Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/116

106 R. W. Curtis; Engineers W. P. Brooks, W. H. Jackson, and J. C. Klosh; Master W. W. Wilkinson; Boatswain J. M. Dukehart; Gunner J. B. King; Master's Mate W. H. Savage, and Paymaster's Clerk William Boynton. The Stonewall went to Corunna, and thence to Ferrol, Spain, for repairs. She was blockaded by the United States vessels Niagara and Sacramento. On the 24th of March Page steamed out of Ferrol, and defied the two vessels to battle, which they ingloriously declined. Page then crossed the ocean to Nassau and Havana. At the latter port he learned of the end of the war, and delivered his ship to the Spanish authorities.

This closes this short sketch of the Confederate cruisers. As the Confederate government had no regular men-of-war, its naval officers were restricted to commerce destroying, a mode of carrying on hostilities neither chivalrous nor romantic. As Professor Soley says: "Nor is it that which a naval officer of the highest type would perhaps most desire to engage in." But the work was necessary; and that it was well done, the pages of history will testify.