CSS Alabama
CSS Alabama was a screw sloop-of-war built in 1862 for the Confederate States Navy. She was built in Birkenhead on the River Mersey opposite Liverpool, England, by John Laird Sons and Company. Launched as Enrica, she was fitted out as a cruiser and commissioned as CSS Alabama on August 24, 1862. Under Captain Raphael Semmes, Alabama served as a successful commerce raider, attacking, capturing, and burning Union merchant and naval ships in the North Atlantic, as well as intercepting American grain ships bound for Europe. The Alabama continued through the West Indies and further into the East Indies, destroying over seven ships before returning to Europe. On June 11, 1864, the Alabama arrived at Cherbourg, France, where she was overhauled. Shortly after, a Union sloop-of-war,, arrived; and on June 19, the Battle of Cherbourg commenced outside the port of Cherbourg, France, whereby the Kearsarge sank the Alabama in approximately one hour after the Alabama's opening shot.
History
Construction
Alabama was built in secrecy in 1862 by British shipbuilders John Laird Sons and Company, in north-west England at their shipyards at Birkenhead, Wirral, opposite of the city of Liverpool. The construction was arranged by the Confederate agent Commander James Bulloch, who led the procurement of sorely needed ships for the fledgling Confederate States Navy. The contract was arranged through the Fraser Trenholm Company, a cotton broker in Liverpool with ties to the Confederacy. Under prevailing British neutrality law, it was possible to build a ship designed as an armed vessel, provided that it was not actually armed until after it was in international waters. In light of this loophole, Alabama was built with reinforced decks for cannon emplacements, ammunition magazines below water level, etc., but was not fitted with armaments or any "warlike equipment" originally.Initially known only by her shipyard number "ship number 0290", she was launched as Enrica on 15 May 1862 and secretly slipped out of Birkenhead on 29 July 1862. U.S. Navy Commander Tunis A. M. Craven, commander of, was in Southampton and was tasked with intercepting the new ship, but was unsuccessful. Agent Bulloch arranged for a civilian crew and captain to sail Enrica to Terceira Island in the Azores. With Bulloch accompanying him, the new ship's captain, Raphael Semmes, left Liverpool on 13 August 1862 aboard the steamer Bahama to take command of the new cruiser. Semmes arrived at Terceira Island on 20 August 1862 and began overseeing the refitting of the new vessel with various provisions, including armaments, and 350 tons of coal, brought there by Agrippina, his new ship's supply vessel. After three days of work by the three ships' crews, Enrica was equipped as a naval cruiser, designated a commerce raider, for the Confederate States of America. Following her commissioning as CSS Alabama, Bulloch then returned to Liverpool to continue his secret work for the Confederate Navy.
Alabamas British-made ordnance consisted of six muzzle-loading, broadside, 32-pounder naval smoothbores and two larger and more powerful pivot cannons. The pivot cannons were placed fore and aft of the main mast and positioned roughly amidships along the deck's center line. From those positions, they could be rotated to fire across the port or starboard sides of the cruiser. The fore pivot cannon was a heavy, long-range 100-pounder, 7-inch-bore Blakely rifled muzzleloader; the aft pivot cannon a large, 8-inch smoothbore.
The new Confederate cruiser was powered by both sail and by a two-cylinder John Laird Sons and Company horizontal steam engine, driving a single, Griffiths-type, twin-bladed brass screw.
The telescopic funnel could be raised or lowered by chains to disguise the fact that the vessel was a steamer.
With the screw retracted using the stern's brass lifting gear mechanism, Alabama could make up to ten knots under sail alone and when her sail and steam power were used together.
Commissioning and voyage
The ship was purposely commissioned about a mile off Terceira Island in international waters on 24 August 1862. All the men from Agrippina and Bahama had been transferred to the quarterdeck of Enrica, where her 24 officers, some of them Southerners, stood in full dress uniform. Captain Raphael Semmes mounted a gun-carriage and read his commission from President Jefferson Davis, authorizing him to take command of the new cruiser. Upon completion of the reading, musicians assembled from among the three ships' crews began to play the tune "Dixie" as the quartermaster finished hauling down Enricas British colors. A signal cannon was fired and the ship's new battle ensign and commissioning pennant were broken out at the peaks of the mizzen gaff and mainmast. With that the cruiser became the Confederate States Steamer Alabama. The ship's motto: Aide-toi et Dieu t'aidera was engraved in the bronze of the great double ship's wheel.Captain Semmes then made a speech about the Southern cause to the assembled seamen, asking them to sign on for a voyage of unknown length and destiny. Semmes had only his 24 officers and no crew to man his new command. When this did not succeed, he offered signing money and double wages, paid in gold, and additional prize money to be paid by the Confederate congress for all destroyed Union ships. The men began to shout "Hear! Hear!" in response. 83 seamen, many of them British, signed on for service in the Confederate Navy. Bulloch and the remaining seamen then boarded their respective ships for the return to England. Semmes still needed another 20 or so men for a full complement, but there were enough to at least handle the new commerce raider. The rest would be recruited from the captured crews of raided ships or from friendly ports-of-call. Many of the 83 crewmen who signed on completed the full voyage.
Under Captain Semmes, Alabama spent her first two months in the Eastern Atlantic, ranging southwest of the Azores and then redoubed east, targeting northern merchant ships. After an Atlantic crossing, she continued her cruise in the greater New England region. She then sailed south, arriving in the West Indies, where she continued disrupting merchant vessels before finally cruising west into the Gulf of Mexico. There, in January 1863, Alabama had her first military engagement. She came upon and quickly sank the Union side-wheeler just off the Texas coast, near Galveston, capturing that warship's crew. She then continued further south, eventually crossing the Equator, where she attained most of the successes of her raiding career while cruising off the coast of Brazil.
After a second, easterly Atlantic crossing, Alabama sailed down the southwestern African coast where she continued the campaign against northern commerce. After stopping in Saldanha Bay on 29 July 1863 in order to verify that no enemy ships were in Table Bay, she made a refitting and reprovisioning visit to Cape Town, South Africa. Alabama is the subject of an Afrikaans folk song, "Daar kom die Alibama". She then sailed for the East Indies where she spent six months, destroying seven more ships before finally returning via the Cape of Good Hope en route to France. Alabama was often hunted for by Union warships; however, she was able to successfully evade engagement.
All together, she burned 65 Union vessels of various types, most of them merchant ships.
Expeditionary raids
Alabama conducted a total of seven expeditionary raids, spanning the globe, before heading to France for refit and repairs:- CSS Alabamas Eastern Atlantic Expeditionary Raid commenced immediately after commissioning. She set sail for the shipping lanes southwest and then east of the Azores, where she captured and burned ten ships, mostly whalers.
- CSS Alabamas New England Expeditionary Raid began after Captain Semmes and his crew departed for the northeastern seaboard of North America, along Newfoundland and New England, where she ranged as far south as Bermuda and the coast of Virginia, burning ten vessels while capturing and releasing three others.
- CSS Alabamas Gulf of Mexico Expeditionary Raid began as Alabama effected a needed rendezvous with her supply vessel, CSS Agrippina. Afterward, she provided support to Confederate land forces during the Battle of Galveston in coastal Texas, by sinking the Union side-wheeler.
- CSS Alabamas South Atlantic Expeditionary Raid was her most successful raiding venture, taking 29 ships while raiding off the coast of Brazil. Here she recommissioned the bark Conrad as.
- CSS Alabamas South African Expeditionary Raid occurred primarily while ranging off the coast of South Africa, as she worked together with CSS Tuscaloosa.
- CSS Alabamas Indian Ocean Expeditionary Raid involved a journey of nearly 4,500 miles across the Indian Ocean. Successfully evading the Union gunboat Wyoming, she took three ships near the Sunda Strait and the Java Sea.
- CSS Alabamas South Pacific Expeditionary Raid was her final raiding venture. She took a few prizes in the Strait of Malacca before finally turning back toward France for refit and repair.
Final cruise
On 11 June 1864, Alabama arrived in port at Cherbourg, France. Captain Semmes soon requested permission to dry dock and overhaul his ship, necessary after naval action and so long at sea. Pursuing the raider, the American sloop-of-war,, under the command of Captain John Ancrum Winslow, arrived three days later and took up station just outside the harbor. While at his previous port-of-call, Winslow had telegraphed Gibraltar to send the old sloop-of-war with provisions and to provide blockading assistance. Kearsarge had now boxed in Alabama.Up to this point, Semmes had faced another warship only once—the much less well armed blockade ship Hatteras. He believed that the Kearsarge was not superior to Alabama, and did not wish for his ship to be interned by the French. Therefore, after preparing his ship and drilling the crew for the coming battle during the next several days, Semmes issued, through diplomatic channels, a challenge to the Kearsarges commander, "my intention is to fight the Kearsarge as soon as I can make the necessary arrangements. I hope these will not detain me more than until to-morrow or the morrow morning at farthest. I beg she will not depart until I am ready to go out. I have the honor to be Your obedient servant, R. Semmes, Captain."
On 19 June, Alabama sailed out to meet the Union cruiser. Jurist Tom Bingham later wrote, "The ensuing battle was witnessed by Édouard Manet, who went out to paint it, and the owner of an English yacht who had offered his children a choice between watching the battle and going to church."
As Kearsarge turned to meet her opponent, Alabama opened fire. Kearsarge waited until the range had closed to less than 1,000 yards. According to combatants, the two ships steamed on opposite courses in seven spiraling circles, moving southwesterly with the 3-knot current, each commander trying to cross the bow of his opponent to deliver a heavy raking fire. The battle quickly turned against Alabama due to the superior gunnery displayed by Kearsarge and the deteriorated state of Alabamas contaminated powder and fuses. Her most telling shot, fired from the forward 7-inch Blakely pivot rifle, hit very near Kearsarges vulnerable stern post, the impact binding the ship's rudder badly. That rifled shell, however, failed to explode. If it had done so, it would have seriously disabled Kearsarges steering, possibly sinking the warship, and ending the contest. In addition, Alabamas too rapid rate-of-fire resulted in poor gunnery, with many of her shots going too high, and as a result Kearsarge
Kearsarge's hull armor had been installed in just three days, more than a year before, while she was in port at the Azores. It was made using of single link iron chain and covered hull spaces long by deep. It was stopped up and down to eye-bolts with marlines and secured by iron dogs. Her chain armor was concealed behind 1-inch deal-boards painted black to match the upper hull's color. This "chaincladding" was placed along Kearsarges port and starboard midsection down to the waterline, for additional protection of her engine and boilers when the upper portion of her coal bunkers were empty.
A hit to her engine or boilers could easily have left Kearsarge dead in the water, or even caused a boiler explosion or fire that could destroy the cruiser. Her armor belt was struck twice during the fight. The first hit, by one of Alabamas 32-pounder shells, was in the starboard gangway, cutting the chain armor and damaging the hull planking underneath. A second 32-pounder shell exploded and broke a link of the chain armor, tearing away a portion of the deal-board covering. Had those rounds come from Alabamas more powerful 100-pounder Blakely pivot rifle, they would have easily penetrated, but the likely result would not have been very serious, as both shots struck the hull a little more than five feet above the waterline. Even if both shots had penetrated Kearsarges side, they would have missed her vital machinery. However, a 100-pound shell could have done a great deal of damage to her interior; hot fragments could have easily set fire to the cruiser, one of the greatest risks aboard a wooden vessel.
A little more than an hour after the first shot was fired, Alabama was reduced to a sinking wreck by Kearsarges powerful Dahlgrens, forcing Captain Semmes to strike his colors and to send one of his two surviving boats to Kearsarge to ask for assistance.
File:La Gloire.jpg|thumb|left| The ironclad frigate French battleship La Gloire was in the English Channel, near Cherbourg, during the battle between Alabama and Kearsarge
According to witnesses, Alabama fired about 370 rounds at her adversary, averaging one round per minute per gun, a fast rate of fire compared to Kearsarges gun crews, who fired less than half that number, taking more careful aim. In the confusion of battle, five more rounds were fired at Alabama after her colors were struck. A hand-held white flag at Alabamas stern spanker boom finally halted the engagement.
Prior to this, she had her steering gear damaged by shell hits, but the fatal shot came later when one of Kearsarges shells tore open a mid-section of Alabamas starboard waterline. Water quickly rushed through the hull, eventually flooding the boilers and taking her down by the stern to the bottom. As Alabama sank, the injured Semmes threw his sword into the sea, depriving Kearsarges commander, Winslow, of the traditional surrender of the sword.
Of her 170 crew, the Alabama had 19 fatalities and 21 wounded Kearsarge rescued most of the survivors, but 41 of Alabamas officers and crew, including Semmes, were rescued by John Lancaster's private British steam yacht Deerhound, while Kearsarge stood off to recover her rescue boats as Alabama sank. Captain Winslow had to stand by and watch Deerhound spirit his adversary away to England. Semmes and the 41 crew members successfully reached England. Semmes eventually returned to the Confederacy and became a Confederate admiral in the last weeks of the war.
The sinking of Alabama by Kearsarge is honored by the United States Navy with a battle star on the Civil War campaign streamer.