Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/258

 '250 Son/lifrn lUxtnrn-ol Society Papers.

" In 1860, two-thirds of the commerce of New York was carried on in American bottoms: in 1863 three-fourths was carred on in for- eign bottoms." And the transfers from the United States to the British flag were enormously large. They were:

Ships. Tons.

1861, 126 71,673

1862, 135 74,578

1863, 348 252,579

1864, 106 92,052

War ended in April, 1865.

The mediocre Alabama, a single small and ill-armed ship, was the cause of most of this loss. There were, no doubt, other contribu- ting factors, but the effect of her career is plainly marked in the sud- den increase of transfers during 1863, when she was at sea. After she had been sent to the bottom, Yankee skippers recovered their breath. The trade, however, had departed, and the United States has never regained the position which it held in 1860 as a shipping nation. Here again, the destruction of helpless northern ships in nowise benefitted the South. It wrought individual ruin, and it em- bittered the relations between England and the United States; it had no strategic result, as the North was self-dependent. Nineteenth Century.

[From the Richmond Dispatch, April 12, 1896.]

BATTLE OF SAILOR'S CREEK.*

PART TAKEN IN IT BY THE SAVANNAH GUARD.

But Few Survivors Now of the Guard.

To the Editor of the Dispatch:

The Savannah Volunteer Guards Battalion fought its last battle at Sailor's Creek, in which engagement many Savannahians were killed and wounded.

participant as to the part taken therein by Hunton's Brigade.
 * For further account of this battle, see ante page 83: Recollections of a