PRIVATEERING AND INDIVIDUAL EXPLOITS.
No annals of war awaken greater interest than those which deal with
gallant feats of individuals and record desperate undertakings against
great odds. While results thus achieved may not be relatively great,
there is something ever inspiriting in dwelling upon such records. The
capture of the St. Nicholas, recorded upon a previous page, was such
an enterprise, and the following are equally worthy of preservation.
On the night of July 25, 1862, a Confederate boat's crew stole in
among the Federal transports and supply ships near Harrison's Landing,
and boarded the schooner Louisa Rives, loaded with army stores.
Making their way to the captain's cabin, they informed him he was
under arrest by order of General McClellan, and conveyed him to their
boat. Some of the party remained behind in the cabin long enough to
set it on fire in several places. Then the boat pulled off, leaving a burning
ship behind them, surrounded by its just awakened consorts, any
one of which could have blown the daring raiders and their boat out of
the water.
A notable exploit was executed in Chesapeake bay by Lieut. John
Taylor Wood with a boat's crew from the Patrick Henry, on the night
of November 28, 1862. Just below the mouth of the Rappahannock
they boarded the Alleghanian, a fine ship from Baltimore bound for
London, that had come to anchor on account of a heavy storm. The
ship's officers were completely surprised, and offered no resistance. In
the darkness one boat's crew escaped; the remainder and the officers
were sent prisoners to Richmond. After a portion of the ship's stores
had been transferred to the boats, she was set on fire and burned. The
ship and cargo were valued at $200,000. The Federal gunboat Crusader
was only a few miles away from the Alleghanian, but when the fire
from the latter brought boats from the Crusader to the rescue, Lieutenant
Wood was gone with his prisoners and supplies, and the fire was
beyond control.
Early in 1863 John Yates Beall was commissioned acting master in
the Confederate States navy. He organized a privateering force which
did not at anytime number more than twenty men. Mathews county,
Virginia, was their place of rendezvous. In July they cut the United
States telegraph cable across the Chesapeake. In August they wrecked
the light-house at Cape Charles. In September they captured the sloop
Mary Anne, and two fishing vessels, and the schooners Alliance, Horseman,
Pearsall and Alexander. In November they captured a schooner
on the Accomac shore of the Chesapeake. Meantime the noise of Beall's
successes had reached the North, and the Federal government sent to
Mathews county to capture him and his twenty men, one regiment of
infantry, two of cavalry, one battalion of artillery and three gunboats.
He was made prisoner on board his last prize with a number of his
men. They were held in irons at Fort McHenry six weeks, subjected to
every indignity. Information of this reaching President Davis he
promptly ordered an equal number of Federal naval prisoners to be
put under the same treatment. As on previous like occasions, this
retaliatory measure secured for Beall and his men proper treatment as
prisoners of war. This was the last attempt of the Federal government
to ignore the customary usage of war, and treat privateersmen as
"pirates." Beall was sent to City Point on March 20, 1864, and
exchanged in May following. The balance of those captured with him
were exchanged in September, 1864.
On March 6, 1864, Lieutenant Wood scored another brilliant success
in a dangerous undertaking. He crossed the Chesapeake bay from
Mathews county with a small party of men in open boats to Cherrystone
Harbor, on the eastern shore. Running in at nightfall and cutting
the telegraph wires they made prisoners the Federal cavalry pickets
there, and during the night captured two United States dispatch boats
from Fortress Monroe, touching there, the Iolas and the Titan. They
then fired the wharf warehouses, containing the commissary stores,
valued at $50,000. Lieutenant Wood ordered the Iolas fired, also, but
upon the representation of her captain that she represented all he
owned in the world he was permitted to bond her for $10,000 and depart
on parole, with a part of his crew. The remainder of the prisoners
were taken away on the Titan, which was run up the Piankatank river
to Freeport, and there burned. The two steamers had just been put in
service, newly built, and were valued at $40,000 each. In retaliation
the Potomac flotilla entered the Rappahannock, and destroyed a large
amount of naval material, including ship timber and boats.
Two dashing privateering feats were executed in Chesapeake bay in
1865. Captain Thaddeus Fitzhugh, of the Fifth Virginia cavalry, who
had accompanied Lieutenant Wood in his foray on Cherrystone Harbor,
crossed into Maryland with a small force of men, and placed all but
about a dozen of them in hiding on the Chesapeake shore near Patuxent
river. With the smaller number he then proceeded in disguise to
Fair Haven, Maryland, where they took passage, April 4th, on the
Harriet Deford for Baltimore. Out in the stream they threw off their
disguise, appearing in Confederate uniform, took possession of the
boat, brought their concealed companions on board, returned to Fair
Haven and landed the passengers and part of the crew, then took the
captured vessel across the bay, and the next day burned her. On April
6th, Lieut. John C. Brain, Confederate States navy, captured the St.
Mary, off the mouth of Patuxent, ran her to the Virginia shore and
burned her.
These are illustrations of the successful work of privateers in Virginia
waters during the war. Their most valuable service was not, however,
in the injury they did the enemy, so much as in the aid they gave the
Confederate government by running the Federal blockade, bringing in
recruits, armament and much needed stores.
