127

D.F. Mosman.

Description of the very sloppy capture of a blockade runner heading to Charleston.

Aboard the U.S. Steamer Flag, 7 July 1862
Autograph Letter Signed as Acting Master to Commander James H. Strong, partly in a secretarial hand. 7 pages, 9½ x 7½ inches, on 3 sheets; mailing folds, minor wear and foxing.

Daniel Francis Mosman (1827-1882) commanded an expedition of two cutters in "Bull's Bay in search of stm'r supposed to have run the blockade . . . in the channel leading to Charleston." They nearly fired upon two boats from the USS Restless "who had entered the bay about two hours in advance before us on the same errand." The boats all joined forces and easily captured the steamer, which flew English colors. 

However, the crew was undisciplined and broke the window into the cabin of the prize steamer. Mosman found the men "capsizing and breaking up things promisquily about the cabin . . . liquor had been distributed among the crew. . . . Drawing my cutlass I drove them out and cleared the cabin." After dumping cargo overboard, the prize was towed out toward sea with prisoners. "A man named Taylor belonging to the Flag fell overboard out of the second cutter. Stopped the engine and sent a boat after him, but before reaching him he sunk." One of the Flag's men tied to repair the prize's engine, but "received a serious scalp wound." Finally, "the U.S. Schooner Blunt commenced shelling us, and continued for nearly an hour. Fortunately for us, she was unable to reach us." 

A 16 July 1862 article in the Rochester Times and Union named the English steamer as the Emily, and the drowned crew member as Frederick Taylor, but they omitted the drunken crew members ransacking the Emily's cabin.

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