In England during the year of 1862 in the
day and month of 29th July, a ship was launched with no pomp or ceremony from
the shipyards of Birkenhead, Merseyside. The ship was called Enrica and she had
been built by shipbuilders called John Laird Sons And Company. The vessel
slipped discreetly out of Liverpool into the Irish Sea.
A Confederate
Agent called James Dunwoody Bulloch had procured the ship for the new
Confederate Navy – a collection of states that had decided on secession from
the United States of America. The contract had been arranged through Fraser,
Trenholm Company – a cotton broker in Liverpool with interests in the
Confederate States.
Bulloch went with the ship and had
carefully arranged for a civilian crew to take Enrica to Terceira Island in the
Azores.
A few days later on August 5th, another
ship left Liverpool bound for the same destination in the Azores. This vessel
was a steamer called Bahama and one of its passengers was to become a figure
that would burn his name in history. He was a thin-faced man with a small beard
and moustache who came from Maryland, in today’s USA. However, in 1862 the
state of Maryland had joined the Confederate cause and this particular man had
left the US Navy and joined the Confederate Navy. His name was Captain Raphael
Semmes.
When he reached Terceira Island in the
Azores he was greeted by Agent Bulloch and both began to oversee Enrica’s
refitting. Another ship called Agrippina docked bringing special supplies for
the newly constructed ship. This included ship’s cannon, coal, food and other
necessities for a long voyage. When all of the loadings had been completed,
there was a small ceremony which took place about a mile off of the island in
international waters. The men of all three ships Enrica, Bahama and Agripinna
stood on Enrica’s quarter-deck with 24 officers of the Rebel Southern States –
all of them in full dress uniforms.
Captain Raphael Semmes read out his
commission from President Jefferson Davis, which gave him the authority to take
over the newly built ship. When he had finished his speech, musicians began to
play “Dixie”. The British colours were lowered and the Confederate battle
ensign was raised. As the new flag fluttered in the sea wind Captain Semmes
proclaimed the vessel by a new name. Alabama – CSS Alabama.
The renamed C.S.S. Alabama and was
converted into a Navy cruiser. The newly armed vessel would become a commerce
raider and the world’s sea would have an abundance of Union shipping to attack
in the name of the Confederacy.
There was one small dilemma that needed to
be overcome. Captain Semmes had 24 officers but no crew. Confederate sailors
were hard to come by in the Azores as none could be got out of the blockade. He
looked to the mainly British crew that had brought the ship to the Azores as
the civilian Enrica. He made a bold speech about the Southern cause and invited
the Brits to sign up for an unspecified time. Unfortunately, the mainly British
listeners were not too enthusiastic about a foreign civil war, so then he
changed his tact, realising that Southern morality would not win Brit minds as opposed
to the bulging wage packet. He, therefore, offered double wages, to be
paid in gold, and additional prize money to be paid by Confederate congress for
every destroyed Union ship. This induced a bold response as 83 excited Brits
felt a sudden flurry of Rebel patriotism – in short, Captain Semmes had acquired
a crew of mercenaries that would prove to be well and truly up to the task at
hand. He was still 20 men short but knew he could find more sailors in other
ports. Many of the British mercenaries completed the full voyage – an
extraordinary two-year high sea adventure with Captain Semmes who they came to
admire greatly.
Captain Semmes began his rampage instantly
in the Eastern Atlantic capturing and destroying all northern merchant ships
that the Alabama came upon. These vessels were mostly whalers and the
Confederate raider accounted for ten of them. Captain Semmes then ranged north
and back to Bermuda, attacking 13 more Union ships and destroying ten of these
vessels.
He then took his ship to new hunting
grounds in the West Indies and attacked more enemy commerce, making Union
shipping dread the sight or name of C.S.S. Alabama. Then in January of 1863,
when sailing in the Gulf of Mexico, Alabama came up against her first military
vessel – a Union side-wheeler called USS Hatteras. The Confederate ship quickly
attacked and sank the ship, capturing the crew.
Next, she went
south off of the coast of Brazil and took 29 prizes, wreaking havoc before
venturing back across the Atlantic to South West Africa where she worked with
another Confederate vessel called C.S.S. Tuscaloosa. Next, she went into the Indian Ocean for six months and attacked and destroyed seven more Union
vessels.
Altogether the C.S.S. Alabama was
accountable for the destruction of 65 Union ships – mostly merchant vessels.
Prisoners were never harmed and were handed to the nearest neutral ports or
passing vessels. While roaming the seas and boarding vessels the C.S.S. Alabama
never visited a Confederate port – she would have been incapable of breaking
the blockade. She took over 2,000 prisoners without a single loss of life of
her captured or crew.
In June of 1864, the C.S.S. Alabama docked
at the port of Cherbourg in France to have repairs done. She had been at sea
for a long time and was in need of an overhaul. A pursuing Union sloop-of-war
U.S.S. Kearsarge arrived outside of Cherbourg three days later and waited for the Alabama to leave port and come out into international waters. Before he had
arrived, the Union Captain John Ancrum Winslow had telegraphed for assistance
from man-o-war U.S.S. St Louis with supplies for a long blockade of the Confederate
ship if Semmes chose to stay in the French port.
Captain Semmes was a fighting man by
nature and would not entertain the notion of being blockaded in the port of
Cherbourg. He chose to sail out and engage the U.S.S. Kearsarge
On the 19th of June, the Alabama sailed
out to confront the U.S.S. Kearsarge. Cannon fire was exchanged and soon the
two ships were locked in a duel with Alabama outmatched against the Union
sloop-of-war. The Confederate ships most poignant shot was fired from a
seven-inch Blakely pivot rifle, which hit close to the Union vessel’s
vulnerable sternpost. The shell failed to explode. If it had done it would have
crippled the ship’s steering.
The Union ship was armour-clad and was
more durable to shell fire. Eventually, the Alabama began to wane due to the
pounding and after an hour she was badly broken up. One shell tore into her
amidships below the waterline allowing water to gush in and drown her boilers.
The Confederate ship began to sink.
As Alabama went down many of the survivors
clambered into lifeboats and ship’s Doctor David Herbert Llewellyn managed to
get many of his wounded patients aboard boats before going down with the
ship. He was a Briton from Wiltshire and was awarded the Southern Cross of
Honour. There is a memorial tablet and window commemorated to him in a church
in Wiltshire and another tablet in Charing Cross Hospital where he once worked.
U.S.S. Kearsarge picked up most of the
survivors, but a further 41 men were rescued by a British yacht called
Deerhound. Captain Semmes was among these men and he escaped to Britain.
Captain Semmes held good on his promise to
the crew who were all paid in full when they got back to Britain. He returned
to the Southern American States and finished the Civil war fighting on land
with his naval men as infantry in the dying months of the war. The Confederate
cause was lost and he was interned for a few months after the South surrendered
to the Union. After the war, he became a judge and a newspaper editor. He died
in 1877 age 67.
In 1984, the French Navy found the sunken
wreck of the C.S.S. Alabama and since then there have been joint French and US
archaeological dives of the wreck.
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| The USS Hatteras tried to engage the Confederate raider CSS Alabama. Hatteras was sunk in the ensuing battle. It was one of many ships that the CSS Alabama attacked. The rebel ship was known as the Shark of the Confederacy and it would wreak havoc upon much of the Union's navy. |
