The following article, transcribed from page 17 of the New York Times, dated Sunday, September 18, 1892, gives a wartime account of blockade running aboard the Ella and Annie, under the command of Confederate States Naval officer, Francis Nathaniel Bonneau (his middle initial is incorrectly shown, in the article, as C.).   The article is titled “Dodging the Blockaders: How Confederate Supplies were run into Charleston – The Daring Exploits of Capt. Frank Bonneau – Dashing Into the Heart of a Federal Fleet – Captured and Sent North – Resuming Operations on the Hattie.”

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Charleston, S.C., Sept. 17. – The most daring blockade runner during the last war; the man who on one occasion dashed his ship squarely at the center of more than thirty Federal ships-of-war lying off Wilmington; the man who carried the last blockade runner out of Charleston through a fleet of twenty-six blockading ships; the man, in fact, whom ex-Confederates on all sides concede as having done some of the most effective all-round blockade running of the war is living here in Charleston today, and to all appearances is still in the vigor of life.   His name is Frank C. Bonneau, formerly Lieutenant Confederate States Navy, and a nephew and protégé of Commodore Ingraham of Martin Koszta fame.

Bonneau was a fighting blockade runner.   His commission made him such, and his acts of daring in the face of the Union ships made his name a byword for gallantry among the men of the Confederate Navy.   He took to blockade running at the suggestion of Commodore Ingraham at a time when men devoted to the Confederate cause were needed for such work, it being found that the English blockade runners would not stand up to the fire of the Federal ships.   Powder, guns, and iron were needed by the Confederate Navy, but the English runners, finding less profit in these articles, could with difficulty be induced to bring the much needed cargoes.   It was then that men of Bonneau’s stamp came to the front, and some of the incidents connected with the most daring of occupations are best given in Bonneau’s own language to the Times’s correspondent.

“My first sea experience,” said Mr. Bonneau, “ was obtained in the old navy under Commodore Ingraham.   I made a cruise on the African coast; served in the brig Somers, the same craft on which Midshipman Spencer was hanged; was in the Mexican war, and on the breaking out of the civil war entered the Confederate Army as Captain of the Mathewes Artillery, a light battery raised in Charleston, and named after the man to whom the battery was indebted for much pecuniary support.   My command was assigned to duty at Battery Wagner, then in process of construction.   And it was while on duty on Morris Island that Commodore Ingraham sent for me one day and said:  “’Frank, we are not obtaining iron, ordnance, and other war material in the quantities that are needed.   These Englishmen who are attempting the blockade are either afraid of being caught with munitions of war aboard or else believe there is more money in other commodities.   I want you to take a ship.   We will find one for you somewhere, and your commission in the army can be exchanged for that of a Lieutenant in the navy.’

“Commodore Ingraham was at that time in charge of the Charleston station.   He was the senior flag officer on the Carolina section of the coast.   His proposition delighted me, and before many days elapsed the Commodore handed me my new commission.

“I was at once put in communication with Mr. Theodore Jervey, who, by the way, has since been Collector of the Port of Charleston.   Mr. Jervey was casting about at that time to obtain a fast steamer, and for this purpose held at hand from the Bee Company of Charleston $150,000 in gold.   I learned that the William C. Hughes, a fast coasting vessel of the Morgan Line, was lying in Havana, and it did not take me long to make up my mind to have her.

“With Mr. Jervey I slipped out of Charleston in the Ruby.   This was in the Winter of 1862, and the blockade was not very effective just then.   We ran to Nassau, having quite a squeeze of it to get in.   No sooner did we reach Nassau than I found a Capt. De Forrest, a tiptop sea Captain, bent on the same purpose as Jervey and myself.   It became apparent at once that the first one of us who reached Havana would secure the ship.   There was no earthly use in attempting to get out of Nassau so long as the southerly winds prevailed.   Nothing short of a norther would carry us through the Union ships and enable us to breast the strong current running up the Florida coast.   I was in a quandary over obtaining a craft to carry Jervey and myself out.   De Forrest, I found, already had a small vessel and was only waiting for wind.

“ I had the good fortune, though, to run across a Bahama wrecker, McKenna by name, a nervy fellow, and one I found I could count on.   ‘McKenna,’ I said, ‘what will you carry me over to Havana for?’   The wrecker looked at me sharply, thought for a second, and quickly said, ‘Five hundred dollars.’   ‘Good,’ I answered, ‘and here is $100 right down in cash to seal the bargain.   Now you go right aboard your craft, get everything ready, keep your crew aboard, and when I come off ask no questions, but get right under way.   Mind you, when I climb over the rail you have all the orders necessary, and be careful, McKenna,’ I said, ‘of the crew.   If any of those fellows squeal on the movements of the craft, I am out $100 and you $400.’   ‘Leave that to me,’ said McKenna.

“I went at once to Jervey, told him what I had done, and then the two of us went to our rooms and kept out of sight.   That day and the following the weather continued the same, but on the second night at about 11 o’clock the blind on my window suddenly slammed, followed almost instantly by the rush of cool air.   That was sign enough for me.   The norther was coming, and I knew that before two hours would pass it would be blowing half a hurricane outside the reefs.

“I ran to Jervey’s  room.   ‘Quick, quick! Jervey,’ I shouted.   ‘Run for the vessel.   Don’t stop to carry anything, but come on.’

“Down we both tore for the beach, jumped into a small boat, and inside of five minutes were on the deck of the wrecker, and with McKenna getting aft the mainsheet.   You should have seen us shoot out of that harbor.   We did it none too soon.   The norther came down on us with a perfect roar, but as we were clear of the reefs and running before it we had only to watch the vessel.   Not a Federal ship was to be seen.   Every craft had hauled well off shore on the first appearance of the blow.

“The next day we were in Havana, and before nightfall Herrea & Co., the Havana agents for the Morgan Line, had sold and turned over to me the William C. Hughes for $150,000 in gold.   We beat De Forrest in a good half day.   He, too, took advantage of the norther out of Nassau, but we got away ahead of him.

“I at once set to work to get the Hughes ready for sea.   There was comparatively little in this line to be done.   She was a magnificent craft and in fine condition.   Her length was 240 feet and draught 12 feet when loaded down with 1,300 bales of cotton.   She was a side-wheeler, her wheels measuring 32 feet in diameter.   These wheels were fitted with feathering buckets.   On her spar deck the Hughes was perfectly flush fore and aft.   Her rig was that of a two-masted schooner.

“One of the first precautions I took was to paint her a lead color from stem to stern.   I omitted no part of her that would show.   Boats, spars, rigging, every particle of the ship showing above the water line, received a coat of the paint, which was pure white lead mixed with blue coloring, just enough to give a horizon sky tint to the ship.  A second precaution I took was to cover the side wheels with a canvas cloth painted the same color as the hull of the ship.   This cloth hung from the top of the paddle boxes, and dragged by means of weighted sinkers in the water.   The sound of the wheels was by this means greatly deadened.

“I picked up a makeshift crew in Havana, and, with the same wrecker, ran the Hughes into Nassau.   Jewry [Jervey] and I hit upon the name of the Ella and Anna [Ella and Annie] for our new acquisition, and off came the name William C. Hughes from the bow.   At Nassau I took on board a cargo of iron, assorted goods, medicine, and other articles needed specially by the Confederate Government.   I also took aboard two men, who stuck to me to the last.   One was a Charleston bar pilot named Samuel Hancock, one of the bravest, most nervy men I ever ran across, and the other was a Bahama wrecker of the name of Roberts.   Roberts always visited my home with me in Sommerville whenever reached Charleston, but this same Roberts had it from my own lips that if ever he ran the Ella and Anna into shoal water or on a reef I would blow his brains out if it was the last act of my life.   Roberts never failed me.   As for Hancock, he was one of us, and as true blue a man as ever trod a deck.

“Our first run into Charleston was a complete success.   We shot out of Nassau on a favorable night, ran down inside the reefs in waters that no Federal ship ever could enter, and then, taking an advantage of an open, ran out to sea and headed for Charleston bar.   We timed our steaming so as to reach the bar at high slack water, and under cover of night, with not a light showing, we quietly swept along in over the bar and up the harbor.

“Commodore Ingraham was highly pleased with the success attending the first run, and gave me every encouragement.   Once in Charleston, I made up a good crew, and on a good night slipped out of port with 1,300 bales of cotton.   I had no trouble in reaching Nassau and discharging.

“But this tame work was not to last long.   The blockade off Charleston was every day being made tighter and tighter.   As many as twenty-six Federal ships-of-war lay off the port, while the monitors blocked the channel well up inside the bar.   At Nassau the name of every Federal ship on the coast was known, as was also the name and reputation of her commander, and to such an excellent extent did we have information of the Federal craft that we could name a war vessel as soon as her sticks showed above water.

“It was on the second trip of the Ella and Anna that we caught merry music.   We broke through the cordon off the Bahamas, stole down on Charleston, a run of about 400 miles, and were quietly approaching the coast when the night came out bright and starlight, and then up came the moon.   I hesitated what to do, but, recalling suddenly that the bunkers were none too full of coal, I quickly determined to make a dash.   By the aid of my night glasses I could make out the position of every blockading ship off the bar.   Their hulls were all painted black, which caused them to loom up heavily in the night.

“Hancock was on the bridge with me.   Roberts, also, was standing by.   The pilot-house windows I had closed so that the quartermasters could not see, and the ladders leading into the fireroom were hauled up on deck by my orders.   I was bound that there should be no panicky work about decks.   With the exception of Hancock, Roberts, and myself, not a soul could be seen above the rail.   The chief engineer was standing at the throttle, and for half an hour had been gradually lifting around the hand of the steam gauge.

“’How are you below, chief?’ I said in low voice through the engine-room tubes.

“’The boilers are almost beginning to breathe,’ came back the reply.

“I knew then that the chief had the steam up to maximum strain.   ‘Let her go, Hancock,’ I said, and in we went, fairly creeping along.

“We were now right down on a big war ship, so near that I could hear her yards creak as she gently rolled to the swell.   Not a sound was to be heard, not even from the paddle-wheels, they were so well muffled.   We must have passed the outside ship within 200 yards, when right ahead was a second craft.   Past her we went, almost as close as we did to the first.   It was simply marvelous how difficult it was to the Federals to detect a ship painted as was the Ella and Anna.

“We were now right into the very heart of the fleet, when abeam of us there burst out on the still night air the thunder of a heavy rifle-gun, and with a roar a heavy shell passed right over the bridge.

“’Let her go!’ I yelled.   The signal was hurled down into the engine room.   Hancock took charge, and like the leap of a race horse at the signal of the starter, the Ella and Anna jumped ahead fully fifteen knots an hour.   And how they did pour it into us.   Rip, rip, went our rails, as the shells crashed right through the sides.   Everything was enveloped in smoke, broken only by the flashes of the guns.   The ship trembled from stem to stern, and fairly shook as the shot struck her.   I was expecting the boiler or machinery to go every minute, but not a shot struck her in the vitals.

“In we tore over that bar as only a fast blockader can run, and it was only when we heard the dull boom, boom of an occasional ship below firing at an imaginary blockade runner that we felt that we were through.   We slowed down up in the vicinity of Sumter, gave the private signals, and inside of an hour were moored to the wharf in Cooper River.

“Again we loaded up with cotton and slipped out to sea through the Sullivan Island beach channel.   Going to sea was a comparatively easy thing.   One had only to double up on a pursuer or steer off into some dark quarter, and if there was any go to the engines at all the blockaders would soon be left behind.   It was our practice before making a start to observe the enemy just before nightfall from Sumter.   The blockading vessels all had regular stations.   They would lie at anchor to a hawser snatched well out on the jib boom, and with the anchor just under foot.   At the sound of the alarm they ran their anchors a-weigh, got under way, and then walked the anchors up when there was time.   The very fact that the various ships had stations assigned them often served to help us in.   A blockading ship often did good buoy work for us.

“The experience of the Ella and Anna on her second trip became the usual one after that.   We expected to run the gantlet every time we bore down on Charleston, but so far as being struck was concerned we cared little so long as the shots kept away from the engine room and boilers.   In all, the Ella and Anna made nine round trips.   Money was plentiful.   Nassau was full of gold, and I have seen time and again bags of gold wheeled down in wheelbarrows to the ships, the crews getting their share when the vessel reached the high sea.

“On the morning of Nov. 3, on the ninth round trip of the Ella and Anna, I was standing in for Wilmington Bar from Bermuda.   We had on board a valuable cargo.   In company with us was the Margaret and Jessie, Capt. Lockwood; the Giraffe, Capt. Porter; the Ella, Capt. Swazey, and the Cambria, Capt. Gale.   Quite a string of us, it will be observed, and all blockade runners, with the Ella and Anna in the lead.

“The evening of the 8^th had been still and quiet.   There was hardly a ripple on the water, but in the early part of the morning of the 9^th the wind steadily freshened, with every appearance of a blow.   We all stood down toward the bar, the Giraffe close on my heels.   It was not long before I made out the hull of a blockader ahead, then another, and another.   All over the horizon they seemed scattered.   The fact was, as we afterward learned, there were about thirty Federal ships at the time blockading Wilmington.

“I did not exactly fancy the way the Giraffe was holding on to my skirts, and turning to the pilot, I remarked that we must shake off Porter.   So I hastily ordered a couple of men into the crosstrees, telling them to sand up on the out-riggers, and then put the ship about.   The Giraffe immediately put her own helm up, taking it at once to mean that I did not like the outlook ahead.   Letting the Giraffe run off a bit, I quickly put my helm over and started squarely for the fleet.

“It was now fast coming on daylight, and there was very little time to lose.   In we went with every pound of steam the boilers would hold.   We were past the first blockaders in a few minutes, and so far not a sound from one of them.   But suddenly whiz went a rocket from one of the outside war vessels, a signal that a blockade runner was approaching from the northward and eastward.   I glanced around and saw the outside cordon closing in, while well inside of me was an inner cordon of war ships, and every one now under way and waiting for me.

“’Give it to her!’ I cried out through the engine room tubes, and the engineer responded, as I knew he would.

“The whole fleet had now opened up on me, and with a roar that was deafening.   The shots were cutting our guards through and through.   Still we held on, shooting right through whole broadsides, and yet not a shot hit the boilers.

“There was a run of 500 yards to be made.   If I could clear it, the Ella and Anna would be inside and under the protection of Lamb’s Whitworth rifles.   Daylight had broken, and objects were plainly showing up.   On we rushed, rapidly closing down the gap, with nothing ahead now but two war ships.   One of them, a gunboat, had planted herself square across my path.   It was the Niphon.   The other, the Hiquah [Howquah]. was slightly on my bow.

“In an instant my mind was made up, and, giving the Ella and Anna a touch of the wheel, I headed her straight for the Niphon.   I knew that if I could hit fair and square I would cut her clean through.   The Niphon’s people saw what I was up to, and just in the nick of time the gunboat sheered, sheered just enough for me to hit her a glancing blow and catch my bower anchor on her rail.

“The force of the Ella and Anna swung me right alongside the Niphon, so that my boats were on her decks and her boats on my decks.   In this position, with wheels of the Ella and Anna still churning, grinding, as it seemed, the two ships to pieces, a tremendous yell came from the Union ship’s decks, and over came her bluejackets, cutlass and pistol in hand, boarding me with a cheer.

“I suppose that fully 100 men climbed aboard, and strange, too, they ran right past me, firing right and left.   Two of my firemen were shot down, and an old pirate of a quartermaster was wounded on the forward deck.   The latter fell only after he had knocked down at least a half dozen men with a capstan bar.   I recall distinctly the splash in the water as the bodies of several of them fell over the side.

“It took but a couple of minutes for the Niphon’s men to clear my decks.   One of the Niphon’s engineers ran below and stopped the engines of my vessel, for over on the Niphon’s deck I could hear a voice roaring out: ‘You are grinding me to pieces.   Stop your engines.’   My reply was: ‘Stop them yourself.   You can sink for all I care.’   The crew of the Ella and Anna, about thirty of us in all, was sent aboard the Niphon.   The latter then ran down to the senior naval officer of the inside cordon.   He was Commodore Lee, and the Shenandoah was his flagship.   Into the Niphon’s boat we were then ordered and all of us conveyed to the Shenandoah.

“Throughout the whole of the war there was a constant fear on my part that some action of mine might result in the injury of one of my old shipmates of the old navy.   Many a time, when later engaged before Charleston, the thought involuntarily flashed through my brain: ‘Will that shot hit Skerrett or Stone or some of the others?’   That morning when as a prisoner I stepped aboard the Shenandoah, and up the port gangway at that – no starboard gangway for prisoners – the first man I saw at the head of the gangway was Joe Skerrett.   He was Lee’s chief of staff aboard the Shenandoah.   Many were the nights that Skerrett and I in the old navy walked the deck together.   Both of us had done a cruise with Commodore Ingraham, and we had always thought the world of each other.

“’Good God! Frank, is it you?’ was Skerrett’s exclamation.

“’Yes, Joe,’ I replied.   ‘You have got me this time.’

“Step to one side, quick,’ said Skerrett, ‘and come right down below with me before the Commodore sends for you.’

“Down I went with Skerrett to his room, and once out of hearing, he abruptly said: ‘Frank, have you got anything valuable with you?   If so, let me have it.   I will care for it.’

“’All I have, Joe,’ I said, ‘is this watch.   I wouldn’t like to lose it.   It has many associations dear to me.’

“’Well, it is safe,’ said Skerrett, taking it and placing it in a drawer of his writing desk.   This was the same Skerrett who afterward rose to the rank of Commodore.   A nobler man never walked the deck of a ship.

“From the Shenandoah I was sent north in the prize, as were many other prisoners.   Not a single blockade runner that attempted to get into Wilmington on the morning escaped.   Before noon of that day five of our ships lay at anchor amid the Federal fleet.

“On arriving in New York I was sent to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor.   We first went to the Boston Navy Yard.   On the morning of my arrival I was sent for by Commodore Montgomery, the commandant of the yard.   As I was ushered into his presence, Montgomery arose, and, advancing, looked me straight in the face and said: ‘And so you are the blockade runner who tried to cut down the Niphon.   You are guilty, Sir, of piracy, and if I had my way you would swing by the neck by 12 o’clock today from the main yard of the Ohio.’

“I looked Montgomery as full in the face as I could, and, hauling myself together, quietly rolled up the sleeve of my right arm, and pointed to the tattooed figure of a woman supporting the Stars and Stripes.

“’Commodore Montgomery,’ I said, ‘when that little bit of needlework was pricked in there you and I, Sir, were fighting for that bit of bunting before the walls of Vera Cruz.   You were a Lieutenant on the flag officer’s ship.   I was on the Somers.   Together we landed with the naval battalion, served in the batteries only a few guns apart, and throughout that whole period you, Sir, and I, Sir, would have given the last drop of blood we possessed in the defense and honor of our country.   Today, Sir, my country is the South, and I am as ready now to shed my blood for her as I was with you for the Stars and Stripes before Vera Cruz.   I am fighting for principle, Sir; I am not a pirate.   I am an officer in the Confederate States Navy, and there, Sir, is my commission.’

“Montgomery looked at me a moment, turned abruptly to the Officer of the Day, and said: ‘Take Lieut. Bonneau’s parole, with full freedom of the city.’   That evening Montgomery and myself were playing a game of billiards in Young’s Hotel, Boston.   My parole ran for ten days at a time.   We were soon afterward, however, sent over to Fort Warren.   I was in Fort Warren when the captured Confederate naval officers from the Mobile fight appeared.   I remember that they came in irons, and the indignation of Col. Gibson, the commandant of the fort, at the sight.   ‘I will not receive these gentlemen in irons.   Take them off,’ he said, ‘before I address one word to them’; and off they came.

“I was in Fort Warren for eight months, when I was exchanged for Lieut. Stanbourn of the Union Navy.   Stanbourn was captured aboard the Water Witch in Warsaw Sound by one of our boarding parties.   Those of us who were exchanged were sent down to Fort Monroe, thence up the James River, where we were passed through the lines.   From Richmond I made my way with all possible speed to Charleston.   It was then the Summer of 1864, and it needed no one to tell me that the outlook for Confederate success was black.   I could see plainly then that the end was fast approaching.

“On reaching Charleston I made my way at once to Commodore Ingraham.   ‘Frank,’ he said, ‘everything looks black.   We are badly off for help.   You must try the blockade again.’   I had made up my mind to do this long before I saw the Commodore, though, of course, had he directed me otherwise, I should have had to obey.

“The Ella and Anna was now a Federal war ship, doing duty in the Chesapeake.   I had little hopes of ever getting her equal.   In port at the time was a blockade runner named the Hattie.   She was a Clyde-built steamer, side-wheeler, fitted with patent floats.   She had two funnels, and two fore-and-aft spars set at very rakish angles.   She was in command of Capt. H.S. Lebby.   Capt. Lebby was soon to give up his ship, and the Bee Company, owning the vessel, offered the command to me.

“As good luck would have it, Hancock, my old pilot, was on the Hattie.   I made ready to take over the new command, but as Lebby had already cleared the Hattie, it was agreed that he should take her to Nassau, where I would then take charge.

“Lebby left everything in the way of taking the Hattie out of port to me.   The blockade off Charleston bar was never so rigid as it was then.   The Federal fleet seldom numbered less than thirty ships of war.   The Hattie was lying in the stream all ready to sail at high water after dark.   That afternoon Hancock and I made our way down to Fort Sumter to take a look at the fleet.   We agreed that each of us should decide upon a plan of action, and not disclose it to the other until after we had left the fort.   On our way back I said: ‘Well, Hancock, what do you propose?’

“’Run under the stern of the Canandaigua and then southeast to sea as hard as she will go,’ was the reply.

“’Good!’ I exclaimed; ‘ my idea exactly.’

“That night out we ran, running so close to the Canandaigua that I could hear her yards creak and then out to sea, and not a ship detected us.   We ran for Abaco, of the Bahamas, skirted down inside the reefs and were soon in Nassau.   On  our way down the Santiago de Cuba appeared on the horizon, but we shook Wyman clear once we made the reefs.   The Santiago de Cuba picked up a runner close behind me, a vessel which left Charleston the same night with us, after the Hattie had given him a clean pair of heels.

“We loaded up at once and started back for Charleston.   It was a starlight night when the Hattie crept down on the Federal fleet.   She had just been painted a fresh blue-white, and as she swept over the water must have seemed like a haze or mist moving slowly along.   Not a light was showing and the fires gave out no smoke.   There were eight or ten vessels outside the bar and many within.   Every one of the outside vessels was successfully passed  without detection, some of the ships being within 300 feet.

“The little steamer was quietly approaching the inner line when a sudden flash ahead announced her discovery.   In an instant the air was filled with skyrockets.   As soon as she was discovered, full speed was given to the Hattie, and she was headed straight up the channel.   As she ran, the gun of every vessel that could be brought within range was opened on her, but still she flew, the water fairly whizzing past her.

“For ten minutes the fire raged around her, but she escaped untouched.   Then came the real peril.   Old Sumter was so battered down that the monitors were able to lie almost within pistol shot of the walls.   Just below Sumter were several barges filled with seamen, but the Hattie’s speed was too great to permit of her being boarded.   As the vessel dashed past, the barges opened with small arms and howitzers, and a shot from the latter passed through the pilot house, took a spoke off the wheel, and carried away two fingers from the hand of Quatermaster Stuart.

“The helmsman fell back, unconscious from shock.   In an instant Hancock picked the body of the prostrate man up, pushed it through the window clear of his feet, and himself seized the wheel.

“Right ahead lay the monitor Patapsco.   There was a blinding flash, a deafening roar, and a huge fifteen-inch shell from the monitor flew over the vessel’s deck.

“A few minutes later the Hattie was inside and safe.   Going up the harbor, Hancock and I were the only ones on deck.   When we got inside I turned to Hancock and said: ‘Hancock, did that monitor fire at us?’ ‘Did he fire?’ said Hancock.   ‘Well, I saw something coming toward us.   You may call it a shot.   I call it a hogshead.’”

The Hattie loaded up with cotton, and in the face of twenty-six blockading ships again slipped out of port.   Her last run was in February, 1865.   When Lee surrendered, the little vessel was lying in Nassau.   Capt. Bonneau was unable to give the Times’s correspondent anything like an estimate of the value of the cargoes the Hattie carried; the figures were enormous.   On several occasions she brought munitions, of which the Confederacy was in pressing need, and at least three battles were fought with munitions for which the Confederates had waited and which she had safely landed in their hands.   Plot after plot was formed at Nassau to get hold of the Hattie, but none of them was successful.   She slipped in and out like a phantom, taking the most desperate risks and surrounded always by an apparent spirit of good luck.

The Ella and Anna, Bonneau’s first vessel, is still on the high seas.   She was bought back by the Morgan Line at the close of the war, and is now running between New Orleans and Mexican ports.

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Transcribed by Terry Foenander, October, 2007.