"An Old Sailor's Lament":.

Abstract

In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the blockade of southern ports. A fleet of aged whale ships loaded with stone was sent to Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, and sunk at the mouths of the harbors in an unsuccessful attempt to block them. Melville’s poem, “The Stone Fleet,” written in the voice of an old sailor, mourns the loss of the vessels. Its embittered final words damn those who ordered the death of the ships and pronounce the entire enterprise an utter failure. Melville’s note to the poem states: “All accounts seem to agree that the object proposed was not accomplished. The channel is even said to have become ultimately benefited by the means employed to obstruct it.” The following examines the accuracy of Melville’s assessment and investigates the conception and execution of the plan. It considers the strategic results and monetary and diplomatic costs. Concurrently it reveals Melville’s ties to several of the ships and his interest in their fate. 1 The sinking of the Stone Fleet is a brief episode in a long conflict, so why did it resonate so profoundly for Melville? Perhaps Melville saw himself in the old ships sunk and lost, “And all for naught” (31).