4. In the South, as the war progressed, the hardships endured by the mass of the people caused much suffering. [Illustration: LOADING A NAVAL CANNON IN THE CIVIL WAR. Contemporary drawing.] FOOTNOTES [1] The first Confederate privateer to get to sea was the _Savannah_. She took one prize and was captured. Another, the _Beauregard_, was taken after a short cruise. A third, the _Petrel_, mistook the frigate St. Lawrence for a merchantman and attempted to take her, but was sunk by a broadside. After a year the blockade stopped privateering. [2] Captain Wilkes was congratulated by the Secretary of the Navy, thanked by the House of Representatives, and given a grand banquet in Boston; and the whole country was jubilant. The British minister at Washington was directed to demand the liberation of the prisoners and "a suitable apology for the aggression," and if not answered in seven days, or if unfavorably answered, was to return to London at once. [3] Early in the war an agent was sent to Great Britain by the Confederate navy department to procure vessels to be used as commerce destroyers. The _Florida_ and _Alabama_ were built at Liverpool and sent to sea unarmed. Their guns and ammunition were sent in vessels from another British port. The _Shenandoah_ was purchased at London (her name was then the _Sea King_) and was met at Madeira by a tender from Liverpool with men and guns. On her way to Australia, the _Shenandoah_ destroyed seven of our merchantmen. She then went to Bering Sea and in one week captured twenty- five whalers, most of which she destroyed. This was in June, 1865, after the war was over. In August a British ship captain informed the commander of the _Shenandoah_ that the Confederacy no longer existed. The _Shenandoah_ was then taken to Liverpool and delivered to the British government, which turned her over to the United States. [4] Read _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. IV, pp. 600-614. [5] In 1864 a Confederate ironclad ram, the _Albemarle_, appeared on the waters of Albemarle Sound. As no Union war ship could harm her, Commander W. B. Gushing planned an expedition to destroy her by a torpedo. On the night of October 27, with fourteen companions in a steam launch, he made his way to the ram, blew her up with the torpedo, and with one other man escaped. His adventures on the way back to the fleet read like fiction, and are told by himself in _Battles and Leaders of the Civil War_, Vol. IV, pp. 634-640. [6] The hole made in the Cumberland by the Merrimac was "large enough for a man to enter." Through this the water poured in so rapidly that the sick, wounded, and many who were not disabled were carried down with the ship. After she sank, the flag at the masthead still waved above the water. Read Longfellow's poem _The Cumberland_.