Florida's Cruise, The

DESCRIPTION: "In the bay of Mobile where the Yankees well knew" of the southern wind, Bolf Maffit declares, "We're about to run out, boys, heave your anchor away." "Hooray! Hooray! for the Florida and her crew." They take several ships and sail to Savannah
AUTHOR: unknown (attributed to "A Foretop-man of the C. S. S. Florida" in Moore)
EARLIEST DATE: 1865 (Moore, The Civil War in Song and Story, according to Fowke)
KEYWORDS: ship Civilwar battle
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1862-1864 - Career of the Confederate raider _Florida_
FOUND IN: Canada(West)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
MidwestFolklore, Edith Fowke, "American Civil War Songs in Canada," Volume 13, Number 1 (Spring 1963/1964) pp. 36-37, "The Florida and Her Crew" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Frank Moore, _The Civil War in Song and Story, 1860-1865_, P. F. Collier, Publisher (1889 reissue of an 1865 edition, available on Google Books), p. 188, "The Florida's Cruise" (1 text)
Roud #30858
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Red, White, and Blue '(Southern Edition)'" (tune, according to Moore)
NOTES [688 words]: According to Boatner, p. 285, the Florida was a Confederate commerce raider built by the British. Having been taken over by the Confederates, she outfitted at Nassau and "ran the blockade into Mobile and four months later left on a raid that was to carry her from N.Y. to the Brazilian coast" -- obviously the raid mentioned in this song.
In 1864, contrary to international law, the Union vessel Wachusett captured her and hauled her to Hampton Roads, where she suffered further damage and sank.
After the war, the damage she had done was adjudicated as part of the "Alabama Claims." The claim for damage by the Florida was $3,608,609, third behind the Alabama and Shenandoah (each considered to have done more than six million dollars in damage). The claims were settled in 1873 for roughly 80 cents per dollar claimed.
McPherson, p. 315, says that she was one of several ships contracted for by James D. Bulloch of Georgia, who had been appointed by Stephen Mallory, the Confederate Secretary of the Navy in 1861 to go to Britain and try to acquire ships. The first two ships he contracted for became the Florida and the Alabama.
Paine, p. 186, gives details. The Florida was initially named the Oreto; she was a three-masted steam schooner of 700 tons burden, built by William C. Miller & Songs of Liverpool. She left Liverpool for the Bahamas on March 22, 1862. (According to McPherson, p. 547, she took on her guns there; they had been brought from Britain by another ship. Thus did the Confederates exploit a loophole in the British Foreign Enlistment Act, which banned construction and arming of British ships for foreign belligerents. The British built the ship, and supplied the arms, but the builders did not arm her. Talk about living by the letter of the law....)
Lieutenant John Newland Maffitt then took command of her. She reached Mobile on September 4, 1862, and broke out on January 16, 1863. Paine, p. 186, credits her with capturing 22 ships and "facilitating the capture" of 23 more (whatever that means).
After that, she sailed to Brest to refit and rest. Lieutenant Charles M. Morris then took command. She captured 11 more ships in this period before putting in to Bahia, Brazil. She stayed in Brazilian waters, with many of her crew ashore. Wachusett rammed her while in Brazilian waters, despite Brazilian attempts to prevent it, and the under-manned Florida surrendered. Towed back to Newport News, she collided with another ship, the Alliance, and sank.
There is at least one book about her, Frank Lawrence Owsley, The C.S.S. Florida: Her Building and Operation.
The version collected by Fowke has clearly been much shortened from the version printed in 1865, but the two most salient facts -- that the Florida was commanded by Captain Maffit and that she broke out of Mobile Bay -- are both correct. The rest of Fowke's collection is much distorted from the original, though, e.g. the second verse of her version opens "Now the first thing we took had a hold full of bread, And something must have got into old Nicholas's head." This is the second of three verses in Fowke. It is the eighteenth of twenty in the original, and the two lines there are given as "We next took a schooner well laden with bread; What the devil got into Old Uncle Abe's head." Thus, apart from the first verse, the song is both heavily abbreviated and significantly folk processed.
The folk processing affects even the first verse. Moore's text opens
One evening, off Mobile, The Yanks they all knew
That the wind from the north'ard most bitterly blew.
Fowke's text is already combining other verses; it opens with
In that Bay of Mobile where the Florida did lie
Oh a bold little packed passed us with defy.
Interestingly, Moore's book just dumps the text on page 188; there is no commentary on it either before or after. Moore apparently also printed it in Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Poetry and Incidents, Volume 7. I haven't seen this to know if it gives any more context. Given that Moore seems to be the only person to have printed it, I wonder a bit if he wrote it. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.8
File: MWFD035

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.