that information had been received at the headquarters of the Third Army Corps that Gen. Kilpatrick succeeded in sinking the recently captured gunboats Reliance and Satellite, on the Rappahannock, twelve miles below Fredericksburg."

Nothing of the kind occurred; the Federal cavalry did attack and did attempt to destroy the vessels, but was driven off by Col. Hardwick with an Alabama regiment that happened to be in Port Royal protecting a foraging train. Everything valuable was taken from the captured steamers, and on Friday they were burned by Lieut. Wood. Gen. Kilpatrick's attack was on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning preceding. It accomplished nothing whatever toward the destruction of the Satellite and Reliance, which were burned on Friday, by the order of Lieut. Wood, because they could not be of any further service to the Confederacy. The expedition was a most brilliant success, illustrating the dash and enterprise of the C. S. navy, and a mortifying blow upon the U. S. Chesapeake flotilla, as well as securing valuable material for the navy and the army of the Confederacy. In its moral effect it aroused enthusiasm and kept alive the spirit of resistance, teaching the lesson that amid reverses there was still the chance of victory and the hope of success.

The capture of these two steamers was investigated by a U. S. Naval Court of Inquiry, which reported that it was the result of a complete surprise, and by order of Secretary Welles the officers commanding the steamers were dismissed the service.

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CHAPTER VII.

HAMPTON ROADS.

HE magnificent estuary of Hampton Roads, lying behind the guns of Fortress Monroe and the Rip Raps, receives the waters of the James River, which flow immediately past Richmond; while on the Elizabeth River, its other principal tributary, the greatest naval station and ship and ordnance yard of the United States is located. The central position of this great harbor, almost equally distant from the north and from the south portion of the Atlantic sea-board, made its possession and control of the greatest importance to both sections of the Union. And while the storm of war was gathering, and yet had not taken positive shape, both parties

at least Virginia and the United States-kept the possession of this harbor constantly in view. The report that the guns of Fortress Monroe had been turned "landward" produced very great excitement in the Virginia Convention, even after resolutions looking to secession had been overwhelmingly defeated; and, if the report had not been contradicted, would have precipitated action quite as decided as did Mr. Lincoln's proclamation calling for 75,000 troops. While this anxiety about the possession of the Roads was very great, neither Virginia nor the United States seemed disposed to disturb the uncertain calm of public affairs by open efforts to secure the possession of the harbor; but both seemed to tacitly submit to the status quo in the hope that events might yet be so shaped as to avoid collision. But while President Lincoln and Mr. Seward were endeavoring to prevent a collision in Charleston, and to preserve their pledged word with South Carolina that the situation should not be changed, it was a part of the secret purpose of the war wing of the Republican party, headed by Secretaries Welles and Stanton, not only to precipitate a collision in Charleston Harbor but to provoke a like assault at Norfolk.

To that end, before Sumter was assaulted, and while the Virginia Convention was anxiously holding the State to her moorings in the Union, against the efforts of the secession

minority, Mr. Welles addressed his order of April 10th to Capt. C. S. McCauley, commandant of the navy-yard at Norfolk, to prepare the steamer Merrimac for sea, and to dispatch her to Philadelphia. The right of the government to control the movements of its war-ships is undeniable, but the prudence of changing the situation of affairs at Norfolk, just after the State Convention had refused to secede, can only be commended as a sequence to Mr. Welles' purpose to force Virginia into hostile action, as he was about to compel South Carolina to assault Sumter. The expedition of Capt. Fox to Charleston Harbor, and the letters of the Secretary to Capt. McCauley, of the 10th, 11th, and 12th of April, are not only contemporaneous, but they are important parts in the scheme to preserve the unity of the Republican party by involving the country in civil war. Hoping and believing that the bad faith involved in dispatching the Fox expedition to Charleston would light the fires of strife, Mr. Welles determined to force Virginia to declare her position, and no better device could have been selected than that of changing the peaceful situation of affairs at Norfolk. In furtherance of that scheme he dispatched, on the 14th of April, Engineer Isherwood to Norfolk with orders to take charge of the Merrimac, repair her machinery, and remove her to Philadelphia. The condition of her machinery was such that she could have been removed on the 18th, but Capt. McCauley, anxious not to assume the responsibility of provoking the State of Virginia into secession, refused on the 16th to permit the frigate to be removed. Secretary Welles, knowing that the Fox expedition had resulted in collision, wrote to Capt. McCauley on the 16th April that "no time should be lost in getting her (the Merrimac's) armament on board,” and in placing that vessel and the others capable of being removed, with the public property, ordnance, stores, etc., "beyond the reach of seizing "; and confident that he had fired the train of civil war, he concluded his letter of the 16th with instructions that "the vessels and stores under your charge you will defend at any hazard, repelling by force, if necessary, any and all attempts to seize them, whether by mob violence, organized effort, or any assumed authority.' The Cumberland frigate had been ordered to Vera Cruz before Mr. Welles' scheme for provoking assault by South Carolina had been worked through the Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln; but, after the fall of Sumter, the Cumberland's departure was rendered "inexpedient" by "a state of things" which Mr. Welles had brought about; so, on the 16th April, he ordered Capt. Pendergrast, of the Cumberland, not to depart for the Gulf, because "events of recent occurence, and the threatening attitude of affairs in some parts of our country, call for the exercise of great vigilance and energy at Norfolk." Affairs at Norfolk were not managed by Secretary Welles with the same success which had crowned his expedition under

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Capt. Fox to Sumter, where, to use the language of the Secretary's panygerist, Chaplain Boynton, it was "very important that the rebels should strike the first blow in the conflict."

A timidity, both moral and physical, existed among the Federal officers at the Norfolk navy-yard, which prevented any fixity of purpose or any resolution of action. Whether to fly from the yard with the ships, or stay and defend both yard and ships, was a very difficult question to decide, and, whichever way determined, involved the most serious consequences. Those officers found themselves on the very verge of war, not with a foreign nation, but with their fellowcitizens their friends and relatives-with States in the Union under one political theory, and out of the Union under another. The moral embarrassments that surrounded them involved no suspicion of their loyalty, and their gallantry before and after prevents any question of their courage on that occasion.

Governor Letcher, of Virginia, on the 18th of April, after the passage of the Ordinance of Secession, ordered Major Gen. William B. Taliaferro, of the State Militia, to "forthwith take command of the State troops which are now or may be assembled at the city of Norfolk," to which city he was ordered to depart instantly; and on the same day, Robert B. Pegram and Catesby Ap R. Jones were appointed captains in the navy, and Capt. Pegram was ordered to proceed to Norfolk and there assume command of the naval station, with authority to organize naval defences, enroll and enlist seamen and marines, and temporarily to appoint warrant officers, and to do and perform whatever may be necessary to preserve and protect the property of the commonwealth and of the citizens of Virginia," and he was further directed to co-operate with the land forces under Gen. Taliaferro.

Under these orders, Gen. Taliaferro, with Capt. Henry Heth and Major Nat. Tyler of his staff, and Capts. Pegram and Jones, repaired to Norfolk, arriving on the night of the 18th. The situation of affairs, both Federal and State, at Norfolk, on the morning of the 19th of April, was that the Federal authorities had there "the U. S. frigate Cumberland, twentyfour guns, fully manned, ready for sea, and under orders for Vera Cruz; the brig Dolphin, four guns, fully manned, and ready for sea; the sloop Germantown, twenty-two guns, fully

Mr.

1 Of Chaplain Boynton's History of the Navy during the Rebellion, Admiral Porter says: "He received his information from that (the Navy Department) source, and naturally followed it as that to be put in his history, whereas a historian should leave nothing undone to obtain a true statement of affairs. Boynton, while writing his history, held an appointment under the Navy Department, which he could only hold as long as his writings were acceptable to its chief; *Where articles were prepared for his book, he could not very well reject or revise them without severing his

* *

relations with a party who had given him an easy office, in order that he might have time to devote himself solely to writing his Naval History. Many officers of the navy say it is only a history of the Naval Department." It is not surprising that a book written under such inspiration should have been not only unjust and partial in United States naval matters. but foul-mouthed with epithets toward Confederate affairs. Its reliability is clouded with suspicion of its motives, and its statements poisoned with the malice of its patron.

manned, ready for sea; the sloop Plymouth, twenty-two guns, ready for sea; the marines of the navy-yard, and the guards of the frigate Raritan, sixty guns, in ordinary; the frigate Columbia, fifty guns, in ordinary; the frigate United States, fifty guns, in ordinary; the steam-frigate Merrimac, forty guns, under repairs; the ship of the line Delaware, seventyfour guns, in ordinary; the ship of the line Columbus, seventyfour guns, in ordinary, and the ship of the line Pennsylvania, 120 guns, "receiving-ship"-all lying at the yard or in the stream. The yard was walled around with a high brick inclosure, and protected by the Elizabeth River, and there were over 800 marines and sailors with officers.

On the side of Virginia the situation was: that of Gen. Taliaferro with his staff; Capt. Heth and Major Tyler, two volunteer companies-the Blues of Norfolk and the Grays of Portsmouth-and Capts. Pegram and Jones of the navy. These were the only troops in Norfolk, until after the evacuation of the navy-yard and the departure of the Federal ships.

Whatever information may have been received by Capt. McCauley on "Friday, the 19th of April," about Virginia state troops arriving at Portsmouth and Norfolk in numbers from Richmond, Petersburg, and the neighborhood, had its only foundation in the ruse de guerre practiced by Wm. Mahone, President of the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad, by running empty cars up the railroad a few miles, where they received some citizens from the neighborhood, and then returning to the city, with every man yelling with all his might, and thereby creating the desired impression of large reinforcements pouring into the city.

It was not until Saturday night, the 20th, that the first reinforcements arrived from Petersburg, numbering about 400 men; on Sunday the Richmond Grays, and on Monday three companies from Georgia arrived, and after that troops continued to arrive until the post was fully garrisoned. At the evacuation of the yard, the State force was only the two volunteer companies in Norfolk and Portsmouth-the aggregate of which was outnumbered by the command on board any one of the U. S. ships in the navy. The batteries spoken of by Commander McCauley as being thrown up opposite the navyyard, and which he said "were distinctly seen from the masthead of the Cumberland, though screened from sight below by the intervening trees "-had no existence then, nor at any other time. Gen. Taliaferro, having no means at his command with which to oppose the passage of the ships from the navyyard, relied largely upon the demoralization existing in the yard, for the effect of his promise "that to save the effusion of blood, he would permit the Cumberland to leave the port unmolested, if the destruction of property should be discontinued." The reply of Com. Paulding "that any act of violation on their part would devolve upon them the consequences