ALABA'MA, THE, an armed vessel of the Confederate states of America, which inflicted terrible injury upon the shipping of the northern states of the American Union during the civil war which broke out in 1861. The career of the A. was in more than one respect unparalleled in the history of any previous naval war. She was, for a war-ship, a small vessel, built for speed, carrying a few guns, and intended not for fighting, but for preying upon defenseless merchant-ships. She was almost the only vessel the Con federate states had upon the open seas; but the destruction she wrought was so great, and in effect so alarming, as to produce a very marked diminution in the number of commercial vessels carrying the flag of the United States. She was built, too, in a British port, and never at any time, entered a port of the state by which she was commissioned: there was no port available for the disposal of her prizes, and, ship and cargo, they were usually burned. Her career demonstrated how completely, in the present state of com merce, under the conditions of navightion and naval warfare produced by steam and long-range artillery, belligerents fairly matched might ruin each other at sea; and it raised international questions between the United States and Great Britain, which 'more than once threatened to issue in the gravest consequences to both nations. Even the end of the A. was singular and instructive: perhaps it was too honorable an end for such a career as hers. She went down in an artillery duel, quixotically entered upon for a fancied point of honor, with a vessel protected by armor: illustrating the impotence, in modern naval warfare, of the gallantry of the most gallant of seamen against advan tages derived from speed, armament, and armor.
At the beginning of the civil war in 1861, the Confederate states were without a navy, and apparently without the means of acquiring one. Their population was agri cultural; they had neither ships nor seamen; and the northern states promptly instituted an effective blockade of nearly all their ports. The able men who had planned the secession of the southern states from the American Union had not overlooked the subject of a navy; • but events had been against them. They had reckoned upon securing a put of the United States fleet; and before the war commenced, they had determined upon fitting out small and swift vessels, carrying a few, heavy guns, to cruise against the northern commerce. They liad no lack of able naval officers; for a majority of the senior naval officers of the United States were southern men, and were at'their command. Early in 1861,while parleying was still going on between the North and the South.and hopes of a peaceable separation were not extinct, capt. Raphael Semmes had been empowered by the southern leaders to purchase ships and stores for the South; but as regards ships, capt. Semmes appears to have been unsuccessful. It was not till several months after the war began, in June, 1861, that the Confederate states were able to send their first armed cruiser to sea. This was the Sumter, a small steamer, which had previously traded between New Orleans and Havana. Capt. Semmes, who was • appointed her com mander, was singularly qualified for the work expected of him. He was a native
of Maryland, about 51 years of age; he had been a oommauder in time U. S. navy, and now held the same rank in the service of the southern states. Besides possessing high professional abilities and attainments, he was a man of acute intellect and of decided character; and he was thoroughly instructed in the principles and details of international law and etiquette. He seems to have united with the good qualities of a naval officer the qualifications of an able lawyer, diplomatist, and publicist. He could be trusted to secure for a war-vessel of the Confederacy, however small, every advantage to which she was entitled from neutral powers; to give to subjects of neutral powers, and of the other belligerent alike, nothing which was not strictly their due; to carry out without flinching, unmoved by taunts and abuse, the work of destruction which was expected at his hands. Ills career in the Sumter is a record of triumphs won over neutral governors and ministers. who were disinclined to admit the little Sumter to the position of a belliger ent war-vessel ; of clever avoidance of the enemy's cruisers, of which several were always on his track; and of the destruction of valuable ships and cargoes belonging to citizens of the United States. The Sumter and her captain were soon known throughout the world. The enemy called capt. Semmes a pirate, and could they have caught him, would probably have treated him as a pirate. But he appears to have done nothing but what it was his right as a belligerent to do; at any rate, he was scrupulous not to exceed the precedents of international law. It was upon his system of captures, not upon the cap tures themselves, that time people of the northern states founded their charge of piracy; but no Confederate port was open to him for the disposal of his prizes; and his treatment of them, though it greatly shocked an age which had seen scarcely anything of naval warfare, was warranted by precedents, and was probably, though not unquestionably, within his right. As an occasional resource, to be adopted upon an emergency, the burning of captures made at sea is undoubtedly lawful; it is not so certain that a bellig erent is at liberty to carry out a system of burning captures, made without the hope of being able to bring them into port for adjudication before a prize court. The cruise of the Sumter, which began on the 30th June, 1861, with her escape from New Orleans, then strictly blockaded, was over before the end of the year; but she had captured 18 vessels, had spread alarm through the northern sea-ports, and had put ship-owners and merchants to heavy charges for insurance; and by disinclining merchants to ship their goods in northern vessels, had seriously injured the shipping trade of the northern states. Eventually, she was laid up at Gibraltar, and declared unfit for further service: had she been seaworthy, it would have been very difficult to carry her out of a port where she was diligently watched by northern cruisers. She had, however, verified the anticipa tions of the Confederate government; and iu 1862, this government found a successor for her, much better fitted for the work to be done, and destined to far greater celebrity. This was the Alabama.