starboard bulwarks by a projectile which exploded and wounded three men with flying splinters.

According to the testimony of Captain Semmes, his executive officer, Kell, and the captured men and officers of the Alabama, the enemy suffered severely.

Early in the fight her spanker gaff was shot away, and her ensign came down by the run; a shot passed through her waist, giving her the appearance of being nearly cut in two. Mr. Wilson, who commanded the after pivot-gun division, reported that an eleven-inch shell from the Kearsarge burst over his gun and put hors de combat fifteen out of eighteen of his crew; another shell exploded in the fire-room, filling it with coal, smothering the fires, and occasioning general consternation.

Kell writes: "The enemy's eleven-inch shells were now doing severe execution upon our quarter-deck section; three of these successively entered our pivot-gun port; the first swept off the forward part of the gun's crew, the second killed one man and wounded several others, and the third struck the breast of the gun-carriage and spun around on deck till one of the men picked it up and threw it overboard.

Our decks," he continues, "were now covered with the dead and wounded, and the ship was careening heavily to starboard from the effect of the shot-holes in her water-line.

Captain Semmes ordered me to make all sail possible when the circuit of the fight should put our head to the coast of France; then he would notify me at same time to pivot to port and continue the action with the port battery, hoping thus to right the ship and enable us to reach the coast of France.

The evolution was performed beautifully, righting the helm, hoisting the head sails, hauling aft the fore trysail sheet and pivoting to port, the action continuing almost without cessation. This evolution exposed us to a raking fire, but strange to say the Kearsarge did not take advantage of it. The port side of the quarter-deck was so encumbered with the mangled trunks of the dead that I had to have them thrown overboard in order to fight the after pivot-gun.

I abandoned the after thirty-two-pounder and transferred the men to fill up the vacancies to the pivot gun, under charge of young Midshipman Anderson, who in the midst of the carnage filled his place like a veteran.

. . As I entered the wardroom the sight was indeed appalling. There stood Surgeon Llewellyn at his post, but the table and the patient upon it were swept away from him by an 11-inch shell which opened in the side of the ship an aperture which was fast filling the ship with water.

It took me but a moment to return to the deck and report to the Captain that we could not float ten minutes. He replied Then sir, cease firing, shorten sail, and haul down the colors; it will never do in this nineteenth century for us to go down and the decks covered with our gallant wounded.'

The order was promptly executed, after which the Kearsarge deliberately fired into us five shots. With the first shot fired upon us after our colors were down, the quartermaster was ordered to show a white flag over the stern, which was executed in my presence."

In his report to Confederate Flag Officer Barron, at Paris, Semmes writes:

"Some ten or fifteen minutes after the commencement of the action, our spanker gaff was shot away and our ensign came down by the run. This was immediately replaced by another at the mizzen mast head.

The firing now became very hot, and the enemy's shot and shell soon began to tell upon our hull, knocking down, killing, and disabling a number of men at the same time, in different parts of the ship.

For some minutes I had hopes of being able to reach the French coast, for which purpose I gave the ship full steam, and set such of the fore and aft sails as were available."

Such is the testimony of officers of the doomed ship. Projectiles from the Alabama came thick and fast, but mostly missed their mark.

When the ensign of the corsair disappeared the Kearsarge slackened fire until the enemy's flag reappeared, when Winslow cautioned his gunners not to again suspend fire until unmistakable signals of surrender should be made.

Now one of the enemy's guns ceased firing, and his ship seemed to be settling.

A little later she hoisted her fore trysail sheets, and, pivoting her guns to port, turned her prow away from the Kearsarge with the view of reaching French waters, and thus avoiding capture.

It was a tell-tale manœuvre, and had been delayed too long: a 28pounder rifle-shot had struck her main topmast: the 11-inch and smaller projectiles riddled her side from stem to stern; great gaps opened in her side, which no plugs could fill; and the salt brine of the English Channel rushed through them in irresistible torrents. The Alabama continued to settle, and as we prepared to deliver another broadside, at closer range, the enemy's flag again disappeared. Almost simultaneously the halyards of the Kearsarge's battle-flag, which, during the entire fight, had been stopped up at the mizzen, while the enemy's had been defiantly flying, were cut by shot from the enemy, and the Stars and Stripes, unrolling to the breeze, as the rebel flag came down, indicated to the distant spectator on which banner victory had perched.

Thus by firing the first shot, the enemy sounded his daring challenge to the encounter, and, as if with the hand of fate, his shot cut loose the Union flag, at the masthead of the Kearsarge, he signalled his irretrievable defeat.

A moment of doubt, and uncertainty, and silence followed, and then our assurance of victory was complete. For shortly after the lowering of the enemy's flag there was observed displayed over her stern the unmistakable sign of complete surrender. Some one cried, "She shows the white feather! There's a white flag!" and then the whole crew united in the shout, "She's surrendered!"

Amid these cheers of triumph two more shots were fired by the enemy from her port bow guns.

The Kearsarge replied to this violation of a flag of truce by firing another broadside, and the contest was ended.

Boats were seen to be lowering by the Alabama, one of which came alongside in charge of a young Englishman with a message from Captain. Semmes to Captain Winslow, announcing that his ship was sinking, and requesting aid in rescuing his imperilled crew.

Upon the request of the Englishman, permission was granted to him to aid in the rescue. A few moments later a boat-load of wounded men in charge of Surgeon Galt, and commanded by Lieutenant Wilson, came aloneside.

Suddenly, as if at a given signal, the remainder of the crew of the fated ship leaped, almost as one man, into the chilling waters that flow down from the northern seas.

The wrecked and battered hulk of the Alabama settled rapidly by the stern and canted; her main topmast, cut by shot, tumbled down over her side; her bow rose high in air as if preparatory for a suicidal plunge; and then, in a moment, the greatest curse to which any commerce had ever been subjected was engulfed in the uncompassionate waves of the ocean.

Some of her crew clung to floating spars, some to boxes and gratings, others to an extemporized raft, on which sat the drummer boy with his melodious drum.

Captain Semmes trusted to a life-buoy, while his executive scarcely managed to save his life by aid of a grating.

Such of the Kearsarge boats as had not been crushed by shot were speedily lowered, and assisted in rescuing seventy officers and men. Just after the Alabama sank the Deerhound steamed under the stern of the Kearsarge and Captain Winslow called out, "For God's sake, do what you can to save them!"

Mr. Lancaster replied, "Ay! Ay! I will, sir!" and the little yacht shaped her course directly toward the men struggling in the water.

The young English officer who asked to join in the rescue of his comrades steered directly for the Deerhound, jumped on board that craft, and boldly set his boat adrift. The wounded, bemoaning their fate, were carried below on the Kearsarge and consigned to the Surgeon's care. The five captured officers were admitted to the appropriate messes, warmed with stimulating beverages and dry clothing, and the captured crew were placed under the forecastle without a shackle on one of them.

The Channel was now calm as when the sun that morning first shed

its rays over the scene of the struggle just ended.

Mr. Semmes declares that he dropped his sword into the sea, after having volunteered to surrender by the display of a white flag-" In defiance and hatred of the Yankee and his accursed flag."

As the vanquished commander was assisted to the deck of the Deerhound, his hand contused, his garments hanging like cerements to his gaunt form, it must have been with a touch of dramatic pathos that he appealed to his humane English host not to put him under the Yankee flag, but to protect him under the cross of St. George.

Probably it was partly in compliance with that appeal, partly from

inclination, that Mr. Lancaster steamed away rapidly for Southampton, where the Confederate Captain figured as the hero of the hour, was welcomed with feasts and speeches, and a letter of congratulation from Miss Gladstone (sister of the statesman), and was presented with a memorial sword, purchased by guinea subscriptions under patronage of Commander Pym, R. N.

Captain Winslow and his valiant adversary can no longer respond to our praise or criticism. Yet in the briefest sketch of this episode of the great Rebellion, truth should be vindicated.

In life Captain Semmes took much pains to emphasize his enmity to the Union Government and its supporters. Let us allow him to speak for himself.

His political views, his prejudices, and his criticisms must ever remain subordinate in interest to the history of his active and picturesque

career.

His philosophy seems to have been the philosophy of passion. The bitterness of defeat rankled in his bosom like a dagger, and he never recovered from the painful wound that it inflicted.

As late as 1869, when he published his Services Afloat, with the studied deliberation of authorship he declared: "A little while back, and I had served under the very flag that I had that day defied. Strange revolution of feeling, how I now hated that flag! It had been to me as a mistress to a lover; I had looked upon it with admiring eyes, had dallied with it in hours of ease, and had had recourse to it in hours of trouble, and now I found it false."

Again he says: "The old flag which I had been accustomed to worship in my youth had a criminal look in my eyes."

He characterized his former companions in arms as pimps and spies." After accepting the gracious pardon of President Johnson, which relieved him from the political disabilities which he had acquired, he denounced his benefactor as a "charlatan and a traitor."

Of President Lincoln's assassination he wrote: "It seemed like a just retribution that he should be cut off in the midst of the hosannas that were being shouted in his ears. As a Christian it was my duty to say, 'Lord, have mercy on his soul,' but the devil will surely take care of his memory."