Florida's Cruise, The

DESCRIPTION: "In the bay of Mobile where the Yankees well knew" that the Florida wants to escape, Bold 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 | Florida raider
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1862-1864 - Career of the Confederate raider _Florida_
FOUND IN: Canada(West) US(NE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Frank-JollySailorsBold 59, "Florida's Crew (The Florida's Cruise)" (1 text, 3 tunes)
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 and 31331
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Red, White, and Blue '(Southern Edition)'" (tune, according to Moore)
NOTES [6304 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.
This song, in its earliest form, is a (monotonously) detailed account of the first part of her first cruise.
She was one of several ships contracted for by James D. Bulloch of Georgia, who had been appointed in 1861 by Stephen Mallory, the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, to go to Britain and try to acquire ships. The first two ships he contracted for became the Florida and the Alabama. (He also was responsible for the Shenandoah, but that was a ship that was purchased and converted rather than being specially built; Fowler, p. 294-295). According to Hendrick, p. 373, the (rarely recognized) purpose of these ships was not so much to destroy Union commerce (though any ships they could capture would obviously help with that) but to force the Union navy to lift its blockade of southern ports so that the warships could chase the raiders. The Confederate raiders failed in that, but just barely; the chorus of shipowners who demanded the Union navy do something was very loud.
James Dunwoody Bulloch, who acquited the ships, was an interesting character, according to Stern, p. 34, which has a picture of him. When the Civil War came, he was in New Orleans, where he was captain of a mail steamer, the Bienville. He at once offered his services to the Confederacy, but felt obliged to sail his ship back to New York. He took the ship back to her home, turned her over to her owners -- and was allowed to take a train to Montgomery, Alabama. Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory sent him to Europe, so he took another train to Detroit, then crossed to Canada and headed on to England. He wasn't the only Confederate sent to try to buy European ships, but he was clearly the best at it. Perhaps that's fitting; future Assistant Secretary of the Navy (and president) Theodore Roosevelt was the daughter of his sister Martha (Hendrick, p. 370). According to McPherson, p, 112, Bulloch had wanted to command one of his ships, but he was so useful that Mallory had him stay in Britain. One wonders how the war might have been different had someone arrested Bulloch for illegally entering the United States in 1861....
Paine, p. 186, gives details of the first of his great raiders. The Florida was initially named the Oreto (to conceal that she was meant for the Confederacy, according to Owsley, p. 20); she was a three-masted steam schooner of 700 tons burden, built by William C. Miller & Songs of Liverpool. Her engines led to two funnels (which were closer together than any I've ever seen, based on the drawing on p. 35 of Stern). Owsley, p. 19, says that Bulloch was heavily involved in the design, and chose to build a longer version of a Royal Navy dispatch boat; he wanted a fast design. She was built with an engine, but she had a retractable screw and was intended to use sail most of the time.
She designed to make 12 knots -- a speed she exceeded on her early voyages. That made her fast for the time, but not excessively so; there were warships that were faster. There is some disagreement about her armament; Owsley, p. 34, believes she had two seven-inch Blakely rifles and six six-inch rifles. (The Blakelies were an interesting choice; a new design, they were short and light, but "kicked like a mule," and most were soon abandoned; Boatner, pp. 68-69.)
Bulloch's deception scheme was so effective that the American embassy did not learn about her until late 1861, and it wasn't until early 1862 that they were able to prove that she wasn't being built for Italy (Owsley, p. 21). That didn't leave enough time to get the British government to do something.
Paine, p. 186, says she left Liverpool for the Bahamas on March 22, 1862. 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 following the exact letter of the law....)
Her captain on this first voyage was James A. Duguid, a British citizen (Owsley, p. 23), and she had snuck out of Liverpool; most people thought she was just running another trial (Owsley, p. 24). But she headed for Nassau, where the British government was so suspicious of her intentions that they briefly seized her -- in fact, they seized her three times, in a conflict between the navy (which knew she was a warship) and the civil authorities. But the civil authorities were pro-Confederate and finally overrode the navy people (Owsley, p. 25-30). The crew also staged what amounted to a walkout in the course of this (Owsley, pp. 26-27), with support of the authorities, since Duguid had recruited them under false pretenses. (He also lied about the plans for the ship; he frankly sounds like a despicable man. It wouldn't be the last time the Florida played fast and loose with the law.)
Lieutenant John Newland Maffitt, a 42-year-old son of Irish immigrants born at sea as his parents made the crossing to America (Owsley, p. 35), then took charge of her. He wasn't Mallory's first choice (the original plan was for Commander J. S. North to command her, but he apparently didn't want the job. According to Fowler, p. 44, the Confederate navy lacked both ships and sailors, but was over-stocked with officers; so many had left the Union navy that the Confederates did not have enough jobs for them. So Mallory had to play a certain amount of politics in appointing them). First choice or not, Maffitt was on the spot (he had been commanding a blockade runner) and had watched over the ship for a time, so he was given the job (Owsley, pp. 30-31). He certainly looks like a swashbuckler, based on the picture on p. 114 of Stern (which also shows his sword). He had already commanded the Confederate gunboat Savannah at Port Royal (Stern, p. 114)
The Unionists were watching outside the harbor, and he couldn't install the guns while the British were watching, so Maffitt had to sneak her out of the harbor with just a skeleton crew, trick the Union ship that was following him (which a British ship commanded by a friend of Maffitt had ordered to stay out of territorial waters), then stop at an uninhabited island to install the guns. Because he had so few crew, it took a week; on August 17, when the task was done, the Oreto became the C.S.S. Florida (Owsley, pp. 32-33).
The Confederacy had sent a Master and a midshipman to help Maffitt, but the rest of the crew was Maffitt's problem (Owsley, p. 30). He supposedly had just 14 officers and 13 men at this point, many of whom were not trained seamen (I suspect that some of the "officers" were actually warrant officers, who could not help manage the ship). That, plus lack of basic gunnery equipment which someone had forgotten to include with the guns themselves, meant that she would be unable to fight until she could finish fitting out (Owsley, p. 35). Maffitt therefore headed for Cuba -- where most of the crew caught yellow fever and six died (Owsley, p. 36; Stern, p. 115, says that one of the dead was Maffitt's stepson. According to Anderson, p. 199, he didn't even have a ship's doctor to treat the victims). Maffitt managed to recruit enough men to make a run for a Confederate harbor, but it would be tricky. According to McPherson, p. 113, he had just eighteen men at this point!
Maffitt picked Mobile because he understood the blockade to be relatively weak there. (He was right.) Even so, he decided on a trick: Since his ship looked like a British design, he would exploit that and fly the British flag, which might buy him some time until the blockaders approached him (Owsley, p. 38 McPherson, p. 113, says that he thought the diplomatic flap over the "Trent Affair," when a Union warship had gotten in troubls for stopping a British ship, would make the Union ships hesitate). It made her basically a pirate, but it worked well enough. The American warships did wait some time before opening fire, and fired no fewer than three warning shots before opening fire in earnest; the Florida took damage that would have crippled her had she been at sea, and killed one man and injured nine, but she made it into the harbor (Owsley, pp 38-39; Stern, p. 116). The Union officer most responsible for letting her get in, George H. Preble, saw his career ruined (Anderson, p. 200) -- ironic, given that Maffitt was an old friend of his, and would later testify on his behalf; Oswley, p. 42).
She reached Mobile on September 4, 1862, but had to be quarantined until October 3, after which time repairs began. They were slow, however, because Mobile had only a limited number of competent yard workers and the ship was some distance from the town itself (Owsley, p. 43). They were so slow, in fact, that the Confederate government moved to replace Maffitt until his superior, Admiral Buchanan (the man who had earlier commanded the Merrimac/Virginia) interceded (Owsley, p 44). But eventually she was done, and Maffitt assembled a crew -- though he complained that far too many of them did not have sea or naval training (Owsley, p. 45. He was probably right; while Union naval officers had been permitted to resign and go south, the seaman were not allowed to do so, so all experienced Navy hands would still be on Union warships). When she finally set out, she carried 20 officers and 116 men (Owsley, p. 50), though a number of these would soon desert,
She was finally ready to go in early January, but it took about a week for the weather to be favorable -- she needed a dark night when it was hard to see and identify ships. She broke out on the night of January 16/17, 1863. The Union blockading fleet tried to stop her, but she outran them -- their fastest ship was having boiler problems (Owsley, pp. 48-49).
The flight, however, burned a lot of coal; they managed to take and burn one ship (details on the first few ships they took are below, since they are listed in the song). After that, they headed for Cuba to refuel (Owsley, pp. 50-51). Soon after she set out, she took two more ships (both of which complained that she was operating too close to the shore, in Spanish waters), then discovered that the Cuban coal was no good, so they headed for Nassau to obtain better (Owsley, pp. 52-53). This wasn't the last time the Florida would use up her available coal very quickly; her lack of bunkerage strikes me as a significant design defect, and it at least once forced Maffitt to scale back his plans. On one occasion, he captured a coal-carrier (Owsley, p. 61). I wonder how different her history would have been had that not happened.
After a little more cruising around the Caribbean, Maffitt decided to head for the area of Brazil (where the Alabama also operated); it was an area that saw significant American commerce but no direct mail from the U.S.; messages from America tended to have to go via Europe, resulting in many-week delays; it would be very hard for the Union navy to track the ships (Owsley, pp. 64-65). Maffitt continued his illegal trick of flying the British flag until, and even after, the last possible moment (Owsley, pp. 70-71; on p. 75, we read of Maffitt firing on a Union warship even as he changed colors. Maffitt followed some rules of civilized warfare -- he was pretty scrupulous about taking the crews off the civilian vessels he sank -- but in other ways he skated pretty close to piracy). He made a brief cruise up the American East Coast, then decided that the ship needed to go into a yard for a serious refit. He went to Bermuda and sought both coal and the right to use the government dockyard; the governor of Bermuda denied that though it let the ship spend enough time in port to do what it could without entering the yard (Owsley, p. 74). Maffitt concluded that he could not get the help he needed from the British, so he decided to make for Brest in France (Owsley, p. 75; on p. 157 he says that she couldn't make for a British yard, at least for ninety days, because of neutrality regulations; the visit to Bermuda counted as a visit to Britain). She arrived in France on August 24 (Owsley, p. 76).
On this first cruise, the Florida had captured 25 ships; she had sunk 19 and "bonded" six ("bonded" meaning in essence released on parole with a guarantee that the owners would pay a certain specified amount if the Confederates won the war; the big advantage of bonding was that it meant the Florida did not have to take the survivors on board and figure out what to do with them). She also took over three ships, the Lapwing, Clarence, and Tacony, which did some additional damage (Owsley, pp. 76-77). Paine, p. 186, credits the Florida with capturing 22 ships and "facilitating the capture" of 23 more (presumably referring to the exploits of the Tacony and such).
The Lapwing was the coal carrier she had captured, and it didn't cause the Federals much trouble. The Clarence was another matter. She was one of the Florida's captures, and one of Maffitt's officers, Lieutenant J. C. Read, proposed to put twenty Confederate sailors and one cannon in her and, taking advantage of her existing papers and known Federal registry, take her to Hampton Roads and cause trouble there (Owsley, pp. 78-79). We might note that this was skating even closer to piracy than Maffitt's misuse of a neutral flag. But Maffitt authorized it.
(Owsley, p. 91, notes the amazing fact that Read, who was still only 23, had been considered stupid at the Naval Academy, and had stood at the very bottom of his class. He turned out to be a genius raider)
Before Read made it to Hampton Roads, he captured a few small ships, and from one of these, he learned Hampton Roads was so strongly guarded that he had no chance. But he just kept coming up with more creative ways to violate the rules. He took that Union flag he shouldn't have been flying -- and flew it upside down as a distress signal (Owsley, p. 80). The Tacony came to investigate and help, and Read boarded and captured her (Owsley, p. 81), as well as another ship that investigated. Realizing the Tacony was a better ship than the Clarence, Read transferred to her (and bluffed a third ship into surrender while dealing with the first two). He then burned the Clarence (McPherson, p, 153).
After a little more cruising around, in which he took one big ship and a lot of smaller ones, including small fishing vessels, Read ran out of ammunition for his one gun (Owsley, p. 82). So he came up with one last trick: He transferred to a small fishing schooner he had captured, the Archer, and burned the Tacony. It was a sort of inverse "fleet in being": since the ship was missing, the Federals would never find her and so would never know they had finished her off. (Read really was a clever officer; too bad he couldn't have served a better cause!) He then headed for Portland, Maine (Owsley, p. 88), where he and his crew snuck aboard and captured the revenue cutter Caleb Cushing (Owsley, p. 89). But it took him a long time to get to sea, and before he could escape, several other ships came after him. Unable to find enough ammunition to put up a serious fight (apparently the men he had captured refused to reveal the location of the shot locker), he set the cutter on fire and abandoned ship (Owlsey, p. 90). Read and all his men were captured, though he would be exchanged to fight again in 1864 (Owsley, p. 91). Stern, p. 140, calls the whole adventure "The Most Brilliant Daredevil Cruise of the War." That was what Read was like; he didn't finally give up the fight until 17 days after Appomattox (Stern, p. 141).
The Florida, meanwhile, was in Brest dealing with the French government. They made him pay for repairs, and it took a lot of negotiating for him to convince them to let him use the government dockyard, but eventually Maffitt talked them into everything, and the Confederate agents scraped up the money needed (Owsley, pp. 92-93).
The repairs took many months and were not a great success -- a consequence, perhaps, of the fact that her engines were British-built; the French contractors had a lot of trouble with them. When they were finished, the Florida was substantially slower under stream power than she had been at the start of her career (Owsley, pp. 96-97).
While all this was going on, Maffitt discharged no fewer than 59 crew members, perhaps partly to save money, partly because discipline broke down while stuck in port (Owsley, pp. 98-99). His successors would find it very difficult to recruit competent replacements; on her second voyage, she was under-manned, with too few competent hands and disagreements between recruits; she was clearly less efficient (Owsley, p. 102).
Maffitt became ill at this time (Owsley, p. 98; it was possibly a recurrence of past health problems) and asked to be relieved. On September 17, he turned over his command. His successor was Commander J. N. Barney, who supervised the later stages of the ship's repairs (Owsley, pp. 102-103). But his health was also fragile; on January 9, 1864, he turned the command over to Lieutenant Charles Manigault Morris (Owsley, p. 103), who would be in charge for the rest of her career. It is Owsley's opinion (pp. 158-159) that Morris was far less imaginative than Maffitt, and this lack resulted in the ship being much less effective in her second cruise.
The Kearsarge, which would later issue a challenger to the Alabama and sink her, tried the same trick here, sailing in and out of Brest to follow the Florida and trying to challenge her to a duel. Morris refused to be drawn; while his ship on paper was equal to or even slightly stronger than the Kearsarge, his crew was so small that he couldn't man all his guns, and he certainly couldn't handle her as well as the veteran crew of the Kearsarge. And there were several outlets from Brest, and the Kearsarge couldn't guard them all, and there were no other Union ships. Plus the Kearsarge occasionally had to leave its station to get supplies. It did so on January 23, 1864, and the Florida took the chance to leave Brest (Owsley, pp. 106-109). After more than five months, the Florida set out on February 10, 1864 (Owsley, p. 110), and on February 19 met a tug which brought her some equipment she had not been allowed to take on at Brest (Owsley, p. 111). She was now ready for her second cruise, though her inexperienced crew had already caused her some damage (Owsley, pp. 110-111).
Morris still had to dodge some Union ships, and had trouble obtaining supplies in some ports. He didn't catch a ship until March 29, and it was a guano carrier (Owsley, pp. 114-115), so the men can't have enjoyed searching her; they eventually used her for target practice. He caught a few more ships, but few enough that he was having trouble paying for supplies when he put in to neutral ports, and he was having trouble running the ship because most of his engineering officers were incompetent or disabled (Owsley, p. 119).
He was so desperate for men that he repeatedly recruited seamen from the ships he captured, which strikes me as a great way to get disloyal crewmen. At least he managed to get more engineering officers and cash in Bermuda; the Confederacy had sent him several trained officers (Owsley, pp. 122-123). He was also informed that a lot of American ships were falsely using Brazilian flags in Brazilian waters.
Although she stirred up a frenzy among Unionists during a brief foray up the East Coast, Morris soon retreated south -- and took so few prizes after he did that it appears his crew turned slightly mutinous; on September 20, 1864, eleven men faced courts, and several were kicked out of the service (Owsley, p. 134). Morris concluded that he would have to stop somewhere for a few days, just to let the men have a change. On September 26, 1864, she took her last ship (the Mandamis, a brig sailing in ballast, so there was no value to the capture except a few supplies; Owsley, p. 135). Morris then made for Bahia, arriving on October 4.
Unfortunately, the Union brig Wachusett was also there taking on supplies. Suddenly, the Florida's location was known. Perhaps the Florida should have just turned and fled, but she genuinely needed supplies and repairs. So she stayed (Owsley, p. 137).
With two enemy ships in the same port, there were diplomatic wranglings; the Brazilians sent an engineer to verify that the Florida really needed the engine repair work she claimed to need, which meant that she would be allowed to stay in port until the repairs were done (Owsley, p. 138; Stern, pp. 214-215). The United States consul in Bahia, Thomas F. Wilson, also tried to talk to Morris; Morris refused to accept his letters (they were addressed to "the sloop Florida" rather than the "CSS Florida" -- Stern, p. 215 -- which Morris argued represented the Union position that the Confederacy was not a nation). Eventually Morris learned that the Wachusett was challenging the Florida to a duel. Apparently this was the consul's idea. Captain Collins of the Wachusett was trying to obey international law about not fighting in neutral waters (Owsley, p. 139). Which would seem to mean letting the Confederate ship get away, because Wachusett was thought to be too slow to catch the Florida at sea (Owsley, p. 140).
Exact details of what followed are somewhat disputed, because the Unionists, Confederates, and Brazilians all told slightly different versions (Owsley, pp. 143-144). We know that Wilson pressured Collins to attack, despite neutrality laws, and after a council of officers, convinced Collins to attack the Florida while the latter remained in port (Owsley, p. 140). The Wachusett raised steam at 3:00 a.m. on the morning of October 7, 1864, moved into position, and rammed the Florida in the starboard quarter, damaging her heavily, knocking down her mizzen mast and other rigging (Owsley, p. 141). Although the ramming was slightly mis-handled, resulting in less damage than was hoped (Stern, p. 215), the timing at least was good: Morris was ashore, along with half the Florida's crew; she was not in fighting condition. The senior officer aboard, Lieutenant T. K. Porter, after some hesitation and consultation with the other officers, surrendered (Owsley, p. 141).
The Florida was badly damaged, but she wasn't in danger of sinking, so the Wachusett, which had suffered only minor damage, decided to haul her to sea (Owsley, p. 142). Consul Wilson stayed with the ship rather than return to Bahia to face the wrath of the Brazilians (Owsley, p. 143). The Brazilians actually fired a few shots at the Wachusett, but they weren't able to stop her (Owsley, p. 144).
The irony in all this is that the Florida might well have been able to beat the Wachusett in a fair fight; she had a slightly heavier broadside and was probably faster, though the Wachusett surely had the better crew and also was a heavier ship (Owsley, pp. 144-145). But, of course, the Florida was much harder to replace than the Wachusett, So Morris would have been right to avoid a fight -- had he actually been able to avoid it! The two ships sailed off for the United States, carefully avoiding having the Florida enter territorial waters where she might be taken over by the governing power. This meant that the two ships had to separate when the Wachusett went into neutral ports to get supplies. There was at least one moment (after a visit to St. Bartholomew in the West Indies) when Captain Collins was worried that his prize had disappeared. But he found her again (Owsley, p. 145).
After that, he went to St. Thomas, which resulted in a diplomatic protest of an ironic sort. Collins didn't want the Florida's crew to retake their ship, so he deliberately let some escape (something he later regretted) -- and they had been exposed to smallpox, which caused the Danes, who controlled the island, to protest (Owsley, p. 146). From there, the two ships sailed to Hampton Roads off Virginia, which they reached on November 12, 1864. The Federals left the Florida at Newport News, with the remaining crew being sent to prison in the north (Owsley, p. 147, who tells of them eventually being nominally expelled to Britain but being forced to find their own way there!). The Florida itself was manned by a small Union crew commanded by Acting Master Jonathan Baker. On November 19 was struck by another ship, the Alliance. It was a minor collision, but the Florida was already taking on water, and this increased the rate of leakage (Owsley, p. 147). It wasn't believed that it was enough to sink her, but, somehow, a seal broke, and then a pump, and although crew from another ship came to help, somehow, the ship sank on the morning of November 28, 1864 (Owsley, pp. 148-149; Stern. p. 216). Supposedly Admiral David D. Porter eventually admitted to arranging for the ship to sink, lest Brazil demand her back (Owsley, p. 150).
Which is more or less what Brazil did. The country protested vigorously against the violation of its neutrality, producing a diplomatic incident (Owsley, pp. 152-153). Secretary of State Seward tried to calm things down, firing Consul Wilson and theoretically doing the same with Captain Collins (a court of inquiry ruled against him, but the Navy Department rejected the result and even promoted him, only to boot him out for losing a ship a few years later, according to Stern, p. 216, though McPherson, p. 206 says he retired as a rear admiral). Brazil, however, received no real compensation (Owsley, pp. 153-154). Some of the Florida's crew made it back to Britain, where some transferred to another Confederate ship, the Stonewall (Owsley, p. 155), but that was too late to matter.
Owsley, p. 161, credits the Florida and the ships she took over with taking sixty ships (although one was retaken); 46 were burned and 13 bonded (i.e. not destroyed but supposed to pay for their capture); the Florida herself was responsible for 38 of these ships. There is a list of them all on pp. 187-189 of Owsley. Owsley estimates the value of these ships as a little more than four million dollars, second only to the Alabama's total of about 4.8 million dollars. This was roughly ten times the cost of building and running the ship.
It is Owsley's opinion (pp. 162-163) that the Confederate raiders, in addition to driving the Union navy crazy, contributed strongly to the decline of the United States merchant fleet. I'm not sure this follows -- the decline was real, but the Union blockade of course meant that ship traffic in the south almost ended, plus American trade policies weren't good for their merchant fleet (Fowler, pp. 298-299, points out that Congress passed a foolish and punitive law that prevented ship owners who had re-registered their ships abroad to escape the raiders from bringing them back, and that was a far bigger problem). Still, the loss of all those ships didn't help, and the fact that it was the raiders who forced the re-registration made things worse. (I do find it interesting that the Union seems never even to have considered the solution that was adopted in both World Wars: a convoy system. It wouldn't have been easy without radio, but the telegraph would have made such planning at least possible. But I've never heard such a thing mentioned.)
Owsley's book, which is obviously heavily cited here, is now decades old, but as of the time it was written. Owsley said it was the only book ever published about the Florida, and I know of no newer ones since. Which is unfortunate, since it has a pretty clear pro-Confederate bias, e.g. it tones down all the breaches of international norms.
The version of this song 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 Moore text, 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, Fowke's 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 -- particularly since the reported text has some minor errors that I doubt an actual crewman would have made. On the other hand, if he wrote it, he probably wouldn't have ended it where he did.
Some of the verses in Moore's text are more historical than others:
Verse 1: "That the wind from the north'ard most bitterly blew" -- essentially true. Maffitt escaped Mobile by waiting for a storm to blow through. He did not escape in the storm but in the gloom and darkness that followed (Owsley, p. 48).
Verse 2: "Nine cruisers they had" -- There is a problem here, perhaps in the order of the verse. Verse 1 implies that the Florida is trying to get out (it says "They'd blocked in the Florida). However, verse 2 refers to the nine cruisers and to Preble, both of which were relevant to the Florida's arrival at Mobile. There were nine cruisers on station there (Stern, p. 128), but because the Federals had no nearby base, they generally were not all on station at the same time; there were always some of them away getting supplies. At the time Maffitt broke out, there were three ships near the passage (Owsley, p. 48). Still, it took genuine skill just to pass those three -- and there were more father away.
Verse 2: "Preble" -- this is the clearest evidence of a confusion of order. George Preble was on guard when the Florida entered Mobile, not when she escaped (Owsley, pp 38-41; Stern, p. 116; Anderson, p. 200).
Verse 3: "Bold Maffitt commanded, a man of great fame, He'd sailed on the Dolphin" -- Maffitt had been born at sea, and had joined the US navy as a midshipman at age 13 in 1832 (Owsley, p. 35). I find no mention of him serving on a ship Dolphin, but there were a lot of ships by that name; it seems not unlikely.
Verse 4: "Our ship was well whitewashed" -- Franklin Buchanan, the commander at Mobile, had ordered the ship "should be painted lead color" (Owsley, p. 47) to help its nighttime escape. I would guess this was red lead, not white lead, but it's understandable how someone could take lead to be "white lead," then make that out to be "whitewash"
Verse 5: "The great Drummond light, it turned night into day" -- that's not a lighthouse; I read somewhere that Mobile Bay was deliberately darkened at this time to make life harder for the Federals. A Drummond Light was a light made brighter by the use of lime; it makes sense that the Federals might try this.
Verse 6: "The Cuyler, a boat that's unrivalled for speed" -- the name is misspelled; it was the Culyer, She was reputed to be the fastest boat in the blockading squadron, but Owsley, p. 49, reports that her boilers were in bad shape, so she was not actually fast enough to catch the Florida once the latter had a head start.
Verse 8: "We brought the Estelle to" -- the Estelle was indeed the first ship taken by the Florida; she was captured on January 19, 1863, according to Owsley, p. 187, and burned. According to Owsley, p. 50, she carried honey and sugar; her captain objected that it was an international cargo that should not have been taken -- the first of many complaints about the Florida's flouting of international law. She was taken on the third day of the Confederate vessel's cruise.
Verses 8-9: "And straight sail'd for Havana... 'Twas there we recruited and took in some stores." -- The Florida did indeed head for Havana immediately after taking the Estelle (Owsley, p. 51), because she was already short of coal and the sailors needed clothing.
Verse 9: "With two Yankee brigs, boys, we made a great smoke" -- On January 22, the Florida captured the brigs Windward and Corris Ann, and burned both. In both cases, the captains stated that the Florida did not raise the Confederate flag until too late, and both believed they were in Spanish rather than international waters (Owsley, p. 52). Thus the Florida once again had flouted international law.
Verse 10: "Green Keys, Where the Sonoma came foaming"/Verse 13, "The Sonoma came up, until nearly in range, When her engines gave out." After her visit to Havana, the Florida went out, only to find the Havana coal to be so bad that they threw it into the sea and went to Nassau to get more (Owsley, p. 52). (Another technically illegal act; it was too close to her last visit to a British port.) When they left, they saw the Sonoma, a ship with only four guns. Maffitt thought it was a stronger ship and so avoided her (Owsley, p. 53). The Sonoma's refusal to engage was an obvious choice for a ship so heavily out-gunned (though her captain claimed that he just couldn't keep up), but the song takes no note of that fact! I cannot find a "Green Key" on the map, but the Corris Ann had been captured near Stone Key.
Verse 15: "A fine, lofty clipper bound home from Shanghai" -- presumably the Jacob Bell, the fourth ship the Florida captured. She was a clipper taken on February 12, 1863 (Owaley, p. 187). According to Owsley, pp. 54-55, she was bound from "Foochow" (Fuzhou), not Shanghai (but no doubt that was close enough for an author who sympathized with slave-holders). She carried "1380 tons of choice tea and 10,000 boxes of fire crackers." That cargo was supposedly worth a million and a half dollars, making her the most valuable ship the Florida captured.
Verse 16: "A ship with a Quakerish name... for the hold of that beautiful, mild, peaceful Star Was full of saltpetre..."/Verse 17: "So we burnt her" -- I assume this is the Star of Peace, the next ship captured after the Jacob Bell. A clipper, she was taken on March 6, 1863 and burned. Owsley, p. 58, says she was carrying saltpeter to make gunpowder. I would suggest that burning her was a mistake; the South had a serious shortage of saltpeter (see "Chamber Lye"). If every they should have tried to bring a prize home, this was the one!
Verse 18: "We next took a schooner well laden with bread" -- This isn't much of a description, but the next ship taken after the Star of Peace was the Aldabaran, a schooner taken on March 12 and burned. Owsley, p. 58, says that she carried a load of flour and other foods, plus merchandise for Brazil.
Verse 19: "We next took the Lapwing [filled with] coal."-- The Lapwing was indeed well supplied with coal. She was taken on March 28. Because of the coal she carried, Maffitt decided to retain her as a tender and auxiliary cruiser (he put a few crew and a single gun aboard her) rather than burning her at once (Owsley, p. 61). But she was too slow to keep up with the Florida (Owsley, p. 62). So after a few days he (in effect) ordered her to hide, then visited her a few times; once she was no longer useful, he burned her (Owsley, pp. 63, 67-69). The Lapwing's destruction, however, took place after the last event in the song.
Verse 20: "The Mary Jane Colcord" -- Owsley calls her simply the M. J. Colcord. She was taken March 30, emptied of provisions, and burned (Owsley, p. 62).
It is interesting to observe that Moore's text mentions every ship the Florida took up until the Colcord (although two are not listed by name) -- but none after that. Not even the sixteen additional ships taken on her first cruise. It's a strange place to stop. Did the author realize how dull the song was? Did his audience protest? Was the second half of the song forgotten? Without more texts, we can't really know.
Note that, although Fowke's version refers to Savannah, Moore's text never mentions Savannah -- and rightly, because the Florida never made it there. The only Confederate town she visited was Mobile. I wonder if this is an error for the ship Savannah, which Maffitt had commanded at Port Royal in 1861 (Stern, p 114). - RBW
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