Stern Chase, Long Chase

[Mark F. Jenkins]

NAVY DEPARTMENT, January 18, 1864.​

SIR:
As soon as the U.S. steam sloop Sacramento is ready for sea, proceed with her in search of the piratical vessels now afloat and preying upon our commerce.

You will first visit the Western Islands, then the Cape Verde [Islands], and from the latter direct your course to Brazil, touching at such points on the coast as you may think advisable for the purpose of seeking information relative to the movements of the privateers or pirates.

From the coast of Brazil you will continue on to the Cape of Good Hope. There you will be likely to obtain such facts in reference to the movements of the Alabama and her consorts as will guide you in determining whether to continue to the eastward or to return north.

You will bear in mind that the principal object of your pursuit is the Alabama. If on arriving at the cape you shall ascertain that the Alabama has returned to the Atlantic, and there are no other piratical vessels in the vicinity of the cape or to the eastward of it, you will go no farther east, but return to the European coast and there cruise until the Department otherwise orders. On the contrary, should you ascertain that the Alabama has not passed the cape on her way back to the Atlantic or has not been destroyed, or should you obtain no certain information in regard to her, you will proceed to the eastward in search of her, and follow her wherever she may go, whether in the East Indies, China seas, or Pacific waters.

Keep the Department constantly advised of your movements, past and future. Be careful to preserve this order or any other important ones of the Department, as well as your proposed movements, from publicity. Such orders and such information get to the papers frequently and the rebels reap the benefits thereof.

Enclosed herewith is a sealed communication for Captain Glisson, commanding the Mohican, which you will take charge of and leave at Bahia, Brazil, unless you should fall in with that vessel before reaching that port.

I transmit to you by mail a package of general orders of the Department, together with a copy of the neutrality proclamation of Great Britain.

Very respectfully, etc.,
GIDEON WELLES,
Secretary of the Navy.​

Captain HENRY WALKE,
Commanding U. S. S. Sacramento, Boston.

(ORN I:2, pp. 588-9)​

On this day 150 years ago, Gideon Welles essentially ordered Capt. Henry Walke on a "seek until destroyed" mission against the CSS Alabama. This was the second time that Welles had done something like this; earlier, he had ordered the USS Vanderbilt to do much the same thing, but after nearly closing in on the Alabama near Cape Town, South Africa, the Vanderbilt was in need of overhaul and refitting.

Walke would have a long and rather frustrating voyage ahead of him. He dutifully followed the course that Welles had set for him, until arriving at Cape Town on April 29, where he found that the Alabama had been there and left over a month earlier, headed northward. (Unknown to him, he had passed his quarry as he headed from Rio to Cape Town, when the Alabama was heading from Cape Town towards Brazil, although it was not a very near miss-- the two vessels were several hundred miles apart on their different courses.) After coaling at Cape Town, he followed the trail of the Confederate cruiser northward, steadily gaining on her. When he touched at Lisbon on June 27, he received the information that the Alabama had been sunk by the Kearsarge off Cherbourg only eight days earlier.

Walke was not granted the opportunity, but if some things had gone differently... had he chanced to head for Cape Town by way of St. Helena, he might have met up with the Alabama in the South Atlantic. (Highly unlikely, though; the prevailing winds and currents would have been against him, and his orders were to head for Cape Town.) If the Alabama had delayed heading for Cherbourg, electing instead to hunt for more Northern shipping in the mid-Atlantic, the Sacramento might have been able to catch up with her. If Semmes had stayed in port in Cherbourg instead of challenging the Kearsarge, or if he'd headed for a different port, Walke might have been able to arrive in time. But it was not to be.