Page:Recollections of a Rebel Reefer.pdf/173

 Rh smuggled themselves aboard the Georgia with the connivance of our crew and had remained hidden until we were outside of Brazilian jurisdiction.

The Alabama had recently fought and sunk the U.S.S. Hatteras off Galveston, and as soon as possible I went on board the pride of the Confederate Navy to see the midshipmen. There were four of them—Irving Bulloch, an uncle of Theodore Roosevelt; Eugene Maffitt, son of that captain of the Florida, who, while ill with the yellow fever, ran her through the blockading fleet off Mobile in broad daylight taking their broadsides as he passed and finally anchoring his much-cut-up ship under the protecting guns of Fort Morgan. There was also William St. Clair, and my dear friend Edward M. Anderson, who is still living (1916). The holes in the Alabama's side and the scars on her deck where the shot from the Hatteras had ripped them were still fresh, and I heard the story of the battle at first hand. Of course the midshipmen's account of the fight was the one which interested me most. When one has heard their story, one wonders why Captain Homer Blake, of the Hatteras, never received more credit for his gallant fight. He fought his ship until the muzzles of his guns were almost on a level with the sea and she was about to disappear beneath the waves forever.

Captain Semmes was a fine Spanish scholar, but did not speak Portuguese, the national language of Brazil. As I could speak French fluently he borrowed me from Captain Maury to carry communications to the governor of Bahia, who, like most educated South Americans, spoke French perfectly. The American Consul protested against our being allowed to replenish our coal bunkers from the British bark Castor which lay near us. To-day (1916) the meeting of colliers and warships at appointed rendezvous is supposed to be an invention of the Germans; but colliers followed, or were supposed to be where the Alabama and Georgia would need them. I am sorry to say that they were