Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1873-01-10
Publisher and Proprietor.
lFor the Public Ledger.l
CRUISE OF THE OLUSTEE.
NJ GEORGE W. GIFT.

| BFeIyOOu9 uhs hedIu vi tho Nouc'h
Conference lately held, whereat Great
Britain was adjudged TO pay to the
United States a round sum of money as
damages for having allowed certain good
ships to sail from her ports, which there
after became armed cruisers of the Con-
federate States of America, eand did
burn, sink and destroy sundry ships be-
longing to Americans. Among others
it was claimed that damages were due
for vessels destroyed by the Olustee, a
vessel fitted out from a Confederate
port, and with whose exploits this writer
Is familiar, having sailed as her execu-
tive officer. The Geneva Conference,
however, did not call the good craft to
mind forcibly enough to induce me to
undertake the labor of writing the story
of her cruise. | was moved to that by
finding an old memorandum book in
rummaging among a lot of old papers
the other day, which among other data
contained the following:
Saturday, Oct. %, 1854, ,--At6:30 .. IN, ran the
blockade from the Fort Caswell bar of Cape
sunday. 80. Nothing special occurred.
Smooth sea.
Monday, 81 AT noon oyerhaHled Bremen
bark Gutenberg. with emigrants. for Bslti-
more. At five pm. burned American bark
Empress Theresa, of and for Baltimore. forty
dell owner, and II. T. Walter master. This
vessel was built in Matthews county, Va, in
1859; two ladies and one boy baby on board;
ehristened latter ''0lustee:"
Tuesday, Nov. 1.-Fresh breeze from north
ward and westward all day; saw one sail; too
Wednesday. 2. = Weather moderate and
cold; at daylight two sails in sight;, at 5 @
am. spoke British schooner Frink, from
Matamoras, for New York, in disabled condi-
ttop; at 1880 a. m. spoke to British brig
Princes Alice, from New York. for West In
dies; at noGD sixty miles southeast from Cape
Henlopen, steering aorth. ta
Here the memoranda ends, for immc-
diately after the last entry business "
grew SO brisk that / had no time to
make entries as condensed even as were
these.
The reader needs arst to have some
things explained in order to understand
the following narrative. In the summer
of 1864 Captain John Taylor Wood, one
Of the most reliable as well as useful
officers in the Confederate States Navy,
matured plan to release the prisoners
confined at Point Lookout in Maryland.
he purposed to sail fromWilmington with
several swift blockade runners, carrying
a picked body of seamen and Q strong
detachment Of the marine regiment.
From Wilmington he would sail into the
Chesapeake Bay up the Potomac, and
alongside the wharf at Point Lookout,
A thousand of as good men as were in
the Confederate service we're to fall on
the negro guard and use it up with
bayopet and broadsword, pistol and
nike. rha released prisoners were to be
ed (arms Were TO be carried for the
purposel and ferried across the river to
make the best of their way homeEard,
under command of General g. W. G.
Les. the present President of Washing.
ton and Lee University. This, you will
admit. was certainly audacious, and If
tSere is any merit in that quality the
axne,lition deserved success. The plan
was not only mstured by Captain Wood,
but was approved by the authorities, and
the vessels absolutely sailed down the
river, and we're crossing the bar at rort
Fisher 10 run the blockade, when q tele-
gram came from Richmond by tAa. wires
and the signal corps commanding
halt, as the expedition was known OF
and talked about in Washington. Wood |
turned back and released all
he transports but one, Q double screw |
steamer. called the Atalants. which, nn-
der his command, became the famous
Tallahassee, and again the Olustee. !
That is to say, Wood fitted out this |
steamer few days after giving up his |
project against Point Lookout, and she
became the armed cruiser Tallahassee.
Her first cruise lasted bat seventeen
days, In which time, | think. abe de-
stroyed thirty odd vessels. On her re-
turn her name was changed to Olustee,
and made the cruise we are about to de-
scribe in detail from the memoranda
quoted:
Our ship deserves the Grst mention.
She was a clipper par excellence. her
Ieuath was about 220 feet, whilst her |
.resdth was but one-tenth that much.
Her engines were Of immense power as
compared 10 her slender hull, and were
N perfeetly constructed that when IN
motion. making I1O revolutions per min
1te. 70 lar or noise was peroepuble. We
aad A couple of Parrot rihed guns, one
, hundred and the other thirty-pouuderi
he latter mounted on very high car
Rage, in order 10 get elevation for long
,ange. Our crew vas a very motley as
lemblage. We had not more than eight
men forward who could box the compass
md steer properly-the others we're
North Carolina conscripts, poor, slckly,
= weakly" lazy fellows. thinly clad and
.otally unecqaaiHlea sisA sAe sea. In
addition TO these We had detachment Of
marines, under Lieutensai Bss-S lnoE Of
he ClarksviHe Tobacco Leaf, Who were