C.S.S. Alabama (1862)
The Alabama, built in Britain for the Confederacy and crewed by British mercenaries, proved to be the most successful commerce raider of all time. Alabama had 60 kills notched up before she was at last intercepted by a federal cruiser and sunk in the English Channel. The revenge angle was played up by Northern papers in the States; but the damage done to Union commerce was extensive. Three score of whalers, grain clippers, colliers burnt with all their cargos ... Insurance rates soared so high that trading was discouraged during the conflict. Much of the Yankee clipper fleet was sold or reflagged during and after the war. Clearly a significant player in economic warfare, the Alabama is celebrated in an 1863 portrait by Liverpool School painter Samuel Walters (above), shown here by courtesy of the Vallejo Gallery.
Built by John Laird's yard at Merseyside (Liverpool), the ship was touted by Laird's as "The Ultimate Cruiser." Known as the Turkish Enrica while building, the vessel showed her true colours when commissioned CSS Alabama on August 24, 1862. A 220-foot wooden arrow capable of 13+ knots, the ship was designed to be fast under sail or steam, with extra tall lower masts to accommodate large fore-and-aft sails, and heavy-duty wire rigging. As with many steamers of the time, she had a collapsible screw which could be hoisted to reduce drag when maneuvering under sail alone. Alabama carried a heavy 7-inch 110-pdr Blakeley rifle and an 8" 68-pdr pivot gun, plus a battery of six 6" 32-pounders on the broadside. The ship's mercenary crew was supplemented from time to time by willing men met in their adventures. In the 1862 photo above, Capt. Raphael Semmes swaggers with confidence as he caresses his big Blakely. His gargantuan executive officer, John McIntosh Kell of Georgia, leans his rangy frame on a railing by the wheel.
Semmes' confidence was not misplaced. The logistics of raiding had been carefully worked out by Confederate agent John Dunwoody Bulloch, who provided a tender, the 350-ton barque Agrippina, which brought the ship's Confederate officers, guns and ammunition to their initial rendezvous at the Azores, completing her transformation into a ship of war. Later Agrippina met up with the Alabama regularly to replenish her supplies of coal and stores. Soon Semmes and his crew became masters at disguising their ship, erecting fake funnels or retracting their real one, changing the sail rig, and making deft use of flags. At left, view of the ship's bridge, 8" shell gun on pivot mounting, and a pair of her 32-pounders. In Alabama's two-year career, she scuttled some 60 Union vessels and removed nearly $6M (1862 values) in shipping. Amazingly, all this destruction was accomplished with scant loss of life. Crews were paroled to make shore if nearby, while their ships were burned; passengers and crews of deep-water prizes were taken aboard the Alabama and sent to port aboard suitable prizes released for the purpose. In one ironic incident, Semmes captured a Northern ship and liberated a black slave who chose to join the crew of the Alabama. The new recruit was paid the same rate as the other crew -- proving the raider operated within a bubble (just for instance, even in Union-occupied areas, news of the Emancipation was deliberately withheld from Texas slaves so their owners could squeeze a few more months' free labor from them).
Confederate commerce raiders' wholesale destruction of shipping materially contributed to the decline of the Yankee merchant marine, which had been at its height during the 1850s. For fear of being caught by raiders like the Alabama, much Union-owned commerce was reflagged and did not return to the Stars and Stripes after the war. Most of these ships switched to British registry and henceforth flew the Red Duster, the British merchant ensign.
Specifications
Specifications for the Alabama:
Dimensions: 220' x 31'8" x 14' Displacement: 1,050 tons. Armament: (6) 6" 32-pdr SB; (1) 6.4" 110-pdr Blakely RML; (1) 8" 68-pdr ML SB. Sail plan: 3-mast barque rig. Propulsion: horizontal direct-acting condensing steam engine developing 300 IHP; single removable screw. Maximum speed: 13 kts. Crew: 145.
Metric Specifications:
Dimensions: 67m x 9.7m x 4.3m Displacement: 1,050 tons. Armament: (6) 156-mm 32-pdr SB; (1) 163-mm 110-pdr Blakely RML; (1) 203-mm 68-pdr ML SB. Sail plan: 3-mast barque rig. Propulsion: horizontal direct-acting condensing steam engine developing 224 kW; single removable screw. Maximum speed: 24 km/hr. Crew: 145.
The Famous Battle
In addition to her prowess as a raider, Alabama proved a doughty fighting ship, sinking the Union sidewheel gunboat Hatteras, 9 guns, in pitched battle 20 miles off Galveston, making her the only Confederate raider to best a Union warship. But the Alabama and her wax-mustached Capt. Semmes soon got their come-uppance in one of the most celebrated single-ship duels in the Civil War. After 19 months at sea, Alabama badly needed maintenance, particularly on the boilers. Semmes put in to Cherbourg, France, and made his case. This was June 1864, and pro-Confederate sympathy in France had moderated following Confederate misfortunes on the battlefield. Then three days later, the Union steam sloop Kearsarge arrived off the port. The Kearsarge was new, well-found, well-armed, well-supplied, and in better repair than the raider. Her commander, Lt. John Winslow, dwelt long and loud on observing the law regarding belligerents in a neutral port. Semmes was able to complete only patchy work on his machinery before venturing forth on June 19 to meet Winslow's challenge.
What a sight it must have been that cloudy summer day, with small craft out to watch the fight, and the cliffs around Cherbourg thronged with jostling spectators. The great contest was well watched, and well documented. Impressionist master Edouard Manet painted a version of the fight (left) -- one that showed the unnerving proximity of the Deerhound and other spectator craft to the two contenders.
On paper the two ships appeared evenly matched. Kearsarge had been built in 1861-62, the same time as her prey. A product of the Portsmouth Navy Yard, she was an all-wooden sloop of war with a stump bark rig, armed with two 11" Dahlgren SBs and six 32-pdr SB. Kearsarge also had makeshift "armor": huge chains were stretched around her hull and faced with spare lumber, protecting her vitals. The two ships steamed rapidly in circles around each other for just over an hour, each captain trying to cross his opponent's bows to deliver a deadly, raking fire, but in effect remaining broadside to broadside. Alabama's gunners fired three rounds to the Yankees' two, managing 28 hits. Alabama was ill served by her ammunition supply; many of her shells were duds, including a crucial 100-pdr hit on the Kearsarge's rudder post. Had that shell burst properly, it could have disabled -- if not destroyed -- the Kearsarge, leading to an entirely different outcome. Out of respect for fortune, the unexploded shell was left in the ship's fabric permanently and salvaged only much later, after the ship had been wrecked in a hurricane (1894).
Fortune favored the Kearsarge that day in many ways. The Union gunners methodically knocked the Alabama to kindling and holed her at the waterline and her replies were ineffectual. As his command settled by the stern, her boiler room flooded, and the blood ran in her scuppers, Capt. Semmes hauled down his flag and sent a boat to the Kearsarge to surrender. His ship foundered before aid could return; Semmes and most of his officers were plucked from the drink by the English steam yacht Deerhound and removed far from Yankee clutches -- Semmes to become Naval Commander of Richmond and district in the closing phase of the war.
After the war, in a landmark case known as the Alabama Claims, the victorious U.S. government sued Britain for $15.5 million in reparations for the damage done her commerce by Alabama and her seven sister Confederate raiders. The British Exchequer paid up promptly without disputing the claims. Yankee commerce was ruined, however; the American merchant marine never again regained the leadership rôle it had played in the clipper-ship era of the 1850s.
The wreck of the Alabama was discovered in 1984 by French Navy vessels, and many artifacts of interest since have been salvaged on dives conducted by a joint U.S.-French consortium.
The Alabama Saga in Pictures
Early in the war, Seemes commanded the very successful raider CSS Sumter in a voyage that, in many ways, prefigured the Alabama's staggering trail of commerce disruption. Here is Sumter holding a couple of prizes at gunpoint before taking off their people and burning the ships. To enlarge this richly atmospheric canvas, click here.The Alabama may have looked like this while pursuing her main task. Note that Sumter is flying a false flag (Argentine?) to trick her victims. Judging by the large number of sail all round, plenty of potential prey are at sea. Semmes' frequent practice was to burn one prize ship, raise the distress signal, and wait for other merchantmen to dash to the rescue, realizing their error only when it was too late to flee.
One of the highlights of the Alabama's glittering career as a raider was the capture of the U.S. Mail Steamship Ariel off the eastern tip of Cuba. When detained on Dec. 7, 1862, the Ariel was carrying hundreds of passengers, including about 150 U.S. Marines. The prize, bound for California via Panama and the Horn, was ransomed and released; her military passengers were paroled. Enlarge picture
Alabama notched up a notable first by becoming the only Confederate commerce raider to defeat a Union warship in open combat. Cruising off Galveston on January 11, 1863 while disguised as a British man-o'war, she fell in with the U.S.S. Hatteras and surprised her with a couple of well-timed broadsides. After a brief but ferocious engagement, the Yankee steamer sank; Yankee pride was stung painfully. Painting © by Patrick O'Brien.
The Kearsarge's forward 11-inch Dahlgren in action against the Alabama.
As Alabama's stern dips below the waves, her crew abandons ship by the bow in this contemporary lithograph by Lebreton of Paris. Enlarge After the Confederate colours were struck, Kearsarge sent her two serviceable boats to pick up survivors; but Semmes and Kell made good their escape across the Channel aboard the Deerhound. Thus they avoided being tried and hanged as pirates, the stated intent of U.S. Navy Secretary Gideon Welles.
The battle was one of the most popular subjects of popular prints in the late Victorian era. A book illustration of the sinkng uses a low viewpoint to enhance the drama of the ship's death throes and the plight of the men struggling in the sea.
A model of the Alabama at the Mersey Maritime Museum in Liverpool, where she was built. Note extremely fine lines, ultra-tall lower masts intended for speed under easy-to-handle fore-and-aft sails. Laird's proudly advertised Alabama as the Ultimate Cruiser, and the ship's performance bore them out -- at least until she met the Kearsarge.
Kell (at front, bearded) and Semmes (in stovepipe hat) enjoying the hospitality of their British hosts after the battle.
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