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

[496] but was forced to consign to the flames some fancy chairs and other articles of East India workmanship, which they seemed to prize very highly. I dare say they thought hard of it, at the time, though, I doubt not, they have long since forgiven me. Both ladies were gentle. The Consul's wife was an Englishwoman, the daughter of a general in the British army, serving in the Mauritius, where her husband had met and married her. She was refined and educated, of course, and her three little daughters were very beautiful children. Mr. George H. Fairchild—for such was her husband's name—though a New-Englander, was, apparently, an unbigoted gentleman, and observed all the gentlemanly proprieties, during his stay on board my ship.

When I was arrested, after the war, by the Administration of President Johnson, in violation of the contract which the Government had made with me, at my surrender, and threatened with a trial, by one of those Military Commissions which have disgraced American civilization, on the trumped-up charge, among others, of cruelty to prisoners, Mr. Fairchild was kind enough to write to me, in prison, and tender himself as a witness in my behalf. In the then state of New England feeling, with all the passions, and especially those of malignity, and hate, running riot through the land, it required moral courage to do this; and I take this opportunity of thanking a New England man, for obeying the instincts of a Christian and a gentleman.

It took us some time to despoil the Wales of such of her spars and rigging as we wanted, and it was near nightfall when we applied the torch to her. We had scarcely turned away from the burning prize, when another sail was discovered, in the fading twilight, but the darkness soon shutting her out from view, it was useless to attempt to chase. The Wales was one of the most useful of my captures. She not only served as a sort of ship-yard, in enabling me to repair the damages I had suffered in the Gulf Stream, but I received eight recruits from her, all of whom were fine, able-bodied seamen. My crew now numbered 110 men—120 being my full complement. I bestowed the ladies, with their husbands, upon the ward-room mess, consigning them to the care of my gallant friend, Kell.