length, without the necessity of his boats being out of sight of each other's smoke. The officers of these river craft were mostly volunteers from the merchant service, whose commissions would expire with the war, and a greater set of predatory rascals was, perhaps, never before collected in the history of any government. They robbed the plantations, and demoralized them by trade, at the same time. Our people were hard pressed for the necessaries of life, and a constant traffic was being carried on with them, by these armed river steamers, miscalled ships of war.

It would not do, of course, for us to attempt the passage of the river, until after dark; and so we held ourselves under cover of the forest, until the proper moment, and then embarked in a small skiff, sending back the greater part of our escort. Our boat was scarcely able to float the numbers that were packed into her. Her gunwales were no more than six inches above the water's edge. Fortunately for us, however, the night was still, and the river smooth, and we pulled over without accident. As we shot within the shadows of the opposite bank, our conductor, before landing, gave a shrill whistle to ascertain whether all was right. The proper response came directly, from those who were to meet us, and in a moment more, we leaped on shore among friends. We found spare horses awaiting us, and my son and myself slept that night under the hospitable roof of Colonel Rose. The next morning the colonel sent us to Woodville, in his carriage, and in four or five days more, we were in Mobile, and I was at home again, after an absence of four years!

CHAPTER LVII.

AUTHOR SETS OUT FOR RICHMOND-IS TWO WEEKS IN MAKING THE JOURNEY INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT DAVIS; WITH GENERAL LEE-AUTHOR IS APPOINTED A REAR-ADMIRAL, AND ORDERED TO COMMAND THE JAMES RIVER SQUADRON ASSUMES COMMAND; CONDITION OF THE FLEET GREAT DEMORALIZATION GRADUALLY

THE ENEMY'S ARMIES
LEE'S LINES BROKEN.

INCREASING

TELEGRAPHED my arrival, immediately, to the Secre tary of the Navy at Richmond, informing him of my intention to proceed to that capital after resting for a few days. The following reply came over the wires, in the course of a few hours. "Congratulate you, on your safe arrival. When ready to come on, regard this as an order to report to the Department." I did not, of course, dally long at home. The enemy was pressing us too hard for me to think of sitting down in inglorious ease, so long as it was possible that I might be of service. At all events, it was my duty to present myself to the Government, and see if it had any commands for me. Accordingly, on the 2d of January, 1865, I put myself en route for Richmond. I was two weeks making my way to the capital of the Confederacy, owing the many breaks which had been made in the roads by raiding parties of the enemy, and by Sherman's march through Georgia. Poor Georgia! she had suffered terribly during this Vandal march of conflagration and pillage, and I found her people terribly demoralized. I stopped a day in Columbia, the beautiful capital of South Carolina, afterward so barbarously burned by a drunken and disorderly soldierly, with no offi cer to raise his hand to stay the conflagration. Passing on,

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as soon as some temporary repairs could be made on a break in the road, ahead of me, I reached Richmond, without further stoppages, and was welcomed at his house, by my friend and relative, the Hon. Thomas J. Semmes, a senator in the Confederate Congress from the State of Louisiana.

I had thus travelled all the way from the eastern boundary of Mexico, to Richmond, by land, a journey, which, perhaps, has seldom been performed. In this long and tedious journey, through the entire length of the Confederacy, I had been painfully struck with the changed aspect of things, since I had left the country in the spring of 1861. Plantations were ravaged, slaves were scattered, and the country was suffering terribly for the want of the most common necessaries of life. Whole districts of country had been literally laid waste by the barbarians who had invaded us. The magnificent valley of the Red River, down which, as the reader has seen, I had recently travelled, had been burned and pillaged for the distance of a hundred and fifty miles. Neither Alaric, nor Attila ever left such a scene of havoc and desolation in his rear. Demoniac Yankee hate had been added to the thirst for plunder. Sugar-mills, saw-mills, salt-works, and even the gristmills which ground the daily bread for families, had been laid in ashes—their naked chimneys adding ghastliness to the picture. Reeling, drunken soldiers passed in and out of dwellings, plundering and insulting their inmates; and if disappointed in the amount of their plunder, or resisted, applied the torch in revenge. Many of these miscreants were foreigners, incapable of speaking the English language. The few dwellings that were left standing, looked like so many houses of mourning. Once the seats of hospitality and refinement, and the centres of thrifty plantations, with a contented and happy laboring population around them, they were now shut up and abandoned. There was neither human voice in the hall, nor neigh of steed in the pasture. The tenantless negro cabins told the story of the war. The Yankee had liberated the slave, and armed him to make war upon his former master. The slaves who had not been enlisted in the Federal

armies, were wandering, purposeless,

about the country, in

squads, thieving, famishing, and dying. This was the charac

ter of the war our brethren of the North-God save the mark were making upon us.

To add to the heart-sickening features of the picture, our own people had become demoralized! Men, generally, seemed to have given up the cause as lost, and to have set themselves at work, like wreckers, to save as much as possible from the sinking ship. The civilians had betaken themselves to speculation and money-getting, and the soldiers to drinking and debauchery. Such, in brief, was the picture which presented itself to my eyes as I passed through the Confederacy. The Alabama had gone to her grave none too soon. If she had not been buried with the honors of war, with the howling winds of the British Channel to sing her requiem, she might soor have been handed over to the exultant Yankee, to be exhibited at Boston, as a trophy of the war.

My first official visit in Richmond was, of course, to the President. I found him but little changed, in personal appearance, since I had parted with him in Montgomery, the then seat of government, in April, 1861. But he was evidently deeply impressed with the critical state of the country, though maintaining an outward air of cheerfulness and serenity. I explained to him briefly, what, indeed, he already knew too well, the loss of my ship. He was kind enough to say that, though he deeply regretted her loss, he knew that I had acted for the best, and that he had nothing with which to reproach me. I dined with him on a subsequent day. There was only one other guest present. Mrs. Davis was more impressed with events than the President. With her womanly instinct, she already saw the handwriting on the wall. But though the coming calamity would involve her household in ruin, she maintained her self-possession and cheerfulness. The Congress, which was in session, received me with a distinction which I had little merited. Both houses honored me by a vote of thanks for my services, and invited me to a privileged seat on the floor. The legislature of Virginia, also in session, extended to me the same honors.

As soon as I could command a leisure moment, I paid General Lee a visit, at his headquarters near Petersburg, and spent a night with him. I had served with him in the Mexican

war.

We discussed together the critical state of the country, and of his army,- we were now near the end of January, 1865, -and I thought the grand old chieftain and Christian gentleman seemed to foreshadow, in his conversation-more by manner than by words-the approaching downfall of the cause for which we were both struggling. I had come to him, I told him, to speak of what I had seen of the people, and of the army, in my transit across the country, and to say to him, that unless prompt measures could be devised to put an end to the desertions that were going on among our troops, our cause must inevitably be lost. He did not seem to be at all surprised at the revelations I made. He knew all about the condition of the country, civil and military, but seemed to feel himself powerless to prevent the downward tendency of things. And he was right. It was no longer in the power of any one man to save the country. The body-politic was already dead. The people themselves had given up the contest, and this being the case, no army could do more than retard the catastrophe for a few months. Besides, his army was, itself, melting away. That very night-as I learned the next morning, at the breakfast table-160 men deserted in a body! It was useless to attempt to shoot deserters, when demoralization had gone to this extent.

After I had been in Richmond a few weeks, the President was pleased to nominate me to the Senate as a rear-admiral. My nomination was unanimously confirmed, and, in a few days afterward, I was appointed to the command of the James River fleet. My commission ran as follows:

CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA,

NAVY DEPARTMENT, RICHMOND, February 10, 1865.

REAR-ADMIRAL RAPHAEL SEMMES.

}

SIR: You are hereby informed that the President has appointed you, by and with the advice of the Senate, a Rear-Admiral, in the Provisional Navy of the Confederate States, "for gallant and meritorious conduct, in command of the steam-sloop Alabama." You are requested to signify your acceptance, or non-acceptance of this appointment.

S. R. MALLORY, Secretary of the Navy.