North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial
“Unsurpassed Valor, Courage, and devotion to liberty”
“The Official Website of the North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission”
“Running the Northern Blockade”
Captain Usina and the Leadsman Without Peer
Born
in St. Augustine to Spanish parents, Captain Michael Philip Usina
(1840-1903) enlisted in the Eight Georgia Volunteer Regiment (Oglethorpe
Light Infantry) after the outbreak of war in 1861.
Wounded at First
Manassas, he joined the Confederate Navy after recovering and became one
theSouth’s foremost blockade runners. Familiarly known as Mike Usina,
his skill and daring made him famous in Nassau and Bermuda and in all of
the Atlantic States. The [Northern] consul at Nassau, Mr. Whiting,
eager for his capture by the cruisers which hovered near the British
islands, bough Usina’s portraits from a local photographer, and sent
them broadcast among the Federal commanders in order to identify him
when captured, as many Southerners escaped long confinement by claiming
to be Englishmen. Captain Usina seemed to have a charmed life, but he
was in reality so cool under fire and so resourceful in a tight place or
situation, that he slipped through their fingers frequently when his
capture seemed certain.
“The
leadsman on board a blockade runner occupied a very responsible
position; he had to have great physical endurance and courage. When
shoal water was reached, the safety of the ship and the lives of all on
board depended upon his skill and faithfulness. Were he disposed to be
treacherous, he could, by false soundings, put the ship in the hands of
the enemy or run her in the breakers and endanger the lives of all.
My
leadsman was a slave owned by myself. On the last trip of the
Atlanta, while under fire, the ship was going very fast toward shoal
water, I thought possibly he might get rattled, and to test him I said:
“Irwin, you can’t get correct soundings, the ship is going too fast,
I’ll slow her down for you.”
He
answered: “There is no time for to slow down, sir, you let her go, I’ll
give you the bottom”; and he did, he being a leadsman without a peer. I
have had him for hours in cold winter weather, with the
spray flying over him cold enough to freeze the marrow in his bones, the
ship often on shoal water, frequently but a foot to spare under her,
and sometimes not that. Yet I never knew him to make a mistake or give
an incorrect cast of the lead.
He
is the man to whom, when pointing to the island of New Providence, I
said: “Every man on that island is as free as I am, so will you be when
we get there.” He answered: “I did not want to come here to be free, I
could have gone to the Yankees long ago if I had wished.”
And
afterwards, when the war was over, I said to him: “I am going to
England, perhaps never to see Savannah again, you had better go home.”
His answer was: “I cannot go without you,” and he did not. The feeling
that existed between us can only be understood by Southern men; by a
Northern man, never.”
(Chronicles of the Cape Fear River, 1660-1916, James Sprunt, Edwards & Broughton, 1916, pg. 426)
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