Captures of the Alabama

Monday, January 26th.---At 10:30 a.m. descried a sail, which we came up with at 1:20 p.m. She proved to be the Golden Rule, from New York for Aspinwall. Captured and burned her, there being no certificate on board of the neutrality of the cargo. This vessel had on board masts, spars, and a complete set of rigging, for the United States brig Bainbridge, lately obliged to cut away her masts in a gale at Aspinwall. Nine prisoners. At about 6 p.m., the prize being well on fire, steamed on our course.

[The Golden Rule furnished a supply of papers containing an abundance of welcome news. From them the Alabama learned of the safe escape of her sister cruiser, the Florida, from Mobile, as well as of the foundering of the United States gunboat Monitor, in a gale, during her passage down the coast. The good news was also received of the entire failure of an attack on Vicksburg.]--Source: Capt. Raphael Semmes, The Log of the Alabama.

Chastelaine Jan. 27, 1863

"At three p.m. we made the remarkable island, or rather mountain of rock, called in the beautiful Spanish, Alta Vela, or Tall Sail, from its resemblance to a ship under sail at a distance. It rises at a distance of ten or twelve miles from the main island of St. Domingo with almost perpendicular sides, to the height of several hundred feet, and affords a foothold for no living creature but the sea gull, the gannet, and other water fowl. Soon after nightfall, we boarded a Spanish brig from Montevideo, bound for Havana; and at eleven p.m., Alta Vela bearing north and being distant from us about five miles, we hove to with a shot, another sail that was running down the coast. She was a rakish-looking hermaphrodite brig, and in the bright moonlight looked Yankee. The report of our heavy gun, reverberated by a hundred echoes from Alta Vela, had a magical effect upon the little craft. Flying like a sea gull before a gale only a moment before, she became in an instant like the same sea gull with its wings folded and riding upon the wave without other motion than such as the wave gave it. Ranging within a convenient distance, we lowered and sent a boat on board of her. She proved to be American, as we had suspected. She was the Chastelaine of Boston, last from the island of Guadeloupe, whither she had been to deliver a cargo of staves, and was now on her way to Cienfuegos in the island of Cuba, in quest of sugar and rum for the Boston folks. We applied the torch to her, lighting up the sea-girt walls of Alta Vela with the unusual spectacle of a burning ship, and disturbing the slumber of the sea gulls and gannets for the balance of the night."--Capt. Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat during the War between the States.