The Escape of the Nashville

Sufficient explanation has been made by the Navy Department to convince all fair-minded men that the escape of the Nashville was due alone to the fact that the Department had no vessels within its reach to prevent it. The various naval expeditions, and the coast blockade, have occupied every vessel as fast as it could be fitted out. As soon as it was known that the Nashville had arrived, which was on the 4th of March, the Secretary of the Navy telegraphed to various stations, but was unable to reach any vessels suitable for the propose, except those undergoing repairs. He was answered from Boston that two gunboats would be ready in two or three days; but owning to a defect discovered in the engine of one, and delay of the other from some similar cause, they did not leave till the 14th, and when they arrived at Fortress Monroe the Nashville had escaped.

The gunboat Georgia, which had been of Beaufort, was obliged to come into port for coal at the same time the Nashville escaped. – The abuse which has been heaped upon Secretary Welles for this matter was totally ignorant and senseless, and it is notable that this unscrupulous attempt to make the head of the Naval Department odious, seems to come almost entirely from the papers which insist that the waste of our resources on land shall not be criticized, because it may impair public confidence in that direction; and thereby injure the public service. – Cin. Gaz.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, April 14, 1862, p. 2