Commerce raiding within sight of the headlands of New York Harbor, and the threat of a daring foray to burn ships in the East River, as well as to shell the Brooklyn Navy Yard, actually confronted residents of New York during the year 1864. A study of old historical material and naval annals of the Civil War reveals these surprising and almost forgotten facts.
A Confederate raider actually wrought far more havoc to commerce in northern waters towards the end of the Civil War than did German U-boats during their brief, spectacular periods of operation in the North Atlantic during the late months of the World War.
A coast line over 3,000 miles long runs from the capes of the Chesapeake to the mouth of the Rio Grande, and it was this long ribbon of coast skirting nine states that President Lincoln proclaimed under blockade in 1861 soon after the Civil War began. The means of making a blockade effective were totally inadequate, for the United States Navy comprised only about 40 ships, many of which happened to be foreign stations when hostilities began. Not more than five or six steam-propelled ships were immediately available, and the only really modern ship at hand was the steam sloop-of-war Brooklyn.
However, the Navy rapidly improvised a blockading line by the purchase or charter of a great number of steamers of all kinds and classes from ferryboats to Liverpool steam packets. In a few months the principal ports were covered; and in the latter part of the war the number of blockading ships became so large that more ships were used to blockade Wilmington and Charleston than were used on the whole coast during the first year. Nearly 500 ships, mostly steamers, were taken from the merchant service and converted into cruisers. This total did not include the men-of-war built in Union navy yards.
Though the Confederate coast line was extensive there were comparatively few points that had to be guarded. There was only one harbor, for instance, between Cape Henry and Wilmington. That one was Beaufort, a port soon occupied by the Federals. The inlets and sounds of the Carolinas, Georgia, and the Gulf States, easily accessible, were not used by the blockade runners to any great extent, for they had no connections with the interior, and no facilities for handling cargo. Even the few ports that could be used were rapidly captured, so that by the second year of the war only Wilmington and Charleston could be used along the Atlantic seaboard.
Confederate naval authorities, lacking a force to combat the blockading squadrons, turned to fast steamers suitable for conversion into commerce-raiding cruisers. Among the blockade-running ships coming into Wilmington in 1864 was the iron, twin-screw steamer Atlanta of 700 tons gross, which Colonel John Taylor Wood, C.S.A., believed would make an ideal cruiser with minimum alteration. His recommendation brought a prompt requisition by the Confederate States Navy.
The Atlanta had been built at Millwall, England, ostensibly for the Chinese opium trade, and was a fast ship, making 14¼ knots on her trial trip. She had two engines which could be worked together or separately. Alterations were soon completed for accommodating crew and guns. Her battery comprised one rifled 100- pounder amidships, one rifled 32-pounder forward, and one long Parrott aft. The officers and crew were all volunteers from the Confederate gunboats on the James River and in North Carolina waters. She was commissioned July 20, 1864, as the Tallahassee by Colonel Wood, who became her captain. He had once been an officer in the United States Navy.
Ten days later the new cruiser dropped down the river to wait a favorable chance to run the blockade. This chance came on the night of August 4, with the moon obscured by clouds and the tide favorable for crossing the bar. Colonel Wood decided to use the eastern inlet. Everything was secured for sea. Lights were housed except in the binnacle, fires were cleaned, and the crew went to quarters.
The ship went slowly ahead but shortly brought up on the “rip” or inner shoal. Two hours of hard work with the engines, and with a kedge astern, finally freed her, but by that time the tide was lost. The Tallahassee went back up the river and anchored. A new attempt the following night brought an even more trying experience for the ship grounded so hard that three steamers had to pull on her before she was freed.
Deciding that the highest tides would not offset his ship’s 13½-foot draft, Colonel Wood turned to the western inlet, deeper but more dangerous, for the blockaders clustered thickly about its mouth. Steaming down opposite Fort Caswell, the cruiser waited for nightfall. The moon sank early and shortly before midnight the slim Tallahassee was picking her way slowly and gingerly over the “Lump,” a bad shoal in mid-channel. She touched but did not bring up, and as the soundings deepened Wood and his men realized they were safely across the bar.
Turning to Chief Engineer Tynan, Colonel Wood ordered full speed ahead and the ship lunged seaward, a dark shape racing through a dark night with Union blockaders all about her. The first enemy sighted was a steamer off to starboard, then another steamer showed a light dead ahead. The pair made out the Tallahassee at about the same time and exchanged signals. Wood ported his helm to slip between them and passed so close under the stern of one that a biscuit could have been tossed on board. As the raider dashed by, her crew could hear sharp words of command by an officer in charge of the after pivot. Then there came a flash and a heavy shot sang over the Tallahassee's quarterdeck.
The other steamer also opened fire but the shots were wild and the Confederate soon lost herself in the darkness. By not returning the fire she saved betraying herself as being more than a mere blockade runner. Throughout the night Wood steered southward until he had cleared Frying Pan Shoals; then he hauled his course to the eastward.
Daylight brought the abrupt realization that the Tallahassee was still the object of interest by Union naval units, for a cruiser, hull up and with black smoke pouring from her funnel, showed astern. An hour later, another steamer, a big side-wheeler, was sighted ahead. Colonel Wood changed his course eight points, bringing a stranger on each beam. The side-wheeler held her own for a time but at last the powerful engines of the Confederate began to show their superiority. By noon the hulls of the pursuers had lowered two or three strakes over the horizon.
The Tallahassee was very deep with an extra supply of coal and probably out of trim, so her captain was prepared to sacrifice some of it if hard pressed. Fortunately it was calm, and canvas could not be used to help the heavier sparred Union ships. By late afternoon the pursuers were hull down and had evidently broken off the chase. Just at this time another cruiser was seen from the Tallahassee’s masthead, hut a change of course kept this third ship at a distance.
Just after dark a fourth cruiser was suddenly sighted close aboard, and the latter showed a blue light to which the Confederate did not reply. A wild, challenging shot failed to hit or slow the flying Tallahassee, which faded into the gloom.
The next few days were uneventful as the raider stood to the northward and eastward at cruising speed and spoke several English and foreign ships from which late New York papers were obtained. Then, 20 miles below Long Branch, New Jersey, the first prize was halted. She was the schooner Sarah A. Boice, of Boston, for Philadelphia in ballast. Her crew and their personal effects were taken on board the raider and the schooner was scuttled.
Standing over toward Fire Island Light seven sails showed up closedly bunched. One ran down toward the Confederate and soon proved herself to be the New York pilot boat James Funk. She luffed to under the Tallahassee’s quarter, launched a small boat, and a few minutes later a pilot clambered overside, a bundle of newspapers under his arm. As he reached the deck he glanced aloft to the flag.
“My God! What flag is that? What ship is this?” he said, turning to Colonel Wood. The Confederate cruiser Tallahassee,” the latter replied. The bewildered pilot was quickly told his fine little schooner was a prize and would be converted into a tender for the raider. Two officers and 20 men were placed on board the Funk with orders to keep within signal distance. She quickly went to work overhauling and bringing alongside vessels seen on the horizon. The brigs Carrie Estelle and A. Richards and the bark Bay State were captured in quick succession.
By this time more than 40 prisoners and their baggage cluttered the decks of the cruiser and when the Funk brought the schooner Carroll alongside, Colonel Wood agreed to release the ship in $10,000 bond after the latter’s captain had engaged to land the prisoners in New York. These were shifted to the schooner after having given their parole.
The next victim was another pilot boat, the William Bell. Colonel Wood was glad of this capture, since he had decided to seek a pilot who could either be paid or coerced into taking the ship through Hell Gate into Long Island Sound. In his memoirs, written some years later, Colonel Wood, who had once been a lieutenant on the U. S. sloop-of-war Germantown, said:
It was my intention to run up the harbor just after dark, as I knew the way in by Sandy Hook; then go on up the East River, setting fire to the shipping on both sides, and when abreast of the Navy Yard to open fire, hoping some of our shells might set fire to the buildings and any vessels that might be at the docks, and finally to steam through Hell Gate into the Sound.
I knew from the daily papers which we received only a day or two old, what vessels were in port, and that there was nothing then ready that could oppose us. But no pilot could be found who knew the road, or who was willing to undertake it, and I was forced to abandon the scheme.
The Tallahassee spent three days cruising between the light ship and Montauk Point and took about 20 prizes, all fishing vessels or small coasting schooners. The most important was the big packet ship Adriatic, from London, with a valuable cargo and 170 passengers. At about the time she was halted, the Funk came down the wind convoying the small bark Suliote, and Colonel Wood determined to use her as a cartel after the captain had given a $10,000 bond. The Suliote was coal laden. After the Adriatic’s passengers had been transferred, the little bark, her decks crowded with coal and people, lumbered away for the 70-mile run to Sandy Hook. Behind her flames leaped high among the spars and sails of the stately packet ship.
At the same time the Tallahassee left the vicinity with her tender in tow, heading toward Nantucket. New York waters were becoming too dangerous. Rounding South Shoal Lightship, the raider stood in toward Boston Bay where Wood decided to sink his tender since it might prove a drawback to rapid movement in restricted waters. A few unimportant captures were made and then a large bark was overhauled. First Lieutenant Ward, the boarding officer, reported her to be the Glenarvon, a fine, new ship of Thomaston, Maine, from Glasgow with iron.
The crew, including the captain’s wife and another captain and wife traveling as passengers, were shifted to the cruiser and the bark was scuttled, sinking with scarcely a ripple as the Tallahassee steamed on to the eastward. She went as far as Matinicus, Maine, without sighting anything beyond small fishing craft and coasters. Then came days of fog, as the ship rounded Seal Island and Cape Sable Island. Suddenly, one evening, the fog lifted to reveal a bark close aboard. She proved to be the James Littlefield, of Bangor, bound from Cardiff to New York with coal.
Here was the cargo of all others that the Confederates wanted, and Colonel Wood determined to use it if possible. All that night and the next day the two ships stayed together, but the sea failed to abate and Wood regretfully ordered her sunk. His fuel being very low he decided to enter Halifax Harbor. Reaching that port in a fog, thanks to the pilotage of a fisherman, Colonel Wood anchored, called away his gig, and called on Vice Admiral Sir James Hope, R. N., commanding on the station in H.M.S. Duncan, and on Sir Richard MacDonald, the Governor.
These received him kindly and allowed him a 12-hour extension of the normal 24 hours in port allowed a belligerent, so that he might replace a damaged mainmast as well as coal his ship sufficiently to reach Wilmington, nearest open Confederate port.
The United States Consul, Judge Jackson, made haste to notify the Navy Department of the raider’s presence at Halifax, while vainly protesting the extra time allotted her in port. Secretary Welles immediately ordered all available vessels in pursuit. These included all types from steam sloops of war to converted merchant ships and small gunboats. Orders went to the Juniata, Susquehanna, Aeolus, Pontoosuc, Dunbarton, and Tristram Shandy on August 13 to concentrate off Halifax. The next day like orders went to the Aster, Yantic, Moccasin, Grand Gulf, and R. R. Cuyler, while the Dacotah and the old sloop San Jacinto were sent North on the 15th.
A blockading line soon formed off the main channel, but Colonel Wood found a pilot who agreed to take him through the eastern passage, an unlighted, dangerous channel generally believed too shallow for a ship of the Tallahassee’s draft to navigate.
The raider slipped to sea, negotiating several sharp turns in the passage by efficient use of her twin screws. Her voyage southward was uneventful since so many of the blockaders were behind her, racing down after their vain watch off Halifax. She easily ran the light blockade line off Wilmington and anchored under the protection of the forts after announcing her triumphant arrival by a salute of 21 guns.
So ended a voyage of more than a month during which she captured 35 prizes. The Tallahassee made another short but comparatively unsuccessful cruise under Lieutenant Ward, and the end of the Civil War found her in an English port. She was later sold to the Japanese Government as a naval vessel and served under her third flag for many years. The ultimate fate of the gallant old ship is lost in obscurity.