Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[223] at her peak. She had not only the grace and beauty of hull that characterize our American-built ships, but the long, tapering spars on which American ship-masters especially pride themselves. She did, indeed, prove to be American, in a certain sense, as we found her to hail from Halifax, in Nova Scotia. The master of the Spartan was in an ill-humor when my boarding-officer jumped on board of him. It was difficult to extract a civil answer from him. ‘What is the news?’ said the boarding-officer. ‘Capital news!’ replied the master; ‘you Yankees are getting whipped like h—ll; you beat the Derby boys at the Manassas races.’ ‘But what's the news from Rio?’ now inquired the supposed Yankee boarding-officer. ‘Well, there's good news from that quarter too—all the Yankee ships are laid up, for want of freights.’ ‘You are rather hard upon us, my friend,’ now rejoined the boardingofficer; ‘why should you take such an interest in the Confederate cause?’ ‘Simply, because there is a little man fighting against an overgrown bully, and I like pluck.’

The Spartan being bound to St. Thomas, and we ourselves intending to go, soon, into the West Indies, it was highly important that we should preserve our incognito, to which end, I had charged the boarding-officer, to represent his ship as a Federal cruiser, in search of the Sumter. The boarding-officer having done this, found the master of the Spartan complimentary to the last; for as he was stepping over the brig's side, into his boat, the master said, ‘I hope you will find the Sumter, but I rather think you will hunt for her, as the man did for the tax-collector, hoping all the time he might n't find him.’

The weather now, again, became calm, and we had ‘cat'spaws’ from all the points of the compass. The breeze, with which we had chased the Spartan, was a mere spasmodic effort of Nature, for we were still in the calm-belt, or, as the sailors expressively call it, the ‘doldrums.’ For the next few days, it rained almost incessantly, the heavily charged clouds sometimes settling so low, as scarcely to sweep clear of our mastheads. It did not simply rain; the water fell in torrents, and the lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled, with a magnificence and grandeur that were truly wonderful to witness. In the intervals of these drenching rains, the clouds, like so many