226 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
ever-present necessity of avoiding the Union men-of-war, a fleet of which were on the lookout, flying close upon her traces in every quarter of the globe. With the North- ern press and the suffering merchants everywhere calling for redoubled vigilance and an immense reward of glory awaiting the destroyer of the dreaded destroyer, every Union officer was most keenly alert. For instance, it is interesting to find Admiral Mahan, as a young midship- man, begging the Navy Department to give him a ship that he may pursue Semmes, then in command of his first vessel, the Sumter : " Suppose it fails, what is lost? A useless ship, a midshipman, and a hundred men. If it succeeds, apart from the importance of the capture, look at the prestige such an afiair would give the service." ^
To evade hostility like this meant excitement enough. Yet for three years, in his two ships, Semmes did it, fighting only once with an inferior vessel, the Hatteras, which he sank. When at last, on the 19th of June, 1864, in the English Channel, he met the Kearsarge on nearly equal terms, it was by his own choice, not by compul- sion, and on the whole, his ship made a good and cred- itable ending, though Professor Soley is no doubt right in thinking that the defeat was owing rather to inferior training and marksmanship on the Alabama than to the chain protection of the Union vessel of which the Con- federates made so much.
But what we are seeking is a closer knowledge of Semmes himself. To accord with his firefly craft and
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