Posted on 06/19/2018 5:30:41 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
Captain Raphael Semmes of CSS Alabama struck his colors to the USS Kearsarge. Captain John Winslow's Kearsarge had pounded the Alabama into a smoldering, sinking wreck in a one hour battle off the coast of Cherbourg France. As she sunk, about 70 of her crew were rescued by the Kearsarge and about 30 by other ships in the area. Alabama had lost about 40 men killed during the battle. Captain Semmes escaped aboard a British ship. During her career as a commerce raider, CSS Alabama had captured or destroyed 65 U.S. flagged ships, and captured about 2000 of their crews. Captain Semmes accomplished this without the loss of a single life, either on Alabama or any of the ships he seized.
And the Alabama was in fact a pirate ship, by the admission of its own captain, Mr. Semmes.
It's just another form of propaganda.
Sixty five ships sunk or captured, 2,000 crewmen captured.
Not one death among them. Unusual for a pirate, don’t you think.
The Alabama was all they got;
(Roll, Alabama, roll!)
Captain Semmes escaped on a British yacht.
(Oh, roll, Alabama, roll!)
--from The Alabama (c. 1870)
To even the score, Union partisans in the area established Kearsarge City, a mining community which became a ghost town when the mines petered out, and Kearsarge Pass, a popular destination for hikers today.
Um, no, sorry but objective facts are facts - what you're spewing is leftist relativism. Captain Semmes, the loser of the battle (and the war), wrote history. He admitted that his actions constituted piracy. That's not victor's justice, that's his own admission.
It was smart on Semmes' part, as the only reason the Alabama was able to mount operations was because of support from the UK. If he had been killing merchant sailors, the British would have withdrawn support a lot earlier. As it was, the US government sued the UK for damages and won a major award in international arbitration.
Commerce raiding is a legitimate tactic in maritime warfare.
CSS Alabama was commissioned ship in the Confederate Navy, not a privateer. CSS Alabama was acting under orders from the Confederate Navy Department, not a letter of Marque.
That is not piracy. That is naval war at sea. She was no more a pirate ship than any submarine torpedoing a commercial vessel of the enemy. Both the Royal Navy and the French Navy recognized her as a legitimate warship of the Confederate Navy and not a privateer. Otherwise they would have been hunting her down, just as the U.S. Navy was.
That is not enough context to discern the truth. When the former confederate states voted to ratify the 13th amendment, is there any reasonable person who would believe this actually constituted the will of the people of those states rather than a coerced position?
We know military guns forced them to "ratify" that amendment, and we also know that it was simply the will of the power in Washington that they do so, not real consent.
So how do we know what sort of pressure was brought on this captain? If he thought they constituted piracy at the time he did them, then why did he do them?
Sounds like a coerced confession, which again, makes it the desired propaganda of the winners.
Amply demonstrating once again that you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.
I will admit to not knowing a great deal about the doings of the CSS Alabama other than it's final encounter near France, about which I know a little, but not much more than is mentioned here.
Regarding the coercion of the Southern states in voting for an amendment because they were forced to do so, and therefore representing a deliberate breach of the constitutional process, I know all I need to know.
It is a pretense that the 13th and 14th amendments were passed legally, but at this point the powers in Washington didn't care about law or the constitution, they were reveling in the raw exercise of power.
That was very controversial in the First World War. Submarines didn't make their presence and demands known in the way that surface ships couldn't help doing.
P.S. The artist Edouard Manet was on the coast when the battle took place and rendered it in this painting.
Germans used warships and converted merchant ships as surface commerce raiders during WWI. They even used a 3 masted sailing ship for one. The Seeadler captured 15 ships before grounding on a reef ended her career. They used warships such as Graf Spee and converted merchant ships such as Atlantis during the WWII. By the time WWII rolled around, the controversy over using submarines to interdict enemy shipping had all but disappeared. The CSS Alabama was well within it rights to attack and sink U.S. flagged commercial vessels.
Only if you accept the premise that the CSA constituted a legitimate separate nation. If you maintain the fiction that they were merely a "rebel" section of a single nation, than any activity by any ship under their control constitutes mere criminal acts.
As I have said several times before. The "condition" of the CSA is in a quantum state of superposition, being both legitimately a separate nation, and simultaneously a rebelled section of a single nation, depending on the need of the winning government to paint it as one thing or the other.
It's status is completely subjected to the instantaneous needs of the victor, and could be changed as necessary to fit whatever rationalization argument they wished to put forth.
Semmes was indicted in 1866 on charges of treason. Those charges were later dropped. Semmes was not indicted for piracy. That would indicate that the senior officials of the Johnson administration recognized that he was acting within the accepted bounds of Naval warfare. The Royal and the French navies seemed satisfied that Semmes was acting in that manner also. Had they believed otherwise there standing orders would have allowed them to pursue the Alabama as a pirate.
This business of "rebellion" was a carefully crafted legal fiction created for the sole purpose of lending some quasi legitimacy to the deliberate attack on another country.
Didn’t dodge your point, wasn’t interested in it.
No, why would you be? Nobody wants their side's nose rubbed in their side's double standard.
But your response reminded me of Leon Trotsky — ‘You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.’
If memory serves, Raphael Semmes was the only many to hold flag rank in both the army and the navy simultaneously - Rear Admiral in the Confederate Navy and Brigadier General in the Confederate Army.
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