The task of the ship was to capture or sink ships of the northern states ("Union") in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean . Later the sea cruises were extended to the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean . In total, the Alabama captured or sunk 55 Union ships. On her two-year pirate voyage, she never saw a home port once.
Captain Raphael Semmes (front) and First Officer John Kell on the deck of the Alabama
On June 19, 1864, she was sunk by the sloop USS Kearsarge off the coast of France near Cherbourg . Its commander, Raphael Semmes , was picked up on a British ship and returned from England to continue the war. The wreck was discovered by the French Navy in the 1980s at a depth of 59 m .
The Alabama gave its name to the dispute between Great Britain and the United States of America, whether Great Britain had to pay for the damage caused by the southern privateers built and equipped in Great Britain (so-called Alabama question ).
literature
Arthur Sinclair, Lieutenant, CSN: Two Years on the Alabama. Lee and Shepard, Boston MA 1895, ( Digitized original edition ; Annotated new edition: With an Introduction and Notes by William N. Still, Jr. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 1989, ISBN 0-87021-698-8 ).
Angus Konstam : Confederate blockade runner 1861–65 (= New Vanguard. 92). Osprey Publishing, Oxford 2004, ISBN 1-84176-636-4 .
Klaus Gröbig: Auxiliary cruiser CSS “Alabama”. On a pirate voyage - in the service of the Confederates (= ships people fates. No. 148). Rudolf Stade, Kiel 2006.
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