THE ALABAMA’S END

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1930, Page 7

THE ALABAMA’S END

A COMMERCE RAIDER, 0 ' Sixty-six years ago the most picturesque of commerce raiders, the Alabama privateer in the service of the Southern Confederacy, was sunk in a duel with a ship of war of the Northern States. Put who cares about the Albania in an age when American place names are used mostly to distinguish different dance tunes? In'June, 1864, everyone was talking of the Alabama and her dashing .commander, Captain Raphael Semmes. There is a street in "'"’•heim called Alabama Road to this day as a reminder of the big news of the early ’sixties. Secretly built in England for commerce raiding, the Alabama left the Mersey in July, 1862, and for two years her history was a monotonous succession of caotures of merchantmen

‘incapable of resistance flying the Stars and Stripes. She captured in all sixtyfiftvo vessels valued at £1,000,000. Added to this, she subjected shipowners in the Northern States to heavy insurance risks and mad,e it difficult for them to get cargoes. After visiting India and Singnore she turned up in l g At nt the French Channel port of Cherbourg. Within a few days the Northern warship Kearsarge arrived and made a demonstration, which the Alabama’s Southern officers accepted as a challenge. Captain Semmes had been loudly acclaimed as a pirate by te Northerners • nnd he was easily persuaded to attempt a spectntcular gamble for the Southern Confederacy by stnging a naval flirbt within sight of the French const. Such a contest would prove the Alabama a legitimate war vessel, and if it ended in a victory for her would evoke the sympathy and enthusiasm of the French and British people.

This sea duel was arranged for Sunday morning, June 19, 1864. “I re-

ceived a note from Captain Semmes,” recorded the captain of the Kearsarge, “begging that the Ivearsage would not depart as he intended to fight belaud would delay her but a day or two until repairs were affected to his ship’s machinery. According to this notice the Alabama'left Cherbourg at nine o’clock this morning ahd fjteered for us. Fearing that the question of jurisdiction might arise, we steamed to sea until a, distance of seven , miles was attained from Cherbourg.”. Then the fight began. Steaming round and round at a distance of only nine hundred yards, the cruisers fired broadside after broadside. Luck was against the Alabama, and after an Lour Captain Semmes ordered his flag to be hauled down. Twenty minutes later the, Alabama went; down, taking many of her crew with her. Captain Semmes tells all about it in a book of memoirs, of which’ there is a copy kept under lock and key in the Auckland Public Library. “As we were approaching the enemy’s ship,” he wrote, “I caused the, crew to be sent aft within convenient reach

if my voice, and, mounting on a gun carriage, delivered the following brief address: ‘Officers and seamen of the Alabama. Remember that you are in the English Channel, the theatre of so much of the naval glory of our race, and that the eyes of all Europe are. at this moment upon you.’ And the eyes of Europe were upon them in more senses than one, for crowds of neutral sightseers lined the cliffs and crowded on to excursion ships to view the last naval duel of the Channel.

Picked up by an English steam yacht after the Alabama made her final plunge, Captain Semmes landed at Southampton on June 21 and found himself the hero of the hour. “The career of the Alabama seemed to have fy-ed the imagination of all the schools and colleges in England, if I might iudge by the number of ardent missives I received from young gentlemen who attended them,” be wrote. “Letters of condolence for my loss, and congratulation upon my escape from the power of the ruthless enemy, came in on me ?h great profusion; and ns . for volunteers, half the adventurous young spirits of England claimed ' the privilege of serving under me in I my new- ship.” A.J.S. in Auckland Star.