to keep the vigil alone.
He ran eastward along the north coast to a position off Paradon light, some three hundred miles east of Havana. At this well-chosen point, where the Old Bahama Channel contracts to a width of fifteen miles, he cruised slowly back and forth. According to the known speed of the Trent, Captain Wilkes reasoned that she should be off Paradon light at high noon, November 8. At 11:45, the lookout reported her smoke to westward, and the crew of the San Jacinto was sent to battle stations. The customary blank shot was fired as a signal to heave to. This was disregarded. The second shot was a shell, which exploded squarely in the path of the steamer. Naturally, Captain Moir, of the Trent, hove to.
Mr. Fairfax, second in command, for the moment became the leading character in the episode. That officer, still thoroughly disconcerted over the possible outcome of the affair, launched himself upon a plan of action calculated to nullify in some measure the rashness of his captain. In harmony with this plan he had demanded, as the senior lieutenant, the honor of commanding the boarding party of seamen, marines, engineers, and firemen that were to constitute the proposed prize crew. The request was granted, but just before he shoved off for the Trent, Captain Wilkes handed him a set of instructions that permitted no leeway for action or misinterpretation: “Should Mr. Mason, Mr. Slidell, Mr. Eustis, and Mr. McFarland be on board, you will take them as prisoners and send them on board this ship immediately and take possession of her as a prize.”
Lieutenant Fairfax, nevertheless, had no intention of making a prize of the Trent. With studied, calm politeness, and a downright deference to Captain Moir, who he feared might out of indignation throw the ship on his hands and thereby defeat his intentions, he went about the task of getting the commissioners and their secretaries without seizing the vessel. This he did, though an over-zealous subordinate, because of a commotion among the rabidly pro-Southern passengers and crew, did order marines aboard and by an offensive show of strength all but defeated Mr. Fairfax’s plan. He also had to use technical force, consisting of three officers laying their hands first on one Confederate and then on the other, to get the commissioners into the cutter. Though Fairfax’s playing fast and loose with his superior’s orders may not stimulate one’s admiration for him, it must be admitted that his capture of the commissioners with so little friction was no mean task, especially when it is considered that it was done to a constant chorus of: “Did you ever hear of such an outrage?” “Marines aboard!” “These Yankees will have to pay . . . . ”; “England will open the blockade”; and “. . . . such a piratical act.” And the most offensive spectator was the mail agent, clad in the uniform of a commander in the Royal Navy. The commissioners, however, were probably more than willing to be captured.
Now that Lieutenant Fairfax had been aboard the Trent and transferred the Confederates to the San Jacinto without undue bluster, the next step was to get Captain Wilkes to stop with that. For his hand in the game, the Goddess of Luck had dealt him an ace in the hole. He truthfully described the crowded and hostile conditions aboard the contemplated prize; reported that the English crew would probably refuse to aid in sailing the ship to Key West, all of which would require a large prize crew. This, he pointed out, would leave the San Jacinto with but little more than a skeleton crew for the possible action before Port Royal. The captain was convinced, and the Trent was permitted to go her way.
The North, depressed by the first Bull Run and afflicted with a growing hatred toward England because of the critical British press and open sympathy for the South, received the news with unrestrained and undisguised joy. Newspapers proclaimed Captain Wilkes to be the man of the hour. Secretary Welles congratulated him, though he splashed a little cold water on the warmth thereof by remarking that the release of the Trent without being carried into an admiralty court “must not be permitted to constitute a precedent.” On the first day of the session of Congress, December 2, Wilkes was unanimously voted a medal for “his adroit and patriotic conduct.” By the time the San Jacinto had proceeded from Norfolk to Boston, by way of New York, to commit the prisoners to Fort Warren, the outpouring of superlatives had reached its greatest volume. The city of Boston gave Wilkes and his officers a banquet at the Revere House, where men, prominent in semiofficial and official circles, vied with one another in lauding the sea captain and in making undiplomatic remarks. Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, for example, doubted if there was anything left to “crown the exultation of the American heart” now that Captain Wilkes had “fired his shot across the bows of the ship that bore the British Lion at its head.” The city government then voted the popular idol a sword, which, including expenses of presentation, cost $1,200.
True enough, a few men in the high places of the government looked askance upon this high-handed stopping of a neutral ship, en route between neutral ports, and the removing therefrom men of a quasi-diplomatic status, and felt that even if England did not choose to make a fuss over it, she certainly had the right to do so. Secretary of State Seward apparently did not think it could lead to a serious complaint, but confided to his diary that “Captain Wilkes, having acted without any instructions from the government, the subject is therefore free from embarrassment which might have resulted if the act had been specially directed by us.” Obviously he intended to repudiate Wilkes if England should vigorously protest. Postmaster General cabinet meeting, denounced Wilkes’s act as “unauthorized, irregular, and illegal” and suggested that the popular captain be ordered to carry Messrs. Mason and Slidell to Europe in the San Jacinto and hand them over to the English government. General McClellan is credited with having held the same opinion, and the usually impulsive Senator Sumner, of the foreign affairs committee, is said to have kept his poise (for once) on the subject. But these few were unheard, unquoted, and ignored in the great wave of effervescent enthusiasm then sweeping over the press, orators, and masses.
In the absence of transoceanic cables, the North Atlantic packets carried to England the news of American jubilance about the same time the West India packet from St. Thomas brought information that the violation of the English flag had taken place. Their almost simultaneous arrival was too much for the English public, especially that part represented by the Tory party, which at once began leading the country along the path of war. Naval preparations were made; troops were ordered to Canada; Lord Russell wrote his testy ultimatum, the offensiveness of which was partially toned down at the request of the Prince Consort; and Seward sought a graceful manner in which to back water. The crusty English demands for the deliverance of the commissioners did not stoop so much as to argue the matter in international law, hence Seward was left to build up his own line of logic as to why he ought to return the Confederates. To disavow completely Captain Wilkes’s act was now out of the question for two obvious reasons: American public opinion would not stand for it; and the captain had been officially congratulated by the Secretary of Navy and Congress, not to mention the semiofficial ovations.
In a document that is more clever than consistent, Mr. Seward explained to Lord Russell why he was disposed to liberate the prisoners. He supported Captain Wilkes’s actions as being in full harmony with American rights in the case until he took up the lack of judicial procedure prior to committing the agents to prison. This he credited not to Wilkes and his officers, but to the shortcomings of international law in that “the books of law are dumb” as to the proper procedure. “Only courts of admiralty have jurisdiction in maritime cases and these courts have formulas to try only claims to contraband chattels, but none to try claims concerning contraband persons. The courts can entertain no proceedings and render no judgment in favor of or against the alleged contraband men.” In view of this failure of maritime law to provide for the rendition of justice in such cases and the traditional policy of the United States on the rights of neutrals on the high seas, the commissioners would be cheerfully liberated at the time and place the British minister might direct.
Though the Confederates were released, January 1, 1862, three weeks later Lord Russell felt called upon to refute America’s “rights” in the case as set forth by Mr. Seward. This he did in a rather able manner.
To indulge in an academic evaluation of the merits and demerits of the English and American positions in the Trent affair would not only contribute little or nothing to the further career of our subject, Charles Wilkes, but would also require much space and unnecessarily add to an already voluminous literature on that subject. We might pause, however, to see wherein, and if, Captain Wilkes deserves the not always benevolent criticism to which American historians have subjected him.
The best document that can be presented in defense of Captain Wilkes was written by none other than Lord Palmerston. It is a letter to the editor of the London Times just three days after the seizure of the commissioners but about ten days prior to the arrival of the news in England.
It will be recalled that after the departure of the Confederates from Charleston on the Theodora, the Nashville, which was to have carried them to Europe, slipped through the blockade, and the U.S.S. James Adger was sent to the English Channel to intercept her, as Flag Officer Dupont thought she still had the commissioners aboard. By November 6, the Adger was in English waters, where her commander learned from an English newspaper the true whereabouts of the diplomatic agents, then in Havana. He may have toyed with the idea of lingering in the Channel, intercepting the West India packet from St. Thomas, and doing exactly what Wilkes did November 8, though his correspondence with the Navy Department portrays intentions quite to the contrary, i.e., returning to Hampton Roads as soon as he had refitted and made sure that the Nashville had eluded him.
Palmerston, nevertheless, gained the impression from some source that the Adger was going to stop the West India packet, and called a conference of the law officers of the Crown to ascertain British rights in such an event. The result was the letter to J. T. Delane, of the Times:
94, Piccadilly, November 11, 1861. My dear Delane:
It may be useful to you to know that the Chancellor, Dr. Lushington, the three Law Officers, Sir G. Grey, the Duke of Somerset, and myself, met at the Treasury today to consider what we could properly do about the American cruiser, come, no doubt, to search the West Indian packet supposed to be bringing hither the two Southern envoys; and, much to my regret, it appeared that, according to the principles of international law laid down in our courts by Lord Stowell, and practiced and enforced by us, a belligerent has a right to stop and search any neutral not being a ship of war, and being found on the high seas and being suspected of carrying enemy’s despatches; and that consequently this American cruiser might, by our own principles of international law, stop the West Indian packet, search her, and if the Southern men and their despatches and credentials were found on board, either take them out, or seize the packet and carry her back to New York for trial. Such being the opinion of our men learned in the law, we have determined to do no more than order the Phaeton frigate to drop down to Yarmouth Roads and watch the proceedings of the American within our three-mile limit of territorial jurisdiction, and to prevent her from exercising within that limit those rights which we cannot dispute as belonging to her beyond that limit.
In the meanwhile the American captain, having got very drunk this morning at Southampton with some excellent brandy, and finding it blowing heavily at sea, has come to an anchor for the night within Calshot Castle, at the entrance of the Southampton River.
I mention these things for your private information.
Yours sincerely,
Palmerston"
Apparently Lord Palmerston expected the influential Times to help the ministry weather adverse pubic opinion that he expected would follow such a violation of the English flag as Wilkes had already committed. In view, however, of the tremendous howl of vindicative protest that went up from the English public when the news of Captain Wilkes’s deed, and the manner in which United States had greeted it, reached England, there is little wonder that the English ministry felt that it could preserve its existence better by sending the already greatly embarrassed United States an ultimatum than by shaping public opinion to accord with English precedents on the rights of belligerents.
Some writers have been disposed to base their criticisms of Captain Wilkes upon his failure to carry the Trent into port for adjudication by an American admiralty court. Such an objection is a result of having taken too seriously Secretary Seward’s analysis of the situation when he was searching for legal technicalities that would justify him in surrendering the prisoners. Had Captain Wilkes refused to listen to the cajolery of his unenthusiastic subordinate, Lieutenant Fairfax, and forced him to seize the Trent, as it was intended that he should, indignation would have been even higher in England than it was; Secretary Seward would have had one less excuse to present, and the United States would have had the additional humiliation of releasing the Trent, regardless of the verdict of the prize court. We may dismiss this point by saying that it was well that Captain Wilkes lapsed from his customary role of martinet par excellence by failing to hold his lieutenant to the letter of his boarding instructions.
The real criticism of Captain Wilkes rests upon his failure to study the American admiralty decisions and more thoroughly American policy on the rights of neutrals, which had been set forth by American secretaries of state, as closely as he did the opinions of the English admiralty judges. He ignored one of the cardinal differences between international and municipal law, i.e., that in the enforcement of the former in time of war, each nation acts not only as its own policeman but also as its own judge and jury. Obviously he should have sought legal sanction for his plan of action, not in English policy and decisions, but in those of America. Certainly, he should have committed no deed, the upholding of which would necessitate a reversal of America’s known policy, without specific orders to do so, which, of course, he did not have.
In connection with his looking into the legality of his proposed act before its commission, one cannot but wonder why he refused to consult Judge Marvin while at Key West. It cannot be said that he was in duty bound to seek judicial advice, or that as a naval officer it was obligatory upon him to abide by any opinions the judge might have offered; but, to say the least, his avoidance of authoritative advice as to whether or not he should commit the very kind of act that, when committed by England, the United States had made the nominal cause of the War of 1812, is by no means commendable.
In dealing with his shortcomings in the legal aspects of the Trent affair, posterity can afford to be charitable. They were mistakes that many zealous naval officers might have made. Furthermore, a man mentally trained in the exact laws of physical science, as was Captain Wilkes, would naturally seek the same exactitude in maritime law. As England had exerted more influence in that field than any other power, together with the fact that it was an English ship he was about to intercept, he probably felt justified in attaching primary importance to the policies and court decisions of that nation. Taking it all in all, we can overlook his interpretation of international law with more generosity than we can the dilatory manner in which he made “the best of his way” from the African coast to Philadelphia.
It is a pity that biographical studies cannot be fairly written and at the same time abide by the technique of the short story. If it were so, we could now leave the subject of this sketch enjoying (thoroughly) the hatred of the English and the high esteem of his compatriots. To do so, however, would leave a task incomplete. While it is true that all the events of his life for which he is known to this generation have been covered, Captain Wilkes’s active career by no means ended with the seizure of the commissioners. Before Secretary Welles could get him safely on the retired list, the doughty old sea dog was to precipitate another situation in which American and English naval crews stood at battle stations for thirty minutes and eyed one another over the breeches of loaded and shotted 8-inch rifles—a half-hour that was unquestionably pregnant with possibilities. For the brief period that it lasted, it was probably a greater threat to Anglo-American peace than the Trent affair, yet, for some reason the episode has been entirely overlooked by historians of the Civil War.
Although Secretary Welles permitted himself to be drawn into the public laudations that marked the arrival of Captain Wilkes with the Confederate commissioners, Messrs. Mason and Slidell, aboard the San Jacinto, to the extent of writing a short, official note of congratulations for the “great public service,” the testy Secretary of the Federal Navy soon acquired a distrust for the over-zealous officer. So strong did this distrust become that it was with extreme deliberation that he went about assigning Captain Wilkes to a command suitable to his rank and length of service. (The expansion of the Navy had gone forward at such a rate that men on the old list of captains were blossoming out as flag officers.) Mr. Welles’s hand was practically forced by a suggestion from President Lincoln that Captain Wilkes be given command of the James River flotilla, a division of Flag Officer Goldsborough’s command which was then cooperating with General McClellan’s army in the famous Peninsula Campaign of 1862.
The crabbedly conscientious Mr. Welles, always loyal to Lincoln and ever rightfully hostile toward fellow cabinet officers who tampered with his precious Navy Department, attributed the suggestion to “Seward’s intrigue. It was almost a necessity that something be done for Wilkes. His act in taking Mason and Slidell from the Trent had given him eclat—it was popular with the country, was considered right by the people, even if rash and irregular; but when and where to dispose of Wilkes was an embarrassment to me, until the command of the James River flotilla was suggested.” Captain Wilkes, however, refused to take the command unless he were made independent of Flag Officer Goldsborough. Mr. Welles complied with this demand although it angered Goldsborough almost to the point of resigning his command.
At the time of Captain Wilkes’s assignment to this new post, the Peninsula Campaign was already on the decline. The Monitor and the Virginia (Merrimac) had staged their famous set-to; McClellan had deliberately fought his way up to the outskirts of Richmond, thereby forcing the Confederates to evacuate Norfolk, burn the Virginia, and leave the James River open to Drury’s Bluff, six miles from the Confederacy’s capital, past which Goldsborough had been unable to blast his way with the Monitor and Galena. The Confederates, in turn, had made their terrific seven-day counterattack (June 26-July 1), which had left McClellan with his dispirited army behind breastworks about Harrison’s Landing. But the Johnnies were also exhausted and somewhat dispirited by their decisive repulse at Malvern Hill; Thus conditions along the James approximated a perfect stalemate when Wilkes arrived, July 10, to take over the twenty-three ships, ranging from the Monitor down to a few small river craft, all of which had been detached for him from Flag Officer Goldeborough’s North Atlantic Squadron. Six days later, Captain Wilkes was promoted to commodore.
With this force his primary duties were to keep the James open and to protect the transports and supply ships that were serving the army based on Harrison’s Landing. In view of this prosaic assignment and the military stalemate, nothing spectacular is either expected or found in this early stage of the new commodore’s career.
While in this billet, however, he did not conduct himself in such a manner as to allay Secretary Welles’s fears as to his competency for high command. On the very first day of his arrival in Virginia waters he began to complain to the department because of the deficiencies of his fleet. It was numerically insufficient, poorly equipped, short of officers, and short of men. The department tried to comply with his demands by increasing his force to some extent and gave him permission to carry out his own suggestion that he try to enlist a hundred men from McClellan’s army for naval service, but warned him that in the past similar experiments had not proved satisfactory. It was the same in this case. The military officers evidently considered it an opportunity to purge their commands of undesirables, for when ten men obtained from that source came aboard the flagship, Wachusett, Commodore Wilkes sent them back with a curt statement that they were “not even food for gunpowder.” This naturally drew a tart reply from General McClellan in defense of “these ten who have served with credit through the battles of the peninsula.”
Wilkes proved to be rather active and successful in gaining intelligence concerning Confederate ironclad building activities above Drury’s Bluff and frequently expressed a desire to take the offensive. He worked out some sort of a plan in which he needed iron scout canoes for reconnaissance and planting mines or torpedoes. The department sent him some especially built to satisfy his wants. They must have been atrocities, for he vented his disappointment in a 250-word telegram. He could not use such "large, heavy old seal boats propelled by oars. I wanted light canoes, propelled by paddles. If it had been the intention to vitiate all my plans for their use, no more effectual mode could have been used than to have sent me such outlandish concerns.” August 21, eight days before the dissolution of the James River flotilla, found Commodore Wilkes still berating the department for interfering with his plans by withdrawing one or two of his ships and failing to comply with his desires.
Apparently none of this prejudiced Secretary Welles against the commodore. But when Wilkes began to display a recrudescence of his old inclination to take departmental orders lightly, the secretary seems to have taken it as a personal challenge. It was a minor incident, but significant.
Under date of July 9, 1862, the department issued an order suspending two officers of Wilkes’s command for the omission of some paper work and putting to sea without a signal book. In due time the orders in duplicate reached Commodore Wilkes with instructions for him to serve them at once on the officers concerned. Instead of doing so, he procured explanations from them for their neglect, which he forwarded to the department. He explained his failure to carry out the letter of his instructions by writing that he could not “suspend these officers from duty without injury to the service; and I beg leave to state that the suspension of officers produces a demoralizing effect upon this service, by drawing the attention of all from their legitimate duties, on which I wish their whole minds and time to be concentrated.”
Secretary Welles disapproved his action and reprimanded him for suppressing the orders of the department. In reply Wilkes penned four closely written pages justifying his action, which, instead of moving Welles from his position, drew a touch of sarcasm from the secretary relative to the commodore’s labored explanation. This officially closed the matter for the time being, but in the meantime Mr. Welles had confided to his diary that Commodore Wilkes “is very exacting toward others, but is not himself as obedient as he should be. Interposes his own authority to interrupt the execution of the orders of the department.” And eight days later he again unburdened himself: “He (Wilkes) is a troublesome officer in many respects. Unpopular in the Navy and never on good terms with the department. Yet I have thus far got along with him very well, though in constant apprehension. He is ambitious, self-conceited, and self-willed.”
By August 29, activities had become so quiet on the Peninsula (both belligerents were concentrating for second Bull Run and subsequent Antietam along the upper stretches of the Potomac) that the James River flotilla as an independent command was discontinued. Five third-class cruisers, including the Wachusett (flag), Tioga, and Sonoma, with six mortar boats, were transferred to the Potomac flotilla, of which Wilkes became commander. The remainder of the pretentious fleet was returned to Goldsborough.
Nothing of importance occurred during the brief period of nine days that Wilkes commanded on the Potomac. In the meantime, the activities in the West Indies of the C.S.S. Florida, first of the English-built Confederate cruisers, and the predatory progress of the, C.S.S. Alabama westward from the Azores led Secretary Welles to an effort to checkmate these two commerce destroyers.
Orders were issued September 8, creating the West India squadron, to consist of seven third-class cruisers. The weight, metal, and speed of any one were roughly equivalent to those of either the Florida or the Alabama Acting Rear Admiral Wilkes was assigned to the command of this squadron, with instructions to protect commerce and to capture the Oreto (Florida) and the 290 (Alabama). Of secondary importance was the suppression of contraband trade. He was to proceed at once with the available part of the fleet; and was cautioned to “let no provocation induce you to invade the maritime jurisdiction of any neutral power, and let all your acts be within the recognized limitations of international law and regulations.” In addition to this he was provided with a set of general instructions on such matters that had been prepared for all independent commanders. In these instructions, prepared August 18 of that year, it was prohibited that American men-of-war should so much as exercise the right of search on “steam packets engaged in regular and stated mail service of foreign governments.” Rear Admiral Wilkes’s zone was to be the waters of the Bahamas and the West Indies, though as a sort of second thought, he was to look in at Bermuda en route south.
Of the seven ships assigned to him, only three were component parts of the Potomac River flotilla. The other four were to be detached from various commands and join him in the West Indies. Because of the usual delays incident to repairs, provisioning, and overhauling, two weeks or more elapsed before the nucleus of the West India squadron, consisting of the steam sloop Wachusett, nine guns, and the side-wheelers Sonoma, seven guns, and Tioga, eight guns, stood out to sea from the Virginia capes. In the afternoon of September 27, the three vessels arrived off St. George’s, Bermuda. The Sonoma was ordered to cruise off and on while the Tioga and Wachusett went in for coal, supplies, and minor repairs.
Immediately Admiral Wilkes got into a row with Colonel Ord, the British governor. No English ensign was shown when the American warships entered the harbor. Furthermore, the representative of the governor who came aboard the Wachusett was “a person in ordinary dress, and no official characteristic about him.” Wilkes considered this last point so grave that he was tempted to refuse dispatches tendered him by this informal agent. The admiral’s ire was aroused still more by the presence of seven English steamers, obviously blockade runners, the captains of which even boasted on shore “that they were engaged in illicit or contraband trade with the rebels.” Concerning the non-display of the English ensign, Wilkes protested and received the regrets of Lieutenant Colonel Munro, who attributed it to the negligence of the guard detail and assured the admiral that proper disciplinary measures had been taken. The flag was then displayed and national salutes followed.
All went well for the next few days, during which the Tioga and Wachusett coaled, provisioned, and underwent minor repairs. (The boilers of the flagship were troublesome during the entire time she was a part of the squadron.) A brig was chartered, nominally to carry a surplus of coal to a base near Carysfort light, Florida, that was being established by the department at Wilkes’s request, but in reality to linger near Little Stirrup Cay, in the Bahamas, to offer a coaling point without taking cruisers on that beat away from the junction of the Providence channels.
The morning of the fourth day in St. George’s Harbor, the Tioga and Wachusett got under way, but a boiler tube of the latter blew, and only the former stood out, while Admiral Wilkes asked Colonel Ord for a twelve-hour extension for his flagship. Once clear of the harbor, the Tioga began cruising off and on, and the Sonoma came in for coal and provisions. During this time not one of the blockade runners had dared to leave the port. Even the cover of darkness was of no avail, for after nightfall the Sonoma would anchor in Five Fathom Hole, almost dead in the narrow entrance of the harbor, whence she might follow an escaping vessel outside the three- mile zone and effect her capture.
This policy of anchoring in Five Fathom Hole irked the English authorities. The night before the Tioga relieved the Sonoma, the latter had been boarded by Lieutenant Grant, of H.B.M.S. Desperate, who told Commander Stevens that it was the “governor’s orders and the admiral’s (Wilkes’s) wishes” that the Sonoma be brought into port at once. This Commander Stevens naturally refused to do in the light of such an irregular manner of transmitting “orders.” He was then told that if he did not come in at once, he would not be permitted to do so later. Stevens continued to demur, but after the blustery departure of the Royal Navy lieutenant, he called away his gig and went in to report the proceeding to Wilkes.74 As we have seen, the Sonoma did not come in until the Tioga steamed out the following day.
It was now the governor’s move. It came in the form of a comparatively polite protest against the anchoring of the Sonoma “in the fairway”; the immediate presence of the Tioga offshore, which, having filled her bunkers and storerooms at Bermuda, was not eligible, according to Her Majesty’s neutrality rules, to remain in or return to those waters for three months; and that the Sonoma, having arrived in those waters with coal, but having expended much of it in cruising off that port, ought not to be permitted to replenish it, as that was in violation of “the spirit” of those same rules. In fact, his impression was that the Sonoma was to come in for repairs not to exceed thirty-six hours, and that no agreement had been made whereby she was to coal. He was, however, disposed to permit her to continue, as she had already started taking coal aboard.
Admiral Wilkes’s thousand-word reply would not be hailed by a symposium of diplomats as a model document. But Wilkes was not a diplomat and made no pretentions thereto; hence his reply was in perfect harmony with what one would expect from a sea dog of his salty disposition. He recapitulated the veiled insults and irregularities that had attended his arrival in port and the presence of the blockade runners. “Notwithstanding the unfavorable impression this state of things was calculated to make upon my mind, I immediately tendered a national salute, which was, after some delay, accepted and returned gun for gun.” As to Lieutenant Grant’s strange mission to the Sonoma and the anchoring of that ship in the “fairway,” “I must confess ignorance of what is meant by the term ‘fairway’ in an open roadstead.” Furthermore, he had never “expressed any wishes to anyone relative to the movements of the Sonoma, and certainly would not do so to any officer of the British Crown, or through them, for the guidance of any commander under me. In your dispatch of today . . . . you state that no allusion was made to that vessel requiring coal. Captain Wyman (of the Wachusett) and myself are fully impressed with the fact that it was stated, and, even if it had not been pointedly referred to, your own knowledge and good sense would have led you to the conclusion that it was intended.” Wilkes scotched this point by enclosing a copy of a note to the American consul, written at the governor’s request, in which the coaling of the Sonoma was mentioned. In continuance he wrote: “In carefully perusing your dispatch, I cannot avoid being struck with some of its peculiar expressions, one of them, ‘I have to instruct you that this vessel (the Tioga) cannot be permitted to return within these waters.’ This I cannot permit; my government has alone the power of instructing me.” In closing he extended thanks to the authorities “in behalf of my government, for the limited privileges extended to us” and then roundly rebuked them because the privileges had not been unlimited.
The following day the Wachusett and Sonoma left the harbor. The former proceeded to Havana, and the latter joined the Tioga in the maintenance of a virtual blockade off St. George’s. This they were to continue until just enough coal remained to carry them to New Providence Channel, where they would refuel near Little Stirrup Cay, and take up assigned patrol beats among the Bahamas. Leaving two steamers off Bermuda while he went south to pick up the other units of his command was a justified measure, for the last reports on the Alabama indicated that she was still in the North Atlantic. In actuality she was then on the Grand Banks, and the Bermudas would be the first logical coaling point as she swung south. Wilkes mentions this only casually, but says in no uncertain terms that he left them off Bermuda because he was provoked at Governor Ord and the Bermudians, “a pack of Secessionists.”
If his intentions were truly to provoke them in turn, he certainly succeeded. October 5 the Tioga followed a light steamer around Catherine Point and maintained a vigilant guard on the west side of the island. The next day the English mail steamer Merlin was intercepted as she approached St. George’s, but her papers were found to be correct. October 7, H.B.M.S. Desperate came out with a large lead-colored steamer following on her port quarter. The Sonoma disregarded the man-of-war and made the merchantman heave to when four miles out for the examination of her papers and bills of lading. This was done though the Desperate approached to within five hundred yards as if to oppose the boarding. In the meantime, the Bermudians had closed shops and declared a holiday in order to view the impending naval duel from the hilltops. All proved correct with the merchantman, but while the boarding party was busy, two other steamers put to sea, and were promptly chased back into port by the Sonoma. The Desperate withdrew without further demonstrations. Obviously she and the innocent merchantman were deliberately creating a diversion to give the blockade runners a good lead. The next day, Commander Stevens sent in a boat to communicate with the consul. This caused a note of protest from Governor Ord. Stevens, following in the footsteps of his admiral, notified the governor that the boat had landed to communicate with the consul “on matters pertaining to the interests of the government of the United States.” With the bunkers nearly empty, the Tioga and Sonoma left for the Bahamas, October 12.
For the next few months Wilkes made Havana his headquarters. He was soon joined by the side-wheelers Octorara and Santiago de Cuba, mounting ten guns each. The remaining two ships, Dacotah and Cimarron, originally assigned to him, never joined. Various delays kept them and when they did become available, the department felt that they were more urgently needed elsewhere. In the winter and spring of 1863, however, his command was reenforced by the cruisers Rhode Island, Juniata, Alabama (U.S.S.), and the sailing ship Shepherd Knapp, with suitable auxiliary craft.
With the five steamers now at his disposal, Admiral Wilkes maintained patrols in the important channels of the Bahamas and along the north coast of Cuba. Coal was obtainable at Turtle Bay, Florida, Havana, and most of the time at Stirrup Cays. The flagship was given no regular beat other than to stay in the vicinity of Havana and take the admiral on general tours around his zone.
It was on one of these tours that he again had unpleasant and almost disastrous contacts with the English. November 20, he was off Nassau, English base for an enormous fleet of blockade runners. Two boats came out of that port, one from the governor, the other from H.B.M.S. Barracouta, bearing the usual courtesies from Captain Malcolm, R.N. The governor’s boat was well in advance and brought the news that Wilkes could not “anchor at or off this port without the governor’s permission,” but the boat had a pilot aboard in case the admiral wished to go in. The executive officer, at the admiral’s behest, told the governor’s emissaries “that he should anchor if he saw fit to do so without reference to the governor’s wishes or prohibitions.” The Wachusett then stood off without permitting the man-of-war’s boat, which was now close at hand, to come alongside.
This created the wildest rumors in Nassau, the most outstanding of which, according to Consul Whiting, was that “Admiral Wilkes had sent word to the governor to ----.” Captain Malcolm made an excited trip to the American consulate and recounted the whole episode but left somewhat soothed by the unperturbed Whiting.
A few days later, Wilkes received news from the consul that Captain Malcolm had been quoted as saying that he would fire into the first American man-of-war that attempted to anchor in a prohibited location. November 24, the Wachusett was at Stirrup Cays and was getting under way to chase two vessels in the offing. Another “vessel was seen over the land which we recognized as the Barracouta. I (Wilkes) immediately steamed out toward her, and she bore down for us. We went immediately to quarters and prepared for action. She approached within one-fourth of a mile. I stopped and laid by for the result. We could distinguish the crew at quarters, and quietly awaited his further action. We laid thus side by side without (although within) hailing distance for twenty-five minutes, closely regarding each other, when, whatever might have been his intention, he steamed up, wore round, and stood off . . . and I gave orders to put the steamer’s head in chase of two vessels seen in the offing. I have no idea what the captain of the Barracouta’s intention was … I shall be over cautious to avoid being the first to break the peace . . . . but if anyone should take upon themselves to break it, or do insult to our flag, they must take the consequences. The Barracouta is a much heavier armed vessel than the Wachusett, but that is of little consequence.”
Admiral Wilkes ended most of his official dispatches by asking for more ships and bemoaning the mechanical condition of the fleet in general and the Wachusett in particular. Nor did he deviate from his usual custom in this letter, but he made an additional request for heavier guns to be mounted on those ships he did have, the only time he made such a request during his command of the squadron. Though the incident was then nine days old, he was still thinking of the heavier armament of the Barracouta. Not that he lacked the courage to face it, no indeed! He wanted the heavier guns to intimidate the English men-of- war into non-interference, and that the Americans might better acquit themselves in case of an armed clash, which he obviously felt was near at hand. It is also significant that the English West India squadron was reenforced immediately after this episode.
Welles’s letter of December 25 was probably in reply to the dispatch from Wilkes that is quoted above. It is worthy of characterization here in that it shows the secretary’s typical attitude toward Wilkes during this period. As usual he explained that there were no more ships available as the efficiency of the blockade must not be impaired. Wilkes was reminded that his primary duty was to capture the Confederate commerce destroyers and that the contraband trade was secondary. “Thus far no important results have attended your presence in the vicinity of Nassau. It has probably made the illicit traders more cautious and exasperated the authorities, but has effected no captures. It will be well, I think, that you avoid as far as possible visiting the English ports during the excited condition of the colonial authorities.”
This advice was written a little too late for practical application, for Admiral Wilkes, though he left three of his ships north of Cuba and among the Bahamas, had already shifted the cruising activities of the Wachnsett and Sonoma to Cape San Antonio, Cienfuegos, and the Caymans. This was a result of the reports of depredations by the Alabama in the Caribbean and her capture of the S.S. Ariel, a “California steamer” from New York to Central America. Being outward bound she was a lean prize, and Wilkes reasoned that Captain Semmes would next lie in wait for one laden with bullion on a return voyage. Because of the war, the return route of these treasure steamers had been shifted so that it now lay west of Cuba instead of through Windward Passage. This widening of the patrolled area brought Wilkes directly across the path that Semmes would and did follow, but he did not have the good fortune to fall in with the raider.
The net result of this shift, though a good move, was the capture of a prize and friction with Mexico. The week between Christmas and New Year, Wilkes, with the two vessels indicated, was patrolling off Cape San Antonio. Officers and men were particularly alert, for they had been told at Grand Cayman a few days before, that the Alabama’s tender, Agrippina, had left there three nights before in response to light signals from seaward. Feeling that the Confederate cruiser must be taking on coal in some obscure inlet, Wilkes decided to visit the Yucatan coast and the bordering islands of Mujeres and Cozumel. Approaching the coast, he gave chase to the schooner Pepita, which sought refuge at Mujeres. In the harbor he found the fine, fast steamer Virginia, which caused his pulse to miss a beat for she strongly resembled the Alabama. Her captain eagerly, if not joyfully, explained to Wilkes that she was a blockade runner and was awaiting there only for the contraband cargo which had just arrived on the Pepita. But alas, while he had waited, the Mexican port authorities had seized his ship because of her former record, under the Spanish flag and name of Noe-Daquy, as a notorious slaver. He was more than willing to be captured by the Americans and take his chances in their admiralty courts. Admiral Wilkes was equally willing to make the capture, hence he ordered a lieutenant and eighteen marines aboard, pending the clearance of the craft as a slaver.
He then looked into the case, decided that the Virginia was a bona fide blockade runner and sent the Sonoma, to Progreso, whence Commander Stevens proceeded to Merida to obtain the Mexican governor’s dismissal of the slaver charges. The governor was gone and would not be back for a fortnight. After a long delay, Wilkes became disgusted with the semi-revolutionary conditions at Mujeres and with the petty graft of those supposed to be in authority and ordered the captain of the Virginia to put to sea. Outside the three-mile limit, the capture was officially declared. Of course this soon brought a violent protest, with accompanying embarrassment to the Navy Department, from the Mexican foreign office.
While Wilkes was thus engaged, the Alabama was actually refitting at Areas Cay, west of Yucatan. January 11, she engaged and sank the U.S.S. Hatteras (much inferior to the Alabama) off Galveston, Texas, and doubled in her tracks to pass once again between Cuba and Mexico and reach Kingston, Jamaica, January 20. Captain Semmes remained there, unmolested, for five days. From there he proceeded to the Atlantic, down the Brazilian coast, then to the Cape of Good Hope, Indian Ocean, Sunda Straits, and the China Sea.
For his long, unmolested stay at Jamaica, Captain Semmes, in all probability, owed thanks to Lady Luck, for the Federals had been given something else to worry about. The night of January 15, the Florida, which had been blockaded in Mobile since September 4, got through Farragut’s squadron and fled southward with the R. R. Cuyler and Oneida in hot pursuit. They lost the chase the first day, but continued southward. Arriving off Cape San Antonio, the Cuyler fell in with the Santiago de Cuba, of Wilkes’s command. From a Mobile pilot, the Federals had heard that the Florida was carrying a double ship’s company for the obvious purpose of manning a converted merchantman. Upon hearing this from Commander Emmons, of the Cuyler, Ridglely, of the Santiago de Cuba, told of the large, fine Virginia, supposedly still at Mujeres. Immediately both steamers started on a wild-goose chase to Yucatan, their commanders fully expecting to surprise the Florida in rendezvous with the ex-slaver. When they arrived they found that Admiral Wilkes had but recently settled her case in the manner shown. Filled with chagrin, they laid a course for Cuba. En route they encountered the Wachusett, and Admiral Wilkes sent both of them on a ten- or twelve-day cruise around Cuba, by way of the south shore, the Caymans, and Windward Passage. Unfortunately, he did not include Jamaica in their itinerary, for there they would have caught the Alabama.
After making this assignment, Admiral Wilkes steamed posthaste to his base at Havana to recover control of his far-flung squadron. He arrived the evening of January 22, too late to enter the harbor without violating Spanish regulations. This was particularly unfortunate, for the Florida had reached there just twenty-four hours earlier, coaled during the night, and got to sea that morning at six. Wilkes did not learn of this until he entered port the next day at dawn. While he was taking on supplies for the pursuit, the Oneida appeared outside. Wilkes annexed her to his command, as he had the Cuyler a few days before, and ordered her to rendezvous with the remainder of his available squadron off Cardenas.
While off Cardenas, Wilkes picked up and annexed the San Jacinto also. She was in those waters on an independent search for the Confederate raiders. With these additions and the regular ships of the squadron, the admiral doubled his patrols in the Bahamas, as he was thoroughly convinced that there would be the next appearance of the destroyer. Once again he anticipated fairly well the actions of the enemy, for the Florida put in to Nassau, January 26, because of the defective coal taken on at Havana. Exactly a week later, she was encountered by the Sonoma, on the Great Bahama Bank, well north of Lobos Cay. The result was one of the most spirited chases of the Civil War. Under a press of steam and sail, the Florida fled up the tongue of the ocean, and to the open Atlantic by way of Northeast Providence Strait. For three hundred nautical miles the Sonoma stayed on her stern, and when the breezes were light drew up almost to within gunshot three times. A fresh wind, however, gave the Florida the advantage, and she shook off the pursuer a hundred and twenty-five miles northeast of Hole in the Wall.
Wilkes now apparently reasoned that since the Florida, having recently coaled in English and Spanish ports, could not refuel under those flags, according to the neutrality rules of those nations, until long after her existing supply would be exhausted, Maffit would next seek the hospitality of the French, Danish, or Dutch possessions. He depleted the Bahama patrols, and, retaining the Cuyler, Oneida, and San Jacinto, extended his cordon to St. Thomas and southward among the Lesser Antilles. Fuel and supply bases were established at Mole St. Nicholas and St. Thomas.
The last week in February, the U.S.S. Alabama reached St. Thomas, where the Wachusett with Admiral Wilkes still aboard was temporarily based, for duty with the West India squadron. About the same time, the sturdy, fast Vanderbilt, a big side-wheeler of fifteen guns, put into St. Thomas. She was on an independent cruise in search of the Alabama. The orders of Lieutenant Baldwin read: “When you are perfectly satisfied that the Alabama has left the Gulf or the West Indies and gone to some other locality, you will proceed along the coast of Brazil to Fernando Noronho and Rio de Janeiro, making inquiries at such places as you think advisable. From Rio continue your course to the Cape of Good Hope.” Admiral Wilkes, nevertheless, added her to his fleet and transferred his flag to her.
In extending his activities eastward, Wilkes once again anticipated the future appearance of his foe, but he erred in leaving English possessions out of his considerations as to possible refueling points for the Florida. While he was watching Danish and French islands, a trading schooner brought him news of the Florida’s having coaled at Barbados. This was her last appearance in the West Indies, for she, as had the Alabama, shifted to the South Atlantic and the Brazilian coast. Although the bird had flown, Wilkes considered it worth while to go to Barbados, March 6, to rebuke the governor for having violated his own country’s neutrality rules by permitting the Florida to coal so recently after having taken on fuel at Nassau. He got this diplomatic matter off his chest in his customary undiplomatic manner, and returned to his base at St. Thomas.
In the meantime, Farragut had set up a hue and cry for the return of his ships, the Cuyler and Oneida, not only to Wilkes but to the department as well. His first letter was written as early as February 6, but it was over a month before the Cuyler was returned, and Farragut did not get the Oneida back until after Wilkes was relieved by Lardiner, June 20. This was in spite of a number of communications from the department ordering her return. All that Welles could get from Wilkes on that subject was that the Oneida would be returned “after she performs the present important service she is on.” It was seldom that Farragut could get an answer that was as reassuring as that. “Under these conditions [the breakdown of the Wachusett] I hope to retain the Oneida.” The important service to which Wilkes referred was patrolling in the vicinity of Martinique.
Baldwin, of the Vanderbilt, was also getting impatient. Toward the end of March, he took advantage of a brief period in Key West for coal, while the admiral had remained in Havana, to communicate with the department direct. “Until the admiral will permit, I cannot, of course, carry out the orders I am under from the department, but can only hope he will have no further service for this ship and will allow me to act in accordance with my instructions.” On his return to Havana, however, the admiral again hoisted his flag on the Vanderbilt and did not release her until June 12, though Lieutenant Baldwin repeatedly expressed himself as being of the opinion that the raiders had left the West Indies, and that he should be on his way down the Brazilian coast.
Two reasons may be offered for Wilkes’s tenacity in clinging to these additional ships. First, he had lost the Wachusett, San Jacinto, and Sonoma before the middle of May as a result of their being called in for repairs. Though he mentioned the loss of these ships repeatedly as a justification of his retention of the Vanderbilt and Oneida, it is not a tenable excuse. The San Jacinto had never been his to keep, and though he had lost the Sonoma and Wachusett, the department had given him the Alabama, Rhode Island, and Juniata, the last named to be his flagship. Instead of accepting her as such, he based her at Havana and gave her a cruising beat in that vicinity.
His second reason for holding the ships in the face of contrary orders rested upon his opinion that it was but a matter of a few weeks until the raiders would again invade his zone, and when they did, he naturally wanted to be prepared. In the meantime, his correspondence indicates, he felt that he was fully utilizing them by curtailing the activities of blockade runners in those waters. His assumption that the raiders would soon return was an honest mistake such as any naval officer might make. He is, nevertheless, still subject to censure on the score that he became so engrossed and so filled with the importance of his own mission that he seems (if his official correspondence is a fair indicator) to have lost sight of the needs and importance of the missions of other commanders, not to mention the large-scale objectives of the department. As for cramping the blockade runners while cruising for the raiders, he did unquestionably make them more cautious, but in doing so he seriously antagonized Mexico and Denmark, and flirted dangerously, as we have seen, with the neutrality of England.
His actual captures, however, were comparatively insignificant. Thirty prizes were taken by his squadron during the ten months he was in command, but for the most part they were small sailing craft—sloops, schooners, and the like. Two of the steamers that he did capture, the Peterhoff and the Springbok, both of which were bound for neutral ports but laden with obvious contraband for the Confederacy, are of particular interest to students of international law in that their condemnation by American courts established an extension of the doctrine of the continuous voyage, i.e., the ultimate destination of contraband goods, and not that of the ship, made them subject to capture, though the ship, if then bound for a neutral port, should be released. England accepted this principle and exploited it to the fullest extent against Germany and over American protests during the World War.
Thoroughly dissatisfied with Wilkes, Secretary Welles decided as early as May 12 to relieve him, though it was June 1 before the necessary orders were issued assigning Admiral Lardiner to the West India command. Another twenty days elapsed before that officer, aboard the Ticonderoga, found Wilkes at St. Thomas and formally took over the squadron.
With this official act, Wilkes’s rank reverted to commodore. He returned to Washington and was placed on the retired list, in accordance with the Retirement Act of December 21, 1861, as his age was in excess of sixty-two. This fact brought no consolation to the still ambitious captor of Mason and Slidell, for he knew full well that the department was not enforcing the act against all officers over that age. The retired commodore’s cup of bitterness was filled to the overflowing when the annual report of the Secretary of Navy was published early in December, 1863.
In this report, Secretary Welles publicly blamed Wilkes for the continued depredations of the Confederate raiders:
The department, anticipating that the Alabama and her associates would find it necessary to abandon the neighborhood of the Antilles, and satisfied of the direction they would then take, ordered the Vanderbilt, a fast steamer, on independent cruising duty, first to the West Indies, and then onward to the South.
In derogation of these special and explicit orders [to Baldwin, of the Vanderbilt], Acting Rear Admiral Wilkes on falling in with the Vanderbilt transferred his flag to that vessel, and attaching her to his squadron, detained her in his possession so long as to defeat the object and purpose of the department. He did not release her until the 13th of June when Commander Baldwin proceeded to carry out his instructions, but he was too late. He arrived at Fernando Noronho the 4th of July, at Pernambuco on the 6th and at Rio de Janeiro on the 14th, thence he proceeded on the second of August to St. Helena, instead of going direct to the Cape of Good Hope. The unfortunate detention of the Vanderbilt wholly defeated the plans of the department for the capture of the Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. They, as the department anticipated, arrived in those latitudes and visited those ports in May; but the Vanderbilt, instead of being there to receive them as the department intended, was improperly detained in the West Indies.
It is extremely doubtful if Mr. Welles honestly and sincerely believed that the Vanderbilt would have destroyed the raiders had she not been detained. Admittedly she might have, but the possibilities were slim, for a raider on the high seas in 1863 was even more of a needle-in-the-haystack proposition than it is today. And the British Navy, with radio at its disposal, will testify that the German commerce destroyers showed where the odds lay in 1915, once a cruiser got to sea. Welles must have known when he wrote his report the difficulties involved. Wilkes’s entire fleet in the West Indies had not had the good fortune to corner either the Alabama or the Florida. In June of that same year, Secretary Welles had rushed to sea no less than thirty-eight bottoms in search of the lone sailing raider Tacony, burning ships right and left between the Virginia capes and Cape Cod, without results. About the same time that the Vanderbilt was sent out, the Wyoming was dispatched to the Sunda Straits on the same mission. She was not detained, and though the Alabama visited those narrow seas, after the arrival of the Wyoming, where the chances of interception were infinitely greater than in the open waters around Good Hope, the Confederate had no trouble in avoiding the Federal cruiser. Yes, it is indeed doubtful if Mr. Welles believed his own vigorous denunciation.
It is furthermore unlikely that it was launched against the hero of the Trent affair because of a personal animus, though there is ample evidence in Welles’s diary that he had no love for the fractious old sea dog. Then why did he write it? In all probability because he needed a good scapegoat to carry the public odium of the raiders’ successes. In passing it on to Wilkes it would serve the additional purpose of explaining to the critical public why the still popular and famous Wilkes was left on the beach while less-known commanders flew broad flags over extensive squadrons.
But Wilkes had no intentions of ending his naval career as a scapegoat. He not only repudiated the charges of the secretary in a rather sassy letter, but also permitted that communication to get into the hands of Washington press correspondents even before it reached Mr. Welles, which was in direct violation of a then standing general order prohibiting the publication of all official communications.
It was now Mr. Welles’s move in this unseemly verbal battle for public vindication. It came in the form of a court of inquiry and a resultant sensational court-martial, for Wilkes’s recent record, omitting the writing and publication of the offensive letter, gave the department ample weapons for this counterattack.
Commodore Wilkes was called before the court the following spring and prosecuted on five charges supported by appropriate specifications. Needless to say, all the irregular spots in Wilkes’s record since the Trent affair were dusted off. The first charge was for disobedience and was based upon the detention of the Vanderbilt, the annexation of the Cuyler and Oneida, and his refusal to return the last two when so ordered. Second, “insubordinate conduct and negligence . . . . in obeying orders” referred to his failure to suspend the two officers while he commanded on the James River, and to a trip he made from St. Thomas to La Guaira, Venezuela, to aid the State Department in the settlement of some American claims. The prosecution considered this latter act a deviation from the primary objective assigned to him in the West Indies. Third, disrespect and disrespectful language to a superior officer, which, of course, rested upon the letter Wilkes had written to Welles. Fourth, refusal of obedience to a lawful general order, based upon the publication of the letter in question. The fifth and last charge was for “conduct unbecoming an officer and constituting offense made punishable by article VIII . . . for the government of the Navy.” It rested upon Wilkes’s refusal, or failure, to answer official queries as to his exact age, and when he did answer, the information given was insufficient.
The court found that all specifications were proved to be as stated and rendered a verdict of suspension for three years. Before his restoration, the war had ended. Nevertheless he immediately became a rear admiral on the retired list, and lived in comparatively quiet retirement until his death in 1877.
The best conclusion to this brief study is perhaps found in a remark made at the outset, i.e., Wilkes had nearly all the qualities of a great admiral. Admittedly he was sometimes rash and occasionally held in light regard the orders of his superiors, but more than one great commander has suffered from these same shortcomings only to have them proclaimed as virtues after he had attained success. Given a little luck in the West Indies, the same might have been said of Wilkes. Had he been fortunate enough to have destroyed the Florida or the Alabama he would have acquired at least the fame that later accrued to Winslow, of the Kearsarge, which, with his popularity growing out of the Trent affair, would have made Wilkes one of the outstanding naval figures of that fratricidal war. But here we are speaking in terms of good fortune, and there is a grave question as to whether Admiral Wilkes’s conduct of operations in the West Indies merited for him any favors from the gods of chance.