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The Fight Between the Alabama and the Kearsarge
off Cherbourg, June 19, 1864
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On June 19, 1864, one of the war’s most celebrated
sea battles occurred off the coast of Cherbourg, France.
Having sunk many Union merchant vessels, the rebel raider
Alabama had just put into port for repairs when
the USS Kearsarge discovered her. Confederate captain
Raphael Semmes, buoyed up by more than sixty naval victories,
challenged Captain John A. Winslow to a duel. Semmes gunners,
however, had had little practice against armed vessels.
After the opening salvos, it quickly became apparent that
the Kearsarge was the superior ship. It sank the
notorious Alabama in little more than an hour.
A major event in Europe, the encounter inspired this picture
published in Hamburg. The third ship seen in the print
is the English yacht Deerhound, which rescued many
of the Alabama’s crew. |
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Gustav W. Seitz (born 1826)
Color lithograph, circa 1864
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
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