CAPTAIN WILKES'S SEIZURE OF MASON AND SLIDELL
By D. MacNeill Fairfax, Rear-Admiral, U.S.N., Executive Officer of the "San Jacinto."

IN October, 1861, the United States screw-sloop San Jacinto, of which Captain Charles Wilkes was commander and the writer was executive officer, on her return from the west coast of Africa, touched at the island of St. Thomas to coal ship. Here for the first time we learned of the presence in those waters of the Confederate cruiser Sumter (Captain Raphael Semmes). ^ Captain Wilkes immediately determined to search for the enemy. At Cienfuegos, on the south coast of Cuba, he learned from the United States consul-general at Havana that Messrs. Mason and Slidell, Confederate commissioners to Europe, and their secretaries and families had recently reached that port from Charleston en route to England. He immediately put to sea, October 26th, With the purpose of intercepting the blockade runner which had brought them out. The commissioners were to have left Charleston by the cruiser Nashville, but their plans had been changed, and the steamer Gordon, otherwise known as the Theodora (Captain Lockwood), had been substituted. They had run the Union blockade successfully during a storm on the night of October 11th, and had arrived at Nassau on the 13th, and at Havana on the 17th. There we ascertained that their plan was to leave on the 7th of November in the English steamer Trent for St. Thomas on their way to England, and readily calculated when and where in the Bahama Channel we might intercept them. Meanwhile, on the 2d of November, Captain Wilkes continued his cruise after the Sumter along the north coast of Cuba, also running over to Key West in the hope of finding the Powhatan or some other steamer to accompany him to the Bahama Channel to guard against the possibility of the escape of the commissioners. But the Powhatan had left the day before, and the San Jacinto therefore returned alone to the channel to await the Trent. Here, 240 miles from Havana, and 90 miles from Sagua la Grande, where the channel contracts to the width of 15 miles,8th of November the Trent was sighted.

On our way from St. Thomas to Havana we had stopped at the Caymans, an English possession, to procure fresh provisions for the crew. The natives had not many days before received a visit from the Sumter, and were loud

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^ The Sumter, one of the first, if not the very first, of the regularly commissioned vessels of the Con- federate navy, left New Orleans on the 18th of June, 1861 (see cut, p.. 14), and, running the blockade, almost immediately began privateering operations. She was a screw steamer of 500 tons, and was armed with 5 guns --- an 8-inch pivot, and 4 24-pound howitzers. She cruised for two months in the Caribbean Sea and along the coast of South America, receiving friendly treatment and coaling without hindrance in the neutral ports. During the succeeding two months she cruised in the Atlan- tic. On the night of the 23d of November, she ran out of the port of St.. Pierre, island of Marti- niqus, eluding the Iroquois (Captain Palmer), which had been sent to search for her. At Gibraltar, having been effectually blockaded by the Tuscarora, she was sold, afterward becoming a blockade runner. Among the vessels sent in search of her were the Niagara, Powhatan, Keystone State, Richmond, and San Jacinto.

In his volume, "The Blockade and the Cruisers" (Charles Scribner's Sons), Professor J.R. Soley sums up her career thus :
"During her cruise she had made 17 prizes, of which 2 were ransomed, 7 were released in Cuban ports by order of the Captain-General, and were recaptured. Apart from the delays caused by interrupted voyages, the total injury inflicted by the Sumter upon American com- merce consisted in the burning of six vessels with their cargoes." --- EDITORS.
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