Combat· American Civil War
Kearsarge sinks CSS Alabama
The destruction of the Confederacy's most famous commerce raider, in a duel watched from the French shore.
For two years the CSS Alabama, under Raphael Semmes, had ranged the world's oceans burning Union merchantmen, and by June 1864 she had put into Cherbourg to refit. The American sloop USS Kearsarge, under Captain John Winslow, took station outside the harbor, and on 19 June the Alabama came out to fight. The two ships steamed in tightening circles, hammering each other with broadsides, the Kearsarge's Marines sweating at her rifled guns as her fire told. The Alabama, her powder grown poor in long cruising, got the worse of it, and after about an hour she struck and went down. No Marine casualties are recorded aboard the Kearsarge. The sinking of the Alabama removed the most destructive of the Confederate raiders and was a celebrated Union victory at sea.
Podcast episodes on American Civil War
Record no. 456