The native Virginian. [volume] (Orange Court House, Va.) 1867-187?, 1869-07-23
THE FIGHT BETWEEi THE ALABAMA
AND HATrERAS OFF GALVESTON,

Otlf readers Scnefally, VIII De inter-
ested in the account Of Capt. Semmes.
himself Captain of the Alabama, of the
fight between that vessel and the Hat
teras off Galveston, Sunday evening
January II, 1863.
The Alabama had gone around near
this port, III the hope of destroying
Gen. Banks expedition, which was ex-
pected to rendezvous here in January,
1862. On arriving Admiral Semmes
found General Banks absent. but dis
covered that there were five Federal
ships of war in the harbor. He had
promised his men some .'sport,n but to
run a-muck INTO five war ships, of which
the least was nearly his equal, hardly
came under the category. Happily one
OF the euemy's vessels decided chat ques-
tion for him by going out in pursuit of
him.
We give the rest as told by the a d.
miral IN his book, "The Sumpter and
the Alabama:"
The Alabama was still under sail.
though of course. being so near the enc
my. the water was still warm in the
boilers, and in a condition to get up
steam in ten minutes. 70 carry out
my design OF decoying the enemy,
IlDN NOlC snip hClt uCCIlIG
from his pursuit. This. no doubt, en-
couraged him, though, it would seem,
the captain of the pursuing ship pretty
soon began tn smell a rat. as the read
ers will see by this report of the ell
gagement. now lowered my propel-
Ter, still holding ON to my sails, howev-
er, and gave the ship small head of
steam, to prevent the stranger from
overhauling me too rapidly We were
stil too close to the tle' to think of EN-
gaging him. | thus decoycd him on
little by little, now turning my propel-
Ter over slowly, and stopping altogeth.
er. In the meantime night set i'll be-
fore we could get a distinct view of our
pursuer. She was evidently large
steamer but we knew from her build
and rig, that she belonged neither to
the same class of old steam frigates nor
that OF the new slOops, aud we were
quite willing to try our strength with
any of the other class.
At length, when L judged that had
drawn the stranger out about twenty
miles from his fleet, furled my sails,
beat my quarters, prepared my ship for
action, and wheeled to meet him. The
two ships now approached each other
rapidly. AS we came within speaking
distance we simultaneously stopped our
engines, the ships being about one hun
dred yards apart. The enemy was the
first to hail. "What ship is that ?"cricd
he. s.This is her Brtanic Majesty's
steamer Petrel," we replied. We now
hailed in turn and demanded to know
who he was. The reply not coming to
us very d,stinctly, we repeated our
question, when we heard the words,
s'This is the United States ship" the
name of the ship being lost to us. But
we heard enough. All we wanted to
know was that the stranger was a Unit
ed States ship, and therefore our enc
my. A pause now ensued-a rather
awkward pause as the reader may sup
pose. Presently the stranger hailed
again and said, "If you please, will
send boat OH board of you." His OBJ
iect was, OF course, to verify or dis
credit the answer We had given hlm e. at
we were one OF her Brtauic Majesty's
cruisers. We replied, "certainly, we
shall be happy to receive your boat
and we heard a boatswain's mate cali
away II boat, and we could hear the
creaking of the tackles as she was low
cred into the water.
Things were now come to crisis,
gagcment any longer with the enemy,
| turned to my first lieutenant ard
said, II suppose you are all ready for
action =" 1--WE are" he replied, "the
men are eager to begin, and are only
waiting tor the word" then said TO
him, tell the enemy who we are, for we
must-not strike him in disguise, and
when you have done so, give him the
brOadside. Kell now sang out in his
powerful clarion voice, through his
trumpet, "This is he Confederate
States steamer Alabama !"and turning
TO his crew who were all standing at
thclf guns-the gunners with their
sights on the enemy, and lock-strings
IN hand-gave the order Fire !" Away
went the bI oadslde in an instant, our
little ship feeling perceptibly the recoil
of her guns. The night was Clear, there
was no moon, but sufficient starlight to
enable the two ships to see each other
quite distinctly at the distance of half
a mile or more, and state of the at
mosphere highly favorable to the con-
duction of sound. The wind, besides,
was blowing in the direction ot the en-
emy's fleet. AS matter of course, our
guns awakened the echoes of the coast
tar and near, announcing very distinct
ly to the Federal Adniral-Bell, n
Southern man, who had gone over to
the enemy-that the ship which he had
sent out to chase the strange sqil had a
fight on her hands. He Immediately,
as we afterwards learned got under way
with the Brooklyn, his flag ship, and
TWO others of his steamers, and came
out to the rescue.
Our broadslde was returned instant