"An Old Sailor's Lament": Herman Melville, the Stone Fleet, and the Judgment of History

“An Old Sailor’s Lament”: Herman Melville, the Stone Fleet, and the Judgment of History MARY K. BERCAW EDWARDS University of Connecticut I n 1861, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the blockade of southern ports. A fleet of aged whale ships loaded with stone was sent to Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, and sunk at the mouths of the harbors in an unsuccessful attempt to block them. Melville’s poem, “The Stone Fleet,” written in the voice of an old sailor, mourns the loss of the vessels. Its embittered final words damn those who ordered the death of the ships and pronounce the entire enterprise an utter failure. Melville’s note to the poem states: “All accounts seem to agree that the object proposed was not accomplished. The channel is even said to have become ultimately benefited by the means employed to obstruct it.” The following examines the accuracy of Melville’s assessment and investigates the conception and execution of the plan. It considers the strategic results and monetary and diplomatic costs. Concurrently it reveals Melville’s ties to several of the ships and his interest in their fate.1 The sinking of the Stone Fleet is a brief episode in a long conflict, so why did it resonate so profoundly for Melville? Perhaps Melville saw himself in the old ships sunk and lost, “And all for naught” (31). Lincoln’s 1861 blockade order attempted to stop the importation of medicines and war material and the exportation of cotton, especially to England. Gustavus V. Fox, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, thought it possible to obstruct the entrances of Savannah and Charleston by sinking vessels in their channels. He was supported by Professor A. D. Bache, Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey.2 C
2007 The Authors Journal compilation C
2007 The Melville Society and Blackwell Publishing Inc 1 I wish to thank Mary Malloy of Sea Education Association and Paul O’Pecko, Kelly Drake, Craig Edwards, Amy German, David Littlefield, Dennis Murphy, Wendy Schnur, and Peter Sorensen of Mystic Seaport for their help in this project. 2 Bache wrote: “Dear Captain: I think well of Fox’s idea of closing up that entrance, and will bring you the evidence for examination to-night” (Letter from A. D. Bache to Captain S. F. DuPont, 4 September 1861, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, ser. I, vol. 12 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1901), 207. L E V I A T H A N A J O U R N A L O F M E L V I L L E S T U D I E S 51 M A R Y K . B E R C A W E D W A R D S On October 17, 1861, Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy, issued orders to the purchasing agent in New York: The Department is desirous of obtaining twenty-five old vessels, of not less than 250 tons each, for the purpose of sinking on the bar at Savannah. You are authorized to obtain suitable vessels . . . in the manner following: 1. Purchase the twenty-five vessels, after suitable examination, as secretly as possible, before any knowledge is obtained that [the] Government is in the market . . . . 4. Have a pipe and valve fitted under skillful direction, so that after anchoring in position the water can be readily let into the hold. 5. Load them with blocks of granite to utmost extent, considering their safe transit down the coast. 6. Leave one anchor and chain on board ready for use and such sails and gear as are necessary to sail them to their destination.3 All but one of the 25 vessels bought under Welles’s direction were old whale ships from New Bedford and New London.4 At first the order for secrecy was maintained, and there was some mystery as to why the vessels were being purchased. The sale of the Timor was reported in the New Bedford Whalemen’s Shipping List, and Merchants’ Transcript: “Sale of Ships.—Ship Timor, 280 tons, which has lain in port at Sag Harbor, since her return from a whaling voyage in May...