Lot Essay
Of all the ships commissioned into the Confederacy's Service, labama is probaly the only one to have assume the status of legend both in her own lifetime as well as in the years that followed the bitter defeat of the Southern States of America.
Built in secret by Laird's of Birkenhead, she was finally launched in July 1862 at a cost of 51,000 pounds. Designed for speed and lightly armed with 6-32 pounders and a 100 pound Blakely rifled gun, she was classed as a wooded corvette of 1,050 tons, measuring 220 feet in length with a 32 foot beam. Originally named Enrica in order to mislead both Union Secret Service and the British Foreign Office, she only assumed the name of Alabama once she was at sea even though, as she approached completion, it became "a close run thing" to prevent discovery of her true purpose. At the end of July 1862 - with the British Government about to seize her - she left Liverpool on what was supposed to be her final trial when in fact she was heading for the open sea. So began her two year reign of terror, 1862-64, during which she captured or sank sixty-seven Union ships valued at nearly $6 million. During those two years, Alabama eluded her pursuers many times and never once put into port for repairs or provisions, replying instead on coal, food and ammunition taken from the merchant ships she captured and destroyed. Leaking and fouled after two years at sea, including a celebrated call at Cape Town, she returned to European waters and put into Cherbourg for repairs on 16 June 1864. Here, at last, she was cornered by the U.S.S. Kearsage, a Federal sloop-of-War under the command of Captain Winslow. On 19 June he forced Alabama out into the English channel and, once free of the 3-mile limit, engaged her in a fierce and circling action which could have only one outcome. Kearsage's superior fire-power soon gave her the advantage and after a protracted duel during which Alabama suffered fearful damage, the raider struck her colours but sank before she could be taken.
Hers had been a lost cause from the start yet her brief career had caught the world's imagination and had provided it with an isolated episode of audacious daring in an otherwise brutal Civil War.
Built in secret by Laird's of Birkenhead, she was finally launched in July 1862 at a cost of 51,000 pounds. Designed for speed and lightly armed with 6-32 pounders and a 100 pound Blakely rifled gun, she was classed as a wooded corvette of 1,050 tons, measuring 220 feet in length with a 32 foot beam. Originally named Enrica in order to mislead both Union Secret Service and the British Foreign Office, she only assumed the name of Alabama once she was at sea even though, as she approached completion, it became "a close run thing" to prevent discovery of her true purpose. At the end of July 1862 - with the British Government about to seize her - she left Liverpool on what was supposed to be her final trial when in fact she was heading for the open sea. So began her two year reign of terror, 1862-64, during which she captured or sank sixty-seven Union ships valued at nearly $6 million. During those two years, Alabama eluded her pursuers many times and never once put into port for repairs or provisions, replying instead on coal, food and ammunition taken from the merchant ships she captured and destroyed. Leaking and fouled after two years at sea, including a celebrated call at Cape Town, she returned to European waters and put into Cherbourg for repairs on 16 June 1864. Here, at last, she was cornered by the U.S.S. Kearsage, a Federal sloop-of-War under the command of Captain Winslow. On 19 June he forced Alabama out into the English channel and, once free of the 3-mile limit, engaged her in a fierce and circling action which could have only one outcome. Kearsage's superior fire-power soon gave her the advantage and after a protracted duel during which Alabama suffered fearful damage, the raider struck her colours but sank before she could be taken.
Hers had been a lost cause from the start yet her brief career had caught the world's imagination and had provided it with an isolated episode of audacious daring in an otherwise brutal Civil War.