CSS Alabama was a screw sloop-of-war built for the Confederate States Navy at Birkenhead, England in 1862 by John Laird Sons and Company. Alabama served as a commerce raider, attacking Union merchant and naval ships over the course of her two-year career, during which she never laid anchor in a Confederate port.
Under the command of Raphael Semmes, Alabama was sunk in 1864 after a battle with the USS Kearsarge off the coast of Cherbourg in northern France. Semmes survived to fight another day.
CSS Alabama in The Guns of the South[]
The Second American Revolution ended in 1864, and word of Union capitulation reached Cherbourg before CSS Alabama left dock. As the far more advanced Union vessel Kearsarge was waiting in the harbor, most in the Confederate government agreed that peace came just in time. Later, at the request of General Robert E. Lee, President Jefferson Davis assigned Alabama to anti-slavery patrol off the west African coast.[1]
References[]
- ↑ The Guns of the South, pg. 371.
| |||||||||||||||||||
