A Shark of a Ship for the South
The Confederacy's Navy has typically been considered the weak point of its military, but it did produce at least a few remarkable vessels. The H. L. Hunley was one. The CSS Alabama was another. Its tale is bracingly told in Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama by historian Stephen Fox, which arrives in stores later this month. Rather than head-to-head battle with the Union ships that were blockading Southern ports, the Alabama roamed the oceans from England to Brazil to South Africa sinking merchant ships carrying supplies to the Yankees. In just its first two months at sea in 1862, the Alabama burned 20 vessels "worth $1,184,311—more than four times the cost of building and equipping the [Alabama] herself." Indeed, the ship was built near Liverpool, England, specifically for its role as predator of the wide seas. At a time when more vessels were being made of iron, the Alabama had a copper-sheathed, wooden hull which "resisted thick fouling by marine plants and organisms...a clean hull slipped more easily through the water."
The Alabama met its end on June 19, 1864, off the coast of Cherbourg, France, destroyed in a spirited—if uneven—battle with the Union's Kearsarge, which had tracked it there. The Yankee vessel suffered minor damage and one casualty. The death toll for the Confederacy was 26 sailors.
In 1984, the crew of a minesweeping ship located the wreckage of the Alabama. French and American investigators now perform annual dives to recover artifacts from the vessel—Brazilian coins, photographs, cups, and saucers—some of which are on display at the Museum of Mobile.
advertisement
