The secret came out after the engagement. The Kearsarge had a concealed armour, that completely protected her from the thirteen or fourteen shots received in or about her hull. Her midship section, on both sides, was thoroughly iron-coated. This had been done with chain constructed for the purpose, placed perpendicularly from the rail to the water's edge, the whole covered over by a thin outer planking, which gave no indication of the armour beneath. This planking had been ripped off in every direction by the shot and shell of the Alabama, the chain broken and indented in many places, and forced partly into the ship's side. She was most effectually guarded, however, in this section from penetration; and in the hour's contest the Alabama little knew that she was fighting a mailed enemy, with scarcely a single chance in her favour. In commenting on this discovery, the Richmond Dispatch referred to a certain custom of chivalry, that when a knight was discovered in concealed armour his spurs were hacked off by the public hangman. The Northern public, however, could scarcely be expected to take so fine a notion; and Capt. Winslow, the North Carolinian, who commanded the Kearsarge, easily entitled his exploit among the sensations of the day, reached the American coast to find himself famous, was overwhelmed with receptions and dinners in Boston, and had his physiognomy recorded on the first pages of the New York pictorials. CAPTURE OF THE PRIVATEER FLORIDA. A few weeks later another naval exploit of the enemy was practically to terminate the privateering service of the Confederates, and to give one of the most extraordinary illustrations of the enemy's utter disregard of means in obtaining any desirable result in the war. An account of this event is properly preceded by an anecdote told in the New York newspapers, of Admiral Farragut, the naval hero of the North. When the Russian Admiral, in 1863, wintered in New York with his fleet, it was an occasion of receptions and banquets, at one of which occurred the following conversation with Admiral Farragut. The latter was complaining of the American officer who did not capture a Confederate steamer in a neutral port. "Why, would you have done it?" asked the Russian. "Yes, sir," was the prompt reply. "But," said the Russian, "your Government would have broken you." "Of course it would," replied Admiral F.; "but wouldn't I have had her!" The New York journals reported this among the heroic anecdotes of their heroic men; when it was simply the brutal expression of advantage, the disowning of all international conscience, the characteristic Yankee bluster of might against right. This curious exposition of international law by the Federal Admiral CAPTURE OF THE FLORIDA.” 553 did not have to wait long for a practical illustration. After the capture of the Alabama, the enemy appears to have had an increased desire for the other important Confederate cruiser, the Florida, carrying eight guns. She had eluded the Kearsarge at Brest, and since then had ventured within sixty miles of New York, chasing the war steamer Ericsson, and capturing the steamer Electric Spark on the route to New Orleans. She was next heard from at Teneriffe, and subsequently entered the Bay of San Salvador, Brazil. The Wachusett, a Federal steamer, was also in this neutral port; and her commander, Napoleon Collins, conceived the utterly outrageous and dastardly design of sinking the Confederate vessel at her anchorage, or capturing her by stealing upon her in an unguarded moment, and towing her out to sea. The circumstances of the outrage were of peculiar atrocity. A little past midnight of 6th October, the Wachusett slipped her cables, and bore down upon the Florida, when about one half the crew of the unsuspecting vessel were ashore. The Florida's officer on deck, when he saw the approach of the Wachusett, actually hailed her to avoid an accidental collision as he feared; little supposing that the Federal vessel was coming down under a full head of steam with the diabolical design of sinking a defenceless vessel with her crew asleep beneath her decks. The blow, however, was not well delivered, striking the Florida in the stern and not amidships as intended. As the Wachusett drew off, she demanded the surrender of the vessel, incapable of resistance, and having in a few moments boarded her, attached a hawser, and moving at the top of her speed, towed the Florida rapidly out to sea. The outrage was not discovered by the Brazilian fleet until the Wachusett with her prize had got out to sea, and then some harmless shots were fired, which passed over her pennant. Of course Mr. Seward had to apologize to the Brazilian Government, and Capt. Collins had to go through certain forms of censure. But this was of no importance. The diplomatic apology did not prevent the Florida from being held as a prize, and afterwards being "accidentally" sunk in Hampton Roads. And the official affectation with Capt. Collins did not prevent the press from lauding him, and the New York Herald from saying: "Certainly, no page of history can show a more daring achievement "—another illustration, by the way, of how the North has measured glory in the war by the very degrees of wantonness and outrage. INVASION OF MISSOURI BY GEN. PRICE. In the close of this chapter and in the group of events of the war, in 1864, outside of the grand campaigns of Virginia and Georgia, we may properly place here a brief record of what was the most important of the detached military operations of 1864. This was a movement in the TransMississippi, the invasion of Missouri by Gen. Price. It appears to have been altogether a detached operation, having no relation to the campaigns east of the Mississippi, and with but little effect on the general issues of the war. It is therefore narrated in a small space. About the middle of September, Gen. Price entered Missouri, crossing the State line from Arkansas, by the way of Pocahontas and Poplar Bluff. He had about ten thousand men under the command of Gens. Shelby, Marmaduke, and Fagan. From Poplar Bluff, Price advanced, by the way of Bloomfield, to Pilot Knob, driving before him the various outpost garrisons, and threatening Cape Girardeau. Pilot Knob was evacuated, and Price thus obtained a strongly fortified position, eighty-six miles south of St. Louis, the terminus of the railroad, and the depot for supply of the lower outposts. Gen. Rosecrans, the Federal commander in the Department of Missouri, was largely superiour in force to Price; but he appears to have been unable to concentrate or handle his troops, and the country was surprised to find Gen. Price moving almost without molestation through the large State of Missouri, doing incalculable mischief, and kindling the hopes of the Confederates with another campaign of wonders in this remote region of the war. From Pilot Knob Gen. Price moved north to the Missouri River, and continued up that river towards Kansas. Gen. Custis, commanding the Department of Kansas, immediately collected such forces as he could to repel the invasion; while four brigades of Federal cavalry, numbering about eight thousand men and eight rifled guns, were operating in Price's rear. On the 23d October, Gen. Price was brought to battle on the Big Blue, and defeated, Gens. Marmaduke and Cabell being taken prisoners, and the Confederates losing nearly all of their artillery. On the following day, Price was again attacked, near Fort Scott, and obliged hurriedly to retreat into Kansas. He then turned down to the south, and crossed the Arkansas River, above Fort Smith, into the Indian Territory. He subsequently went into winter quarters in the south of Arkansas, his men in worse plight than when they started from that State, and the conclusion of his campaign an undoubted failure. The fact is that Gen. Price had retreated from Missouri, not so much under the stress of the enemy's arms as from inherent faults in his own enterprise. He had declared that his invasion was not a raid, that he came to possess Missouri; but the breadth of the excursion, its indefiniteness, and the failure to concentrate on important points, ruined him. While his command roamed through the State, his men, brought to the vicinity of their old homes, which they had not seen for several years, were ex PRICE'S RETREAT FROM MISSOURI. 555 posed to unusual temptations to desert; and instead of being reinforced by recruits, his command was diminished by desertions at every step of the march, and almost ran through his fingers before he left the State. With this sad conclusion of Gen. Price's expedition, the last hope was banished from the Southern mind of possessing Missouri; and the operations of the Trans-Mississippi may be said now to have made their last figure of importance in the war. PAIGN. CHAPTER XXXIV. ' THE PRESIDENTIAL CANVASS OF 1864 IN THE NORTH.-ITS RELATIONS TO THE MILITARY CAM- 66 WE We have already referred to the great consideration which attached to the Presidential contest in the North which was now to take place; we have stated that it gave a new hope for the South in 1864; and we have |