only until some convenient means was found of getting rid of them. Now and then among these were ladies, who at first regarded their captors with exaggerated fears. But the young officers managed to overcome this in most cases and the lieutenant who boarded one large steamer returned with his coat quite bare of buttons which had been cut off for mementoes. Assuredly this was playing the pranks of the buccaneers with a certain gayety.
The sordid side of such work is obvious enough. For a commissioned war-vessel to sail about the world, do- ing no fighting, but simply capturing and destroying unarmed merchantmen, seems in itself neither very use- ful, very creditable, nor very amusing. As to the useful- ness, however, the Alabama's depredations probably did as much as anything to develop the peace spirit among the merchants of the North, and Semmes was no doubt right in thinking that he seriously diminished the pres- sure of the blockade by drawing so much attention to himself. And he is further right in asserting, as to dis- credit, that what damage he did to property and injury to persons is not to be named with the damage and in- jury done by Sherman without one whit more military excuse.
As to amusement, that is, excitement, the course of the Alabama supplied enough of it. Not to speak of winds and storms, to which she was incessantly exposed in her practically unbroken cruise of two years, there was the
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