Kearsarge (CVS 33) - Naval Cruise Book

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U.S.S. KEARSARGE versus C.S.S. ALABAMA Cherbourg withm two days, and made a bold circuit of the harbor, her ofTiccrs inspecting the Alabama through glasses. The Yankee took her post just outside the harbor, and Semmes, with no other course open, announced that he would fight, escape by night would ha e fiirther demoralized his interna- tional crew (mostly Bnlish. but including a Russian. Italians, Spaniards. Frenchmen. Irishmen, Dutchmen). Cherbourg was crowded with sight-seers on Saturday night before the battle - all come to see the Americans in action. Hotels and homes were full. Water-front cafes were gay with farewell songs to the Confederate crew, which was rounded up early and taken aboard the Alabama. Semmes sent ashore the ship ' s valuables and had his men make their wills. Semmes had the crew sers ed a big breakfast and assembled them for one of his orations. He reviewed their career as destroyers of the American merchant marine and defenders of the Confederate flag, and pointed out that they would fight in the waters where their forebears (with some e.xceptions) had stopped the Spanish Armada. The gunners went to their posts, naked to the waist. Semmes and his officers appeared in their full-dress imiforms. Once under way, at 9:45 A.M.. the cruiser passed a sizable fleet of French ships. The Alabama ran into the channel with the French ironclad at her side. The Kearsarge was far ahead, some si. or seven miles out, but first, she turned and bore down on the Alabama as if to ram her. Semmes turned aside; the Alabama, as usual, moved with agility, and a collision was avoided. Semmes went into a circle, and the ships moved thus, clock- wise, with the original diameter of the circle about half a mile. The current was westward, at three knots, and as the ships reduced the circle to 400 yards, coming to point-blatik range, their field of battle drifted outward. Semmes fired and missed, with a 100-pound shell from his chief weapon, a BUikely gun Kearsarge returned a broadside and while the ships made seven turns of the circle, the guns hammered without ceasing and smoke often hid the vessels. Men ashore could note the difference in firing; the Kearsarge flashes were clear, and the Alabama ' s cloudy and black. The Yankee gunners were superior almost from the start, and a hail of iron tore the Confederate decks, hull and rigging. Even so, one of his first shots almost won the battle for Semmes - an 8-inch shell that by exquisite luck struck the wooden stempost of Kearsarge, but did not explode. If it had gone off, ripping the stem from the ship, the Yankee could not have been steered, and would have lain at Alabama ' s mercy as she maneuvered about. There was little else to cheer from the Rebel ' s decks, for of 370 shots fired, only fourteen hit the hull of the Kearsarge. On the other hand, Winslow ' s guimers shot for the waterline of the Alabama, and opened great holes. Semmes soon told officers that their shot were bounc- ing off the sides of the Kearsarge. and that they should change their ammunition. The covered chain mail was highly effective under all types of fire. The Kearsarge did such deadly work with her after pivot gun that Semmes offered a reward for its silencing and turned all his guns on it; the only result was the wounding of three men on the Yankee, her casualties for the day. Semmes s deck was now littered with bodies, many badly mutilated; he had lost all but one of the eighteen-man crew at his own pivot gun. When he neared the end of the seventh circle, Semmes was told by his engineer that the boiler fires were out; the ship had about ten minutes to float, for rising water already threatened men below. Semmes tried several tricks at once: He pushed his guns to port to balance ship, but could get only one in position; he ran up the white flag, and spread a few yards of canvas in an effort to creep across the French territorial line where he would be immune from attack. The sailor sent up to loose the sail. John Roberts, was shot

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Sloop of War - The Legend is Born On Sunday. June 19. 1864, in the English Channel off Cherbourg, one turbulent hour brought to a climax the world- wide struggle for sea power between North and South. The French cliffs, within sight, were lined with hundreds come to see the announced spectacle of the duel between the Yankee Kearsarge and the Rebel Alabama. The Frenchmen munched from food baskets as the drama unfolded. These ships so far from home might have been twins, so far as the landsmen could see: Kearsarge Alabama 232 length 220 ' 33 ' 10 beam 3r8 16 ' depth 17 ' 1.031 tonnage 1.050 400 h.p. engines 300 h.p. Certain differences in the guns, crews, armor, and ammuni- tion could not be seen from shore. The Yankee ' s 1 1 -inch guns outmatched those of her foe; her crew was all American, and larger. 163 to 149; her sides, amidships, were sheathed in metal chains, covered with boards. She had been in dock for repairs three months earlier, and her engines were in tune; her powder and shot were in good condition. 3 - harbor. There was another neighbor, the English yacht Deer- hound, which had come to see the sport. The yacht carried her wealthy owner, John Lancaster, his wife, three sons, a daughter, and a niece. When they learned of the impending fight the family took a vote, and the sea battle had won over a trip ashore to church, only because the five- year-old Lancaster son persuaded his sister, nine, to cast the deciding vote. The youngster ' s thirst for spectacles of violence saved the lives of some remarkable men. The skippers were not strangers come to gnps. As seemed almost inevitable in this strange war. Raphael Semmes of the Alabama and John A. Winslow of the Kearsarge were friends of many years, messmates, roommates, shipmates in old Navy - and both Southerners. As the ships moved into position, a French ironclad hovered on the line of her territorial waters, within which American fighting would be illegal. A French warship ' s band had played Confederate music as the Alabama steamed out of In all her months... the Alabama... had not changed her black powder, which had become foul; in a firing test off South America, not long before, most of her shells had failed to explode. Her bottom was foul, and her crew in poor discipline after a long, discouraging run with few prizes. She had put in at Cherbourg to repair and take on coal, and was delayed by red tape - Napoleon 111 could not be reached to grant asylum to the belligerent. The Kearsarge, alerted at Flushing, had reached

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yj. ST down, his abdomen torn open, and he fell shrieking to the deck. Semmes was surrounded by men who shouted that they should not surrender, and some officers later recalled that they fired a few shots in defiance of the skipper ' s decision. The Kearsarge, at any rate, fired at least five rounds from her big guns after the white flag rose on the Alabama. Semmes sent a boatload of wounded to the Kearsarge, asking for boats to take off other survivors, but it happened that the Yankee ' s boats had been ruined in the fight, except for two. These two were sent, but were delayed. On an order to abandon ship, and to get as far from her side as possible, the remaining crewmen jumped into the Channel; they were surprised to find its waters ice-cold. The Alabama ' s one sound boat took off the wounded and picked up those who could not swim - though two of these died, unable to reach the boat. French boats picked up a few men and, from the Kearsarge, Captain Winslow asked the Deerhound for help. Two boats from the yacht went to help survivors. Semmes had a slight wound in one arm. He had help from two men to pull off his boots, but declined to take off his trousers. He accepted a life belt, and with his senior officer. Lieutenant John M. Kell, he poised at the rail, where they flung their swords into the water and jumped. The Alabama went down by the stem, not far away. The guns careening down the deck helped her sink; great sobs seemed to come from the ship as water rushed into the hull and torrents of air bubbled up. The last sight of her was the sharp tip of her black bow, pointed upward. Semmes, pulled from the water by a Deerhound boat, hid under a tarpaulin to avoid the enemy. Some men thought that Captain Winslow saw Semmes escape, but made no effort to catch his old friend, since he knew he would face almost certain execution if captured The Deerhound carried Semmes to England, where he had a royal welcome from British society, was entertained and off ' ered money as if he were a native hero. The Alabama ' s casualties: nine killed, twenty wounded, twelve drowned. A reminder of the battle between the Alabama and Kearsarge is in the museum at Annapolis - the large section of oaken timber from, the stempost of the Kearsarge, in which is embedded the unexploded shell fired by Semmes ' s gunners - a round iron shot almost seven inches in diameter, weight 55 pounds. This souvenir was sent to President Lincoln by Captain Winslow on request. The fighting ship served the Navy until 1894, when she broke up on a reef in the Caribbean. ' 1020 DISCOVERED THE ' ALABAMA ' STEAMING OUT OF THE PORT OF CHERBOURG ACCOMPANIED BY A FRENCH IRON CLAD STEAMER. AND A FORE AND AFT RIGGED STEAMER. SHOWING THE mi ITE ENGLISH ENSIGN AND A YACHT FLAG. BEAT TO GENERAL QUARTERS AND CLEARED THE SHIP FOR ACTION. STEAMED AHEAD STANDING OFF SHORE. AT 1050 BEING DISTANT FROM THE LAND ABOUT TWO LEAGUES. ALTERED OUR COURSE AND AP- PROACHED THE ' ALABAMA. ' AT 1057 THE ■ALABAMA ' COMMENCED THE ACTION WITH HER STARBOARD BROADSIDE A T 1 .000 ms RANGE. AT 11 WE RETURNED HER FIRE AND CAME FAIRL Y INTO A CTION. IVHICH WE CONTINUED UNTIL MIDNIGHT. WHERE OBSER VING SIGNS OF DISTRESS IN THEENEMY. TOGETHER WITH A CESSA- TION OF HER FIRE. OUR FIRE WAS WITHHELD. AT 1210 A BOAT WITH AN OFFICER FROM THE ' ALABAMA ' CAME ALONGSIDE AND SURRENDERED HIS VESSEL WITH THE INFORMATION THAT SHE WAS RAPIDL Y SINKING AN A REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE. SENT THE LAUNCH AND 2ND CUTTER. THE OTHER BOATS BEING DISABLED BY THE FIRE OF THE ENEMY. THE ENGLISH YACHT. BEFORE MENTIONED. COMING WITHIN HAIL. WAS REQUESTED BY THE CAPTAIN TO RENDER ASSISTANCE IN SA VING THE LTVES OF THE OFFICERS. AND CREW OF THE SURRENDERED VESSEL. AT 1224 THE ' ALABAMA ' WENT DOWN IN FORTY FA THOMS WA TER. LEA I ' TNG MOST OF HER CREW STRUGGLING IN THE WATER. SEVENTY PERSONS WERE RESCUED BY THE BOATS FORT PILOT BOATS. AND THE YACHTS ALSO ASSISTED. ONE PILOT BOAT CAME ALONGSIDE OF US. BUT THE OTHER RETURNED TO THE FORT THE ENGLISH YACHT STEAMED RAPIDLY AWAY TO THENTH WITHOUT REPORTING THE NUMBER OF OUR PRISONERS SHE HAD PICKED UP. SIGNED. JAMES R. WHEELER. ACTING MASTER. U.S.S. KEARSARGE decklog entry 19 JUNE 1864