The history of slavery in Missouri began in 1720, when a man named Philippe Francois Renault brought some 500 slaves from Santo Domingo to work in lead mines in the River des Peres area, located in the present-day St. Louis and Jefferson counties.
The institution only became prominent in the area following two major events: the Louisiana Purchase (1803) and the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney (1793). This led to a mass movement of slave-owning proprietors to the area of present-day Missouri and Arkansas, then known as Upper Louisiana. However, the spread of major cotton growth was limited to the more southerly area, near the border with present-day Arkansas. Instead, slavery in the other areas of Missouri was concentrated into other major crops, such as tobacco, hemp, grain and livestock. A number of slaves was hired out as stevedores, cabin boys, or deck hands for the ferries of the Mississippi River.
The majority of slaveowners in Missouri came from the worn-out agricultural lands of North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia/West Virginia. By 1860, only 36 counties in Missouri had 1,000 or more slaves; top male slaves fetched a price of $1,300, and top female slaves fetched around $1,000. The value of all the slaves in Missouri was estimated by the State Auditor's 1860 report at around US$44,181,912.
The territorial slave code was enacted in 1804, a year after the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, under which slaves were banned from the use of firearms, participation in unlawful assemblies, or selling alcohol to other slaves. It also severely punished slaves for participating in riots, insurrections, or offering resistance to their masters. It also provided for the mutilation of slaves for sexual assault upon a white woman; a white man who saxually assaulted a slave woman was charged with trespassing upon her owner's property. The code was retained by the State Constitution of 1820.
An 1825 law, passed by the Missouri State Legislature, declared Blacks as incompetent as witnesses in cases which involved Whites, and testimonies by black witnesses were automatically considered invalid.
In 1847, an ordinance banning the education of Blacks and mulattoes was enacted. Anyone caught teaching a black or mulatto person, slave or free, was to be fined $500 and serve six months in jail.
The history of slavery in Kentucky dates from the earliest permanent European settlements in the state until the end of the Civil War. Although Kentucky was generally classified as the Upper South or a Border state,rather than the Deep South, enslaved African Americans made up a substantial percentage of the population. Early Kentucky history was built on the labor of slavery, and it was an integral part of the state. From 1790 to 1860 the slave population of Kentucky was never more than one quarter of the total population, with lower percentages after 1830 as planters sold slaves to the Deep South. Slave populations were greatest in the central "bluegrass" region of the state, which was rich in farmland. In 1850, 23 percent of Kentucky's white males held enslaved African Americans.
Early travelers to Kentucky in the 1750s and 1760s brought their slaves with them. As permanent settlers started arriving in the late 1770s, they held slaves in the station-based settlements, organized around forts. Settlers, chiefly migrants from Virginia, continued to rely on slave labor as they established more permanent farms.
Planters who grew hemp and tobacco made the greatest use of slave labor, as these were labor-intensive crops. Subsistence farming could be done without slave labor. Some owners also used enslaved African Americans in mining and manufacturing operations.
Farms in Kentucky tended to be smaller than the plantations of the Deep South, so ownership of large numbers of slaves was uncommon. Many slaves had to find spouses on a neighboring farm, and often fathers did not get to live with their wives and families.
Kentucky exported more slaves than did most states. From 1850 to 1860, 16 percent of enslaved African Americans were sold out of state. Many African Americans were sold directly to plantations in the Deep South, or transported by traders along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to slave markets in New Orleans (hence the later euphemism for any sort of betrayal, to be "sold down the river"). The sales were the result of reduced labor needs due to changes in local agriculture, as well as substantial out-migration by white families from Kentucky. In the 1840s and 1850s, white families migrated west to Missouri and Tennessee, even southwest to Texas. The larger slaveholding families took slaves with them on forced migration to Tennessee and Missouri. These factors combined to create greater instability for enslaved families in Kentucky than in some of the Deep South states.
Because of Kentucky's proximity to free states, separated by just the Ohio River, it was relatively easier for a slave from Kentucky to escape to freedom. Notable fugitive slaves from Kentucky included Henry Bibb, Lewis Clarke, Margaret Garner, Lewis Hayden, and Josiah Henson. A mass escape attempt occurred in August 1848 when 55 to 75 armed slaves fled from several counties, representing one of the largest coordinated escape attempts in American history. They were captured by the state militia several days later after a shootout.
The abolition movement had existed in the state since at least the 1790s, when Presbyterian minister David Rice unsuccessfully lobbied to include slavery prohibition in each of the state's first two constitutions, created in 1792 and 1799. Baptist ministers David Barrow and Carter Tarrant formed the Kentucky Abolition Society in 1808. By 1822 it began publishing one of America's first anti-slavery periodicals.
Conservative emancipation, which argued for gradually freeing the slaves and assisting them in a return to Africa, gained substantial support in the state from the 1820s onward. Cassius Marcellus Clay was a vocal advocate of this position. His newspaper was shut down by mob action in 1845. The anti-slavery Louisville Examiner was published successfully from 1847 to 1849.
In Kentucky, slavery was not so widely considered an economic necessity as it was in most other slave states. The small-farm nature of Kentucky meant that slave labor was not so critical to profits as it was for the labor-intensive crops of the Deep South, such as cotton, sugar, and rice farming.
Controversial laws in 1815 and 1833 limited the importation of slaves into Kentucky, which created the strictest rules of any slave states. The Nonimportation Act of 1833 banned any importation of slaves for commercial or personal purpose. The ban was widely violated, especially in counties near the Tennessee border. In 1849 the writing of the state's pro-slavery constitution meant repeal of the ban against importing.
Slavery was the principal issue of the third constitutional convention held in 1849. While the convention was convened by anti-slavery advocates who hoped to amend the constitution to prohibit slavery, they greatly underestimated pro-slavery support. The convention became packed with pro-slavery delegates, who drafted what some historians consider the most pro-slavery constitution in United States history.
After the embarrassing defeat, abolitionists lost political power during the 1850s. Nonetheless, anti-slavery newspapers were still published in Louisville and Newport. More than half the residents of Louisville owned slaves, and the city had the largest slave population in the state. In addition, for years the slave trade from the Upper South had contributed to its prosperity and growth. Through the 1850s, the city exported 2500-4000 slaves a year in sales to the Deep South. The trading city had grown rapidly and had 70,000 residents by 1860.
John Gregg Fee established a network of abolitionist schools, communities and churches in Eastern Kentucky, where slaveholders were the fewest in number. In the turmoil following John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Fee and his supporters were driven from the state by a mob in 1859.
Kentucky did not outlaw slavery during the Civil War, as Maryland and Missouri did. Nevertheless, about 75% of slaves in Kentucky were freed or escaped to Union lines during the war. Slavery finally ended with ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. However, Kentucky would not ratify it until 1976.
The Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves was a law passed by the United States Congress during the American Civil War forbidding the military to return escaped slaves to their owners. As Union armies entered Southern territory during the early years of the War, emboldened slaves began fleeing behind Union lines to secure their freedom. Some commanders put the slaves to work digging entrenchments, building fortifications, and performing other camp work. Such slaves came to be called "contraband," a term emphasizing their status as captured enemy property. Other Army commanders—particularly Democrats—returned the slaves to their owners. Congress reacted by approving on March 13, 1862 an act prohibiting the military from sending escaped slaves back into slavery.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That hereafter the following shall be promulgated as an additional article of war for the government of the army of the United States, and shall be obeyed and observed as such:
Article —. All officers or persons in the military or naval service of the United States are prohibited from employing any of the forces under their respective commands for the purpose of returning fugitives from service or labor, who may have escaped from any persons to whom such service or labor is claimed to be due, and any officer who shall be found guilty by a court-martial of violating this article shall be dismissed from the service.
SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from and after its passage.
APPROVED, March 13, 1862.
The Thirty-ninth United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1865 to March 4, 1867, during the second administration of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and the first two years of the administration of his successor, U.S. President Andrew Johnson.
The apportionment of seats in this House of Representatives was based on the Eighth Census of the United States in 1860. Both chambers had a Republican majority.
The Copperheads were a vocal group of Democrats in the Northern United States (see also Union (American Civil War)) who opposed the American Civil War, wanting an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates. Republicans started calling anti-war Democrats "copperheads", likening them to the poisonous snake. The Peace Democrats accepted the label, but for them the copper "head" was the likeness of Liberty, which they cut from copper pennies and proudly wore as badges.
They were also called "Peace Democrats" (although the 13th Edition of The American Pageant makes a distinction between the two, as those termed Copperheads were at the extreme end of the Peace Democrats) and "Butternuts" (for the color of the Confederate uniforms). Perhaps the most famous Copperhead was Ohio's Clement L. Vallandigham.
During the American Civil War (1861-1865), the Copperheads nominally favored the Union and strongly opposed the war, for which they blamed abolitionists, and they demanded immediate peace and resisted draft laws. They wanted President Lincoln and the Republicans ousted from power, seeing the president as a tyrant who was destroying American republican values with his despotic and arbitrary actions.
Some Copperheads tried to persuade Union soldiers to desert. They talked of helping Confederate prisoners of war seize their camps and escape. They sometimes met with Confederate agents and took money. The Confederacy encouraged their activities whenever possible.
The Copperheads had numerous important newspapers, but the editors never formed an alliance. In Chicago, Wilbur F. Storey made the Chicago Times into Lincoln's most vituperative enemy. The New York Journal of Commerce, originally abolitionist, was sold to owners who became Copperheads, giving them an important voice in the largest city. A typical editor was Edward G. Roddy, owner of the Uniontown, Pennsylvania Genius of Liberty. He was an intensely partisan Democrat who saw black people as an inferior race and Abraham Lincoln as a despot and dunce. Although he supported the war effort in 1861, he blamed abolitionists for prolonging the war and denounced the government as increasingly despotic. By 1864 he was calling for peace at any price.
John Mullaly's Metropolitan Record was the official Catholic paper in New York City. Reflecting Irish opinion, it supported the war until 1863 before becoming a Copperhead organ; the editor was then arrested for draft resistance. Even in an era of extremely partisan journalism, Copperhead newspapers were remarkable for their angry rhetoric. Wisconsin newspaper editor Marcus M. Pomeroy called Lincoln "fungus from the corrupt womb of bigotry and fanaticism" and a "worse tyrant and more inhuman butcher than has existed since the days of Nero... The man who votes for Lincoln now is a traitor and murderer... And if he is elected to misgovern for another four years, we trust some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good".
The Copperheads sometimes talked of violent resistance, and in some cases started to organize. They never actually made an organized attack, though. As war opponents, Copperheads were suspected of disloyalty, and their leaders were sometimes arrested and held for months in military prisons without trial — one famous example was General Ambrose Burnside's 1863 General Order Number 38, issued in Ohio, which made it an offence (to be tried in military court) to criticize the war in any way: the order was used to arrest Ohio congressman Clement L. Vallandigham when he criticized the order itself. However, Lincoln commuted his sentence while requiring his banishment to the Confederate states.
Probably the largest Copperhead group was the Knights of the Golden Circle; formed in Ohio in the 1850s, it became politicized in 1861. It reorganized as the Order of American Knights in 1863, and again, early in 1864, as the Order of the Sons of Liberty, with Vallandigham as its commander. One leader, Harrison H. Dodd, advocated violent overthrow of the governments of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri in 1864. Democratic party leaders, and a Federal investigation, thwarted his conspiracy. In spite of this Copperhead setback, tensions remained high. The Charleston Riot took place in Illinois in March 1864. Indiana Republicans then used the sensational revelation of an antiwar Copperhead conspiracy by elements of the Sons of Liberty to discredit Democrats in the 1864 House elections. The military trial of Lambdin P. Milligan and other Sons of Liberty revealed plans to set free the Confederate prisoners held in the state. The culprits were sentenced to hang but the Supreme Court intervened in Ex parte Milligan, saying they should have received civilian trials.
Most Copperheads actively participated in politics. On May 1, 1863, former Congressman Vallandigham declared that the war was being fought not to save the Union but to free the blacks and enslave Southern whites. The Army then arrested him for declaring sympathy for the enemy. He was court-martialed and sentenced to imprisonment, but Lincoln commuted the sentence to banishment behind Confederate lines. The Democrats nevertheless nominated him for governor of Ohio in 1863; he campaigned from Canada but was defeated after an intense battle. He operated behind-the-scenes at the 1864 Democratic convention in Chicago; this convention adopted a largely Copperhead platform, but chose a pro-war presidential candidate, George B. McClellan. The contradiction severely weakened the chances to defeat Lincoln's reelection.
The sentiments of Copperheads attracted Southerners who had settled north of the Ohio River, the poor, and merchants who had lost profitable Southern trade. Copperheads did well in local and state elections in 1862, especially in New York, and won majorities in the legislatures of Illinois and Indiana. Copperheads were most numerous in border areas, including southern parts of Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana (in Missouri, comparable groups were avowed Confederates). The Copperhead coalition included many Irish American Catholics in eastern cities, mill towns and mining camps (especially in the Pennsylvania coal fields). They were also numerous in German Catholic areas of the Midwest, especially Wisconsin.
Historian Kenneth Stampp has captured the Copperhead spirit in his depiction of Congressman Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana:
“ There was an earthy quality in Voorhees, "the tall sycamore of the Wabash." On the stump his hot temper, passionate partisanship, and stirring eloquence made an irresistible appeal to the western Democracy [i.e., the Democratic Party]. His bitter cries against protective tariffs and national banks, his intense race prejudice, his suspicion of the eastern Yankee, his devotion to personal liberty, his defense of the Constitution and State's rights faithfully reflected the views of his constituents. Like other Jacksonian agrarians, he resented the political and economic revolution then in progress. Voorhees idealized a way of life which he thought was being destroyed by the current rulers of his country. His bold protests against these dangerous trends made him the idol of the Democracy of the Wabash Valley.
War Democrats in American politics of the 1860s were adherents of the Democratic Party who opposed the majority of that party to support the military policies of President Abraham Lincoln in the American Civil War. In the 1864 presidential election, War Democrats and the Republicans jointly nominated Lincoln, a Republican, for president and nominated Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, for vice president in what was called the "Union Party" ticket.
To court Democrats, Lincoln appointed many to high civil and military offices to win over some Democratic votes. Some joined the Republican Party, while others remained Democrats. Their opponents in the Democratic party included Peace Democrats, widely called Copperheads, Democrats who remained loyal to the concept of Union but either advocated negotiated settlement with the Confederacy or openly supported the "state's rights" underpinnings of the Confederate policy.
Prominent War Democrats included:
Andrew Johnson, the U.S. senator, then military governor of Tennessee who was elected Vice President in 1864 on a ticket with Lincoln, and President after Lincoln's assassination
John Brough, Governor of Ohio
Benjamin F. Butler, Congressman from Massachusetts; general
John Adams Dix, of New York, Buchanan's Secretary of the Treasury, general
Stephen A. Douglas, Senator from Illinois; Democratic Party's northern candidate in the presidential election of 1860, who died a few weeks into the war
Ulysses S. Grant, storekeeper in Illinois; general
Joseph Holt, Kentucky; Buchanan's Secretary of War; Lincoln's Judge-Advocate General of the Army
Francis Kernan, Congressman from New York
John A. Logan, Congressman from Illinois; general
George B. McClellan, railroad president; general; Democratic presidential nominee in 1864
Joel Parker, Governor of New Jersey
David Tod, Governor of Ohio
Edwin M. Stanton, Ohio; Buchanan's Attorney General and Lincoln's Secretary of War
CSS Alabama was a screw sloop-of-war built for the Confederate States Navy at Birkenhead, United Kingdom, in 1862 by John Laird Sons and Company. Alabama served as a commerce raider, attacking Union merchant and naval ships over the course of her two-year career, during which she never laid anchor in a Southern port.
Alabama was built in secrecy in 1862 by British shipbuilders John Laird Sons and Company in North West England at their shipyards at Birkenhead, Merseyside. This was arranged by the Confederate agent James Dunwoody Bulloch, who was leading the procurement of sorely needed ships for the fledgling Confederate States Navy. He arranged the contract through Fraser, Trenholm Company, a cotton broker in Liverpool with ties to the Confederacy.
Initially known as hull number 290, the ship was launched without fanfare on 29 July 1862 as Enrica. Agent Bulloch arranged for a civilian crew and captain to sail Enrica to Terceira Island in the Azores. With Bulloch staying aboard to witness her recommissioning, the new ship's captain, Raphael Semmes, left Liverpool on 5 August 1862 aboard the steamer Bahama to take command of the new cruiser. Semmes arrived at Terceira Island on 20 August 1862 and began overseeing the refitting of the new vessel with various provisions, including armaments, and 350 tons of coal, brought there by Agrippina, his new ship's supply vessel. After three days of back-breaking work by the three ship's crews, the new ship was transformed into a naval cruiser, designated a commerce raider, for the Confederate States of America.
Alabama's British-made ordnance was composed of six broadside, 32-pounder, naval smoothbores and two larger and more powerful pivot cannons. Both pivot cannons were positioned roughly amidships along the deck's centerline, fore and aft of the main mast. The fore pivot was a heavy, long-range 100-pounder 7-inch (178 mm) Blakely rifle, the aft pivot a heavy, 8-inch (203 mm) smoothbore.
The new Confederate cruiser was powered by both sail and by two John Laird Sons and Company 300 horsepower (220 kW) horizontal steam engines, driving a single, Griffiths-type, twin-bladed brass screw. With the screw retracted using the stern's brass lifting gear mechanism, Alabama could make up to ten knots under sail alone and 13.25 knots (24.54 km/h) when her sail and steam power were used together.
The ship was purposely commissioned about a mile off Terceira Island in international waters on 24 August 1862: All the men from Agripinna and Bahama had been transferred to the quarter deck of Enrica, where her 24 officers, some of them Southerners, stood in full dress uniform. Captain Raphael Semmes mounted a gun-carriage and read his commission from President Jefferson Davis, authorizing him to take command of the new cruiser. Upon completion of the reading, musicians that had been assembled from among the three ships' crews began to play the tune "Dixie" just as the quartermaster finished hauling down Enrica's British colors. A signal cannon boomed and the stops to the halliards at the peaks of the mizzen gaf and mainmast were broken and the ship's new battle ensign and commissioning pennant floated free on the breeze. With that the cruiser became Confederate States Steamer Alabama.
Captain Semmes then made a speech about the Southern cause to the assembled seamen, asking them to sign on for a voyage of unknown length and destiny. Semmes had only his 24 officers and no crew to man his new command. When this did not succeed, Semmes changed his tack. It should be noted here that engraved in the bronze of the great double ship's wheel was Alabama's motto: "Aide-toi et Dieu t'aidera" (God helps those who help themselves). Semmes then offered signing money and double wages, paid in gold, and additional prize money to be paid by the Confederate congress for all destroyed Union ships. When the men began to shout "Hear! Hear!" Semmes knew he had closed the deal: 83 seamen, many of them British, signed on for service in the Confederate Navy. Confederate agent Bulloch and the remaining seamen then returned to their respective ships for their return voyage to England. Semmes still needed another 20 or so men for a full crew complement, but enough had signed on to at least handle the new commerce raider. The rest would be recruited from among captured crews of raided ships or from friendly ports-of-call. Of the original 83 crewmen that signed on that day, many completed the full voyage.
Under Captain Semmes, Alabama spent her first two months in the Eastern Atlantic, ranging southwest of the Azores and then redoubling east, capturing and burning northern merchant ships. After a difficult crossing, she then continued her path of destruction and devastation in the greater New England region. She then sailed south, arriving in the West Indies where she raised more havoc before finally cruising west into the Gulf of Mexico. There, in January 1863, Alabama had her first military engagement. She came upon and quickly sank the Union side-wheeler USS Hatteras just off the Texas coast, near Galveston, capturing that warship's crew. She then continued further south, eventually crossing the equator, where she took the most prizes of her raiding career while cruising off the coast of Brazil. After a second Atlantic crossing, Alabama sailed down the southwestern African coast where she continued her war against northern commerce. After stopping in Saldanha Bay on 29 July 1863 in order to verify that no enemy ships were in Table Bay,she finally made a much-needed refitting and reprovisioning visit to Cape Town, South Africa. She then sailed for the East Indies, where she spent six months destroying seven more ships before finally redoubling the Cape of Good Hope en route to France. Union warships hunted frequently for the elusive and by now famous Confederate raider, but the few times Alabama was spotted, she quickly outwitted her pursuers and vanished beyond the horizon.
All together, she burned 65 Union vessels of various types, most of them merchant ships. During all of Alabama's raiding ventures, captured ships' crews and passengers were never harmed, only detained until they could be placed aboard a neutral ship or placed ashore in a friendly or neutral port.
All together, Alabama conducted a total of seven expeditionary raids, spanning the globe, before heading back to France for refit and repairs and a date with destiny:
The CSS Alabama's Eastern Atlantic Expeditionary Raid (August–September, 1862) commenced immediately after she was commissioned. She immediately set sail for the shipping lanes southwest and then east of the Azores, where she captured and burned ten prizes, mostly whalers.
The CSS Alabama's New England Expeditionary Raid (October–November, 1862) began after Captain Semmes and his crew departed for the northeastern seaboard of North America, along Newfoundland and New England, where she ranged as far south as Bermuda and the coast of Virginia, burning ten prizes while capturing and releasing three others.
The CSS Alabama's Gulf of Mexico Expeditionary Raid (December, 1862 – January, 1863) was centered around a needed rendezvous with her supply vessel, CSS Agrippina. After that, she rendered aid to Texas during Major General Banks invasion near Galveston, Texas. There, she quickly sank the Union side-wheeler USS Hatteras.
The CSS Alabama's South Atlantic Expeditionary Raid (February–July, 1863) was her most successful raiding venture, taking 29 prizes while raiding off the coast of Brazil. Here, she recommissioned the bark Conrad as the CSS Tuscaloosa.
The CSS Alabama's South African Expeditionary Raid (August–September, 1863) occurred primarily while ranging off the coast of South Africa, as she worked together the CSS Tuscaloosa.
The CSS Alabama's Indian Ocean Expeditionary Raid (September–November, 1863) was composed of a long trek across the Indian Ocean. The few prizes she gathered were in the East Indies.
The CSS Alabama's South Pacific Expeditionary Raid (December, 1863) was her final raiding venture. She took a few prizes in the Strait of Malacca before finally turning back toward France for a much needed refit and long overdue repairs.
Upon the completion of her seven expeditionary raids, Alabama had been at sea for 534 days out of 657, never visiting a single Confederate port. She boarded nearly 450 vessels, captured or burned 65 Union merchant ships, and took more than 2,000 prisoners without a single loss of life from either prisoners or her own crew.
On 11 June 1864, Alabama arrived in port at Cherbourg, France. Captain Semmes soon requested permission to dry dock and overhaul his ship, much needed after so long a time at sea and so many naval actions. Pursuing the raider, the American sloop-of-war, USS Kearsarge, under the command of Captain John Ancrum Winslow, arrived three days later and took up station just outside the harbor. While at his previous port-of-call, Winslow had telegraphed Gibraltar to send the old man-o-war USS St. Louis with provisions and to provide blockading assistance. Kearsarge now had Alabama boxed-in with no place left to run.
Having no desire to see his worn-out ship rot away at a French dock while quarantined by Union warships, and given his instinctive aggressiveness and a long-held desire once again to engage his enemy, Captain Semmes chose to fight. After preparing his ship and drilling the crew for the coming battle during the next several days, Semmes issued, through diplomatic channels, a bold challenge to the Kearsarge's commander,"my intention is to fight the Kearsarge as soon as I can make the necessary arrangements. I hope these will not detain me more than until to-morrow or the morrow morning at farthest. I beg she will not depart until I am ready to go out. I have the honor to be Your obedient servant, R. SEMMES, Captain."
On 19 June, Alabama sailed out to meet the Union cruiser. As Kearsarge turned to meet her opponent, Alabama opened fire. Kearsarge waited patiently until the range had closed to less than 1,000 yards (900 m). According to survivors, the two ships steamed on opposite courses in seven spiraling circles, moving southwesterly with the 3-knot current, each commander trying to cross the bow of his opponent to deliver a heavy raking fire. The battle quickly turned against Alabama due to the superior gunnery displayed by Kearsarge and the deteriorated state of Alabama's contaminated powder and fuses. Her most important shot, fired from the forward 7-inch (178 mm) Blakely pivot rifle, hit very near Kearsarge's vulnerable stern post, the impact binding the ship's rudder badly. That rifled shell, however, failed to explode. If it had done so, it would have seriously disabled Kearsarge's steering, possibly sinking the warship, and ending the contest. In addition, Alabama's too rapid rate-of-fire resulted in frequent poor gunnery, with many of her shots going too high, thus sealing the fate of the Confederate raider. As a result, Kearsarge benefited little that day from the protection of her outboard chain armor, whose presence Semmes later said was unknown to him at the time of his decision to issue the challenge to fight. In fact, in the years that followed, Semmes steadfastly claimed he would have never fought Kearsarge if he had known she was armor-clad.
This hull armor had been installed in just three days, more than a year before, while Kearsarge was in port at the Azores. It was made using 120 fathoms (720 feet) of 1.7-inch (43 mm) single link iron chain and covered hull spaces 49 feet (15 m), six-inches (152 mm) long by 6-feet, 2-inches deep. It was stopped up and down to eye-bolts with marlines and secured by iron dogs. It was concealed behind 1-inch deal-boards painted black to match the upper hull's color. This chaincladding was placed along Kearsarge's port and starboard midsection down to the waterline, for additional protection of her engines and boilers when the upper portion of her coal bunkers were empty. This armor belt was hit twice during the fight: First in the starboard gangway by one of Alabama's 32-pounder shells that cut the chain armor, denting the hull planking underneath, then again by a second 32-pounder shell that exploded and broke a link of the chain armor, tearing away a portion of the deal-board covering. If those rounds had come from Alabama's more powerful 100-pounder Blakely pivot rifle, the likely result would not have been too serious, as both struck the chain armor a little more than five feet above the waterline. Even if both shots had penetrated Kearsarge's side, they would have completely missed her vital machinery.
A little more than an hour after the first shot was fired, Alabama was reduced to a sinking wreck by Kearsarge's powerful 11-inch (280 mm) Dahlgrens, forcing Captain Semmes to strike his colors and to send one of his two surviving boats to Kearsarge to ask for assistance.
According to witnesses, Alabama fired 370 rounds at her adversary, averaging one round per minute per gun, while Kearsarge's gun crews fired less than half that many, taking more careful aim. During the confusion of battle, five more rounds were fired at Alabama after her colors were struck. (Her gun ports had been left open and the broadside cannon were still run out, appearing to come to bear on Kearsarge.) Then a hand-held white flag came fluttering from Alabama's stern spanker boom, finally halting the engagement. Prior to this, she had her steering gear compromised by shell hits, but the fatal shot came later when one of Kearsarge's 11-inch (280 mm) shells tore open a mid-section of Alabama's starboard waterline. Water quickly rushed through the defeated cruiser, eventually drowning her boilers and forcing her down by the stern to the bottom. Kearsarge rescued the majority of the survivors, but 41 of Alabama's officers and crew, including Semmes, were rescued by the Deerhound, a private yacht, while the Kearsarge stood off to recover her rescue boats while waiting for Alabama to sink. Captain Winslow was forced to stand by helplessly and watch Deerhound spirit away to England his much sought after adversary, Captain Semmes and his surviving shipmates.
The battle between the Alabama and Kearsarge is honored by the United States Navy with a battle star on the Civil War campaign streamer.
Perhaps the most courageous and selfless act during the Alabama's last moments involved the ship's assistant surgeon, Dr. David Herbert Llewellyn. Dr. Llewellyn, a Briton, was much loved and respected by the entire crew. During the battle, he steadfastly remained at his post in the wardroom tending the wounded until the order to abandon ship was finally given. As he helped wounded men into the Alabama's only two functional lifeboats, an able bodied sailor attempted to enter one, which was already full. Llewellyn, understanding that the man risked capsizing the craft, grabbed and pulled him back, saying "See, I want to save my life as much as you do; but let the wounded men be saved first." An officer in the boat, seeing that Llewellyn was about to be left aboard the stricken Alabama, shouted "Doctor, we can make room for you." Llewellyn shook his head and replied, "I will not peril the wounded." Tragically, and unknown to the crew, Llewellyn had never learned to swim, and he drowned when the ship went down.
His sacrifice did not go unrecognized. The Confederacy awarded him posthumously the Southern Cross of Honor . In his native Wiltshire, a memorial window and tablet were placed at Easton Royal Church. Another tablet was placed in Charing Cross Hospital, where he attended medical school.
During her two-year career as a commerce raider, Alabama caused disorder and devastation across the globe for Union merchant shipping. The Confederate cruiser claimed 65 prizes valued at nearly $6,000,000 (approximately $123,000,000 in today's dollars). In an important development in international law, the U. S. Government pursued the "Alabama Claims" against the British Government for the devastation caused, and following a court of arbitration, won heavy damages.
Ironically, a decade before the beginning of the Civil War, Captain Semmes had observed:
"(Commerce raiders) are little better than licensed pirates; and it behooves all civilized nations to suppress the practice altogether." --Raphael Semmes, 1851
In November 1984, the French Navy mine hunter CircĂ© discovered a wreck under nearly 60 m (200 ft) of water off Cherbourg at 49°45′9″N 1°41′42″W / 49.7525°N 1.695°W / 49.7525; -1.695 [14]. Captain Max Guerout later confirmed the wreck to be the Alabama's remains.
In 1988, a non-profit organization the Association CSS Alabama was founded to conduct scientific exploration of the shipwreck. Although the wreck resides within French territorial waters, the U. S. government, as the successor to the former Confederate States of America, is the owner. On October 3, 1989, the United States and France signed an agreement recognizing this wreck as an important heritage resource of both nations and establishing a Joint French-American Scientific Committee for archaeological exploration. This agreement established a precedent for international cooperation in archaeological research and in the protection of a unique historic shipwreck. This agreement will be in effect for five years and is renewable by mutual consent.
The Association CSS Alabama and the U.S. Navy/Naval Historical Center signed on March 23, 1995 an official agreement accrediting Association CSS Alabama as operator of the archaeological investigation of the remains of the ship. Association CSS Alabama, which is funded solely from private donations, is continuing to make this an international project through its fund raising in France and in the United States, thanks to its sister organization, the CSS Alabama Association, incorporated in the State of Delaware.
In 2002, a diving expedition raised the ship's bell along with more than 300 other artifacts, including cannons, structural samples, tableware, ornate commodes, and numerous other items that reveal much about life aboard the Confederate warship.
The Alabama is the subject of a well known sea shanty, '"Roll Alabama, roll'":
When the Alabama's Keel was Laid, (Roll Alabama, roll!), 'Twas laid in the yard of Jonathan Laird (Roll, roll Alabama, roll!)
'Twas Laid in the yard of Jonathan Laird, 'twas laid in the town of Birkenhead.
Down the Mersey way she rolled then, and Liverpool fitted her with guns and men.
From the western isle she sailed forth, to destroy the commerce of the north.
To Cherbourg port she sailed one day, for to take her count of prize money.
Many a sailor laddie saw his doom, when the Kearsarge it hove in view.
When a ball from the forward pivot that day, shot the Alabama's stern away.
Off the three-mile limit in '64, the Alabama was seen no more.
The Alabama's visit to Cape Town in 1863 has passed (with a slight spelling change) into South African folklore in the Afrikaans song, '"Daar Kom die Alibama'":
Daar kom die Alibama,
Die Alibama, die kom oor die see,
Daar kom die Alibama,
Die Alibama, die kom oor die see...
Nooi, nooi die rietkooi nooi,
Die rietkooi is gemaak,
Die rietkooi is vir my gemaak,
Om daarop te slaap...
O Alibama, die Alibama,
O Alibama, die kom oor die see,
O Alibama, die Alibama,
O Alibama, die kom oor die see...
There comes the Alabama,
The Alabama, it comes o'er the sea,
There comes the Alabama,
The Alabama, it comes o'er the sea...
Lass, lass, the reed bed calls,
The reed bed it is made,
The reed bed it is made for me,
To sleep upon...
Oh Alabama, the Alabama,
Oh Alabama, it comes o'er the sea,
Oh Alabama, the Alabama,
Oh Alabama, it comes o'er the sea...
