Prescott journal. [volume] (Prescott, Wis.) 1861-1871, 1864-04-02
Edward Everett on our Army and Navy and the
Alabama. ~ a. IS


EDWARD EvERErT, who presided at the din
ner given by the merchants of Boston to the
Naval Committee of Congress on Saturday,
made an eloquent speech concerning our ma
Wy and its work. After alluding TO the extra.
ordinary growth of our naval force since the
beginning of the war, he said: shEH
Every ship-yard, public and private, has
been tested to its utmost capacity every
furnace in the country has been kept at white
heat night and day, and an amount of work
mas been performed on the coast and rivers.
and series of results achieved without a
parallel, as l believe, when the disadvantages
are considered under which the navy labored
at the commencement, in naval history, I. Let
Norfolk, Hatteras, Roanoke Island, Port Roy
al, Pensacola, the Rio Grande, Fort Henry and
Fort Donaldson, Island No. Ten, Memphis.
/ Vieksburg, Port Hudson, the shattered frag-
ments of Sumter, Fort jackson and Fort st.
Phillip, the city of New Orleans; the atlanta
demolished by FIVE shots from the WeehGuken ;
,O45 vessels captured from the enemy up to
the lst of November, and from 79 to so since
added; the closure of every port save one,
and that guarded by twenty vessels, on this
immense line of coast, bear witness to the
activity and efficiency of this arm of the ser.
vice., / need not, of course, disclaim any
thought of undertaking what has been done
by our armies and their gallant commanders,
who have borne their full, share in many of
these achievements, but am sure that they
one and all, viii do justice to the efficient CO
operation of the navy. re . bae
/" And then that marvellous creation of the
genius and skill of Ericsson, the, wonder of
the age, the turreted monitors. If there is
in nf 81 III.
more than any other deserves to be referred
10 a direct inteiposition of an overriding
Providence, it is the arrival of the heaven
directed little vessel at Fortress Monroe, af-a
ter her rough, uncomfortable voyage from
New York, on the evening of the Sth of
March, 1862, at the close of a day of havoc, II
had almost said Of terror. The mind recoils
at the contemplation of the state of things
which would have existed had the ravages Of
the Me1TleGc been renewed on the morning
of the 9th. But the ayenger was at hand;
after an all but sleepless voyage from New
York of fifty-six hours, in vessel whose con-
struction-whOse strange enginery-whose
armament--whose capacity for offensive or
defensive service we're all untried, the gallant
WOrden, at sunrise the next morning, bore
calmly down to the encounter with his gigan-
tic adversary, amidst the wrecks of his yes
terday's devastations, (the topmasts of the
sunken Cumberland peering mournfully above
the waters, the CoNgoess burned to the waters
edge, the NtnHeSotd, marked out as the next
victim, helplessly aground) went round and
round him, TO use the graphic language of an
eyewitness, "as a cooper goes round a cask,s
and drove him crippled and discounted back
to his harbor never more to leave ituntil he
went up selfdestroyed in fragments TO the
sky. (Great applause) When the noble
young commander of the Monitor dropped
upon the floor of his pilot house, stunned,
lacerated, blackened, and bleeding, with
scarce a vestige of humanity in his manly
countenance, be had inaugurated a new era
in naval warfare ! When the iron-clads and
monitors now in course of construction are
completed, we shall have, upon our coasts
and in our harbors, a defensive force. which
viii relieve us from all possibility of foreign
aggression. F&ra
i" But this torpid, inefficient, fossil navy
don't catch the Alabama ! No, nor did tor
pid, inefficient, lazy Nelson, in command of
the feet with which he fought the battle of
the Nile, catch Napoleon with force in ships
of war and transports of more than four hun
bred vessels, shadowing the sea for miles,
though he chased him or rather thought he
chased him, round the Mediterranean, from
the 10th of May till the lst of August, as the
cat chases her tail, Napoleon stopping, by
way of episode, to capture Malta ON the way,
and on the 22d of June actually crossing the
track of Nelson few hours before. Neither
was he caught by the English, Russian and
Turkish fieets-the English still commanded
by Nelson,-when the following year he re-
turned by a voyage Of six or seven weeks from
Egypt to France, passing a week with his re-
lations at Ajaccio by the way. Neither was
he caught in 1915 on his passage from Elba,
though the English knew he was plotting his
escape and French cruiser hailed him on
the way, and hearing his corvette was from
Elba, enquired how the Emperor was, who
answered in person that he twas perfectly
we'll" The Mediterranean is but mill pond
compared with the seas over which the Ala
bama roams, and whenever the pirate is hard
pressed, he slips into a neutral port. APP
plause. 1t of course must be by mere chance
if he is ever captured" ~
.