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Thursday, September 30, 2010

Part 8 - The Cruise of the CSS Alabama

CSS Alabama
The CSS Alabama is one of the most famous ships in history.  It was built in 1862 by the Confederate Navy to try and break the blockade.  The CSS Alabama is a screw sloop of war.  The ship, however was not built in America, but at Birckenhead, England.  The ships main purpose was to raid commerce so that federal ships would have to come off of the blockade therefore making it easier to slip through.  She never even docked at any Confederate port but sailed around the world and wreaked havoc with Federal shipping.  The captain of the ship was 52 year old Ralph Semmes, a Mexican War veteran.  He sailed all seven seas and tore into Federal shipping wherever he could find them.  The Union navy sent several warships after the Alabama.
One of those ships, the USS Hatteras, the CSS Alabama met and left a flaming wreckage.  He sank 10 ships off the Azores coast.  Captured 11 ships off the Canadian coast.  
Finally in 1864 the Union ship USS Kearsarge cornered the Alabama in the port of Cherbourg, France.  The Alabama sailed out, it was needing major repairs and its ammunition was defective.  The Kearsarge, had been newly outfitted with 11 pound Dahlgrens.  And not even known to Semmes it had been outfitted with sheet chain and was in fact an ironclad.  At first the battle swayed in the Alabama's favor.  One of the shells from the Alabama stuck in a vital position.  However the shell was a dud and the battle swayed now toward the Kearsarge.  The Kearsarge's shells wrecked havoc on the Alabama while most of the shots from the CSS Alabama just bounced off.
Ralph Semmes

Even though the Alabama sunk the Union ship could still not catch Semmes, he escaped on a English Yacht.  In the end the CSS Alabama cost the U.S. Government nearly 7 million dollars, and 66 ships.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey John,
Great Post!
I've done a lot of research on Lincoln's War (Called the "Civil War" by Yankees) but I haven't done much research on ships. This was very interesting, and I may be using the CSS Alabama in one of my books.
Thanks for posting more regularly,
FFP