At the helm of the CSS Sumter, converted
into a man-of-war in June 1861, and later as captain
of the CSS Alabama, Raphael Semmes excelled
at implementing the South’s naval strategy
of destroying Yankee commerce. In the first three
years of the conflict, Semmes captured or sank more
than eighty merchant vessels, representing six million
dollars of trade. The Alabama accounted for
the vast majority of these prizes, for a total of
about sixty-nine strikes. Built in Liverpool, England,
in 1862 and armed in the Azores so as to not violate
England’s neutrality, the Alabama quickly
became legendary. In January 1863, only four months
after Semmes acquired her, the Alabama was
already a serious vexation for the Lincoln administration.
Navy secretary Gideon Welles vented his chagrin
in his diary: “Thus far the British pirate
Alabama, sailing under rebel colors, has escaped
capture. As a consequence there are marvelous accounts
of her wonderful speed, and equally marvelous ones
of the want of speed of our cruisers . . . . She
will be a myth, a ‘skimmer of the seas’
till taken.”
On June 19, 1864, one of the war’s most
celebrated sea battles occurred off the coast
of Cherbourg, France. The Alabama had just
put into port for repairs when the USS Kearsarge
discovered her. Semmes, buoyed up by his string
of naval victories, challenged Captain John A.
Winslow to a duel. After the opening salvos, it
soon became apparent that the larger Kearsarge
was the fitter and superior vessel. It sank the
infamous Alabama in little more than an
hour. Semmes and most of his crew were rescued
by an English yacht, the Deerhound. Semmes’s
raiding days were over, but not his service in
the Confederacy. Made a rear admiral in January
1865 and given command of the James River Squadron
protecting Richmond, Semmes was soon forced to
burn his ships with the Union advance upon the
Confederate capital. He then organized his sailors
into a brigade of militia and hastened south to
North Carolina, where he surrendered with General
Johnston’s army that spring.
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