Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/39

Rh ceedings of the war. Whether the commandant of the yard was perplexed by the indecisive instructions of the authorities at Washington, or whether he was simply panic-stricken, remains a mystery to the present day. The large corvette Cumberland and the steamer Pawnee, both in commission, were there ; and by keeping the latter in the lower harbor to prevent the Confederates from obstructing the channel, and the Cumberland with her broadsides sprung upon Norfolk and Portsmouth, both towns would have been overawed. The yard was under the heavy batteries of the Pennsylvania and the Merrimac, to say nothing of a force of marines. It was simply out of the power of the Confederates to capture the place. They had no heavy guns to mount in batteries, even if they could have erected them under the broadsides of the Cumberland. "The spirit of madness and folly prevailed ; and I know of no better exhibition of it than the fact that while they [the United States forces] were trying to get out, our people were actually trying to keep them in by obstructing the channel! One would suppose that we would have been only too glad to see them depart. And no sooner had the United States given up this yard than they commenced making preparations to recapture it." Prof. J. R. Soleysays:

Though a few shops and houses were burnt, the work was done so hurriedly that the best part of the valuable material at the yard fell into the hands of the enemy. The dry-dock was not destroyed, as the fuse failed to ignite the powder; but whether from accident or from the work of other hands has never been discovered. The magazine, with great numbers of loaded shells, and 150 tons of powder, had already been seized. Two thousand guns of all descriptions were left practically uninjured, 300 of them being new Dahlgren guns of various calibers. Besides the guns, machinery, steel plates, castings, construction materials, and ordnance and equipment stores in vast quantities came into the possession of the Confederates; and severe as the loss of so much material would have been by itself to the Federal government, it