The
“Captain Roberts” mentioned below resided in Wilmington during the war,
renting the lavish home of Mayor John Dawson directly across from the
Bellamy Mansion which still stands. The famed blockade-runner wrote
his reminiscences of “twelve successful trips in blockade-running,”
“Never Caught,” in 1867. The Dawson home is part of the popular
“Confederate Wilmington” walking tour.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Captain Roberts and the Game of Blockade Running
Many
of the captains during the [first years of the war] were drawn from the
very cream of the English navy, officers of prolonged naval experience
who, tired of the inertia of life on half pay, were drawn to volunteer
in the Confederate service by the lure of rich profits . . . and of
adventure, which was a battle cry to those old sea dogs.
The
sympathies of so many of the English were with the Confederacy that
probably other naval officers would have gone in for blockade-running if
the United States had not threatened to send all British officers taken
on a blockade-runner to England in irons.
The
English officers in this service usually operate under an assumed name.
For instance, Captain Roberts, who commanded one of the first little
twin-screw steamers, called the Don, was in reality a titled officer in
the English Navy, the honorable Augustus Charles Hobart Hampden, son
of the Earl of Buckinghamshire. He was post captain in the Royal Navy,
and for a time commander of Queen Victoria’s yacht, [the] Victoria and
Albert.
He
had seen service in the war against Emperor Nicholas in 1854 under the
British admiral, Sir Charles Napier, and after the order, “Lads, sharpen
your cutlasses,” had boarded the Russian warships before Kronstadt,
helped storm the seven forts which guarded the entrance to the harbor,
and sailed up the Neva to St. Petersburg.
With
the coming of the American war he obtained leave of absence to try his
skill at this new game of blockade-running. He was very proud of his
craft, in which he made six trips between Nassau and Wilmington [and]
returned to England with a snug fortune.
The
Don was captured on her very first trip after the command had been
renounced by “Captain Roberts,” and the chief officer was assumed by his
captors to be Roberts. He did not reveal his identity and the northern
newspapers upon the arrival of the prize at Philadelphia were full of
the capture of the “notorious Captain Roberts.” Their chagrin, when they
learned the mistake, equaled their former elation.
Dramatic
to the end, unable to endure the dull routine of service ashore, Hobart
accepted the command of the entire Turkish navy at the outbreak of the
Turkish-Russian War. He died, in accordance with his character, Hobart
Pasha, admiral of the Turkish Navy.”
(Foreigners in the Confederacy, Ella Lonn, UNC Press, 1940, pp. 299-301)
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