Kearsarge (ship, 1861)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USS Kearsarge
The 150pfündige rotary cannon of the Kearsarge .

The Kearsarge , also known in literature as the USS Kearsarge , was a warship of the American Northern States that sank the Confederate privateer and blockade breaker Alabama on June 19, 1864 as part of the Civil War, triggering a famous international legal dispute between the United States and England ( Alabama question ).

Édouard Manet: Naval battle between the Kearsarge and the Alabama

The spectacular sea duel between the two ships outside the Cherbourg harbor basin was watched by a large number of onlookers. The Kearsarge was equipped with a modern 150-pound rotary cannon, the fire of which the non-armored Alabama had little to counter. In the same year, Édouard Manet created a painting of this naval battle.

The Kearsarge ran aground on February 2, 1894 on the Roncador Bank , a coral reef in the southwestern Caribbean , and was removed from the Naval Vessel Register that same year .

The battleship USS Kearsarge (BB-5) , built from 1896, was given this name in honor of the Kearsarge . The name was later passed on as a traditional name to the aircraft carrier USS Kearsarge (CV-33) and the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) .

literature

  • H. Bauer: The giants of destruction . In: Zeitschrift Illustrirte Welt , vol. 13 (1865), p. 176.
  • In the novel In the Sign of the Vikings (original title Valhalla Rising , 2001), Clive Cussler attributes the end of the USS Kearsarge to an encounter with the role model for Captain Nemo .

Web links

Commons : Kearsarge (Schiff, 1861)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Page about the accident of the USS Kearsage on GenDisasters (English)
  2. ↑ DANFS : Kearsarge