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

[547] conduct of Assistant Surgeon Edward S. Matthews, both during the action and afterward, in attending to the wounded, demands my unqualified commendation. I would also bring to the favorable notice of the Department Acting Master's Mate McGrath, temporarily performing duty as gunner. Owing to the darkness of the night, and the peculiar construction of the Hatteras, I am only able to refer to the conduct of those officers who came under my especial attention; but from the character of the contest, and the amount of damage done to the Alabama, I have personally no reason to believe that any officer failed in his duty.

To the men of the Hatteras I cannot give too much praise. Their enthusiasm and bravery was of the highest order.

I enclose the report of Assistant Surgeon E. S. Matthews, by which you will observe that five men were wounded and two killed. The missing, it is hoped, reached the fleet at Galveston.

I shall communicate to the Department, in a separate report, the movements of myself and my command, from the time of our transfer to the Alabama until the departure of the earliest mail from this place to the United States.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

H. C. Blake, Lieutenant Commanding. Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, Washington.

Setting aside all the discourteous stuff and nonsense about ‘a rebel steamer,’ and a ‘piratical craft,’ of which Captain Blake, who had been bred in the old service, should have been ashamed, especially after enjoying the hospitalities of my cabin for a couple of weeks, the above is a pretty fair report of the engagement. I am a little puzzled, however, by the Captain's statement, that he could use but four guns on a side. We certainly understood from all the officers and men of the Hatteras, at the time, that she carried eight guns; six in broadside, and two pivots, just like the Alabama,—the only difference between the two ships being, that the Alabama's pivot guns were the heaviest.

There is another remark in the report that is quite new to me. I am informed, for the first time, that Captain Blake desired to board me. I cannot, of course, know what his intentions were, but I saw no evidence of such an intention, in the handling of his ship; and Captain Blake must himself have known that, in the terribly demoralized condition of his crew, when they found that they had really fallen in with the