"A Crisis Unprecedented" > Confederate Privateers
Outstanding debts remained a crucial issue for the Chamber of Commerce. But, if recompense for previous exchanges was important, so too was the prevention of further losses. Since the War’s outbreak, nothing had incensed the City’s merchants so much as the Southern use of privateers – fast, armed ships sailing with Confederate commissions – that prayed on Northern vessels. In the War for Independence, northern ship-owners had themselves used the tactic with great success – “it is notorious,” a Chamber member had conceded in the 1780s, “that the Genius of no people was ever more peculiar or conspicuous than that of the Americans for Privateering.” – but now that their own vessels were under threat, their attitudes were different.
In its emergency session at the start of the conflict, the Chamber had explicitly condemned “the proposition of Mr. Jefferson Davis to issue letters of marque to whomsoever may apply for them.” In the eyes of the potential victims, such a fleet was illegitimate, dastardly, visigothic “without the sanction of public law … piratical in its tendencies, and therefore deserving the stern condemnation of the civilized world.”
When combat began, the Chamber’s leaders were anxious about the defenses of New York harbor. Several forts remained unfinished and no fighting ships were stationed in the City. As early as June 1861, the merchants informed Congress that their warehouses and shipping, “lay at the mercy of any war vessel which might force its way through the Narrows.”
A year later, nothing much had been done about the situation. And, in October 1862, concern increased as word arrived that the Confederate cruiser Alabama was preying on Northern vessels off the Newfoundland Banks. In just a few weeks, it captured, burned, or destroyed nearly 20 ships, including two belonging to A.A. Low, a future president of the Chamber. The stories sent the City’s traders into a panic, confirming their direst expectations of Rebel delinquency – this was an “atrocity,” an “outrage” that “ought to be denounced as a crime” – and mobilizing them to demand governmental action.
And the government, in turn, mobilized them. In February 1863, General John E. Wool, who commanded troops in New York, wrote to Pelatiah Perit, the Chamber’s president, asking him to echo his request for reinforcements. “I have represented to the Secretary of War of the necessity of a ship of war, or several gunboats to be placed between the Narrows and Sandy Hook,” Wool wrote. Until that force had been assembled, he continued, “The Alabama or any other armed vessel could enter the Bay and destroy many vessels without the fear of being molested or interfered with.” To speed Washington’s decisions, Wool wrote: “I ask your influence to hasten what I have required. The sooner it is done the better it will be for your City and would not fail to quiet the apprehensions of the citizens.”
After twenty-two months – and nearly seventy prizes – the Alabama finally was sunk off Cherbourg, France, by the Federal corvette Kearsarge. In appreciation, the members of the Chamber of Commerce sent congratulations to the commander and crew. But, their gratitude was not infinite. When an artist informed them that he had finished a painting of the combat between the two ships, suggesting they buy it as a gift for the Northern captain, he was informed “that the Chamber had no intention of purchasing the picture alluded to.”