BATTLE WITH THE KEARSARGE.
On board the Kearsarge the long wait had bred doubts of the martial temper of Captain Semmes, and aside from the preparations already made affairs had largely dropped back into the ordinary routine. Soon after ten o’clock the officer of the deck reported a steamer approaching from the city, but this was a frequent occurrence, and no attention was paid to the announcement.
The bell was tolling for religious services when loud shouts apprised the crew that the long-looked-for Alabama was in sight. Captain Winslow hastily laid aside his prayer book and seized his trumpet. The fires were piled high with coal and the prow was turned straight out to sea. The fight must be to the death, and the vanquished was not to be permitted to crawl within the protection of the marine league. Moreover, the French government had expressed a desire that the battle should take place at least six or seven miles from the coast. Ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five minutes passed. The Alabama kept straight on, and the Kearsarge continued her apparent flight.
Finally, at 10:50, when six or seven miles from shore, the Kearsarge wheeled and bore down upon her adversary. At a distance of a little over a mile the Alabama began the fight with her Blakely rifle, and at 10:57 she opened fire with her entire starboard broadside, which cut some of the Kearsarge’s rigging but did no material damage. The latter crowded on all steam to get within closer range, but in two minutes a second broadside came hurtling about her. This was quickly followed by a third, and then, deeming the danger from a raking fire too great longer to allow the ship to present her bow to the enemy, Captain Winslow directed his vessel sheared, and fired his starboard battery. He then made an attempt to run under the Alabama’s stern, which she frustrated by shearing, and thus the two ships were forced into a circular track round a common center, and the battle went on for an hour, the distance between them varying from a half to a quarter of a mile. During that time the vessels described seven complete circles.
At 11:15 a sixty-eight pounder shell came through the bulwarks of the Kearsarge, exploding on the quarter deck and badly wounding three of the crew of the after pivot gun. Two shots entered the ports of the thirty-two pounders, but injured no one. A shell exploded in the hammock nettings and set fire to the ship, but those detailed for fire service extinguished it in a short time, and so thorough was the discipline that the cannonade was not even interrupted.
A hundred-pounder shell from the Alabama’s Blakely pivot gun entered near the stern and lodged in the stern-post. The vessel trembled from bowsprit to rudder at the shock. The shell failed to explode, however. Had it done so, the effect must have been serious and might have changed the result of the battle. A thirty-two pounder shell entered forward and lodged under the forward pivot gun, tilting it out of range, but did not explode. A rifle shell struck the smoke stack, broke through, and exploded inside, tearing a ragged hole three feet in diameter Only two of the boats escaped damage.
As the battle progressed, it became evident that the terrible pounding of the two eleven-inch Dahlgrens was having a disastrous effect on the Alabama. The Kearsarge gunners had been instructed to aim the heavy guns somewhat below rather than above the water line, and leave the deck fighting to the lighter weapons. As the awful missiles opened great gaps in the enemy’s side or bored her through and through, the deck of the Kearsarge rang with cheers. A seaman named William Gowin, with a badly shattered leg, dragged himself to the forward hatch, refusing to permit his comrades to leave their gun in order to assist him. Here he fainted, but reviving after being lowered to the care of the surgeon, waved his hand and joined feebly in the cheers which reached him from the deck.
“It is all right,” he told the surgeon; “I am satisfied, for we are whipping the Alabama.”
The situation on the Alabama was indeed getting serious. It is evident that Captain Semmes entered the fight expecting to win. On leaving the harbor the crew were called aft, and, mounting a gun carriage, he addressed them as follows:
Officers and seamen of the Alabama: You have at length another opportunity of meeting the enemy—the first that has been presented to you since you sunk the Hatteras. In the meantime you have been all over the world, and it is not too much to say that you have destroyed and driven for protection under neutral flags one-half of the enemy’s commerce, which, at the beginning of the war, covered every sea. This is an achievement of which you may well be proud; and a grateful country will not be unmindful of it. The name of your ship has become a household word wherever civilization extends. Shall that name be tarnished by defeat? The thing is impossible! Remember that you are in the English Channel, the theatre of so much of the naval glory of our race, and that the eyes of all Europe are at this moment upon you. The flag that floats over you is that of a young Republic, who bids defiance to her enemies, whenever and wherever found. Show the world that you know how to uphold it. Go to your quarters.
As before stated, the “Persuader” began to speak at long range-more than a mile. But it was no peaceful merchantman that she had now to accost; no fleeing Ariel, vomiting black smoke in a vain effort to get beyond her range—no white winged Starlight or Sea Bride, piling sail on sail to reach the shelter of a neutral harbor. The Kearsarge only raced toward her with still greater speed. At the third summons the Kearsarge yawed gracefully to port, and out of those frowning Dahlgrens blazed her answer. The Alabama staggered at the blow, and her creaking yards shook like branches in a tornado. Glass in hand, Captain Semmes stood upon the horseblack abreast the mizzen mast.
“Try solid shot,” he shouted; “our shell strike her side and fall into the water.”
A little later shells were tried again, and then shot and shell were alternated during the remainder of the battle. But no plan seemed to check the awful regularity of the Kearsarge’s after pivot gun. Captain Semmes offered a reward for the silencing of this gun, and at one time his entire battery was turned upon it, but although three of its men were wounded as stated, its fire was not interrupted.
“What is the matter with the Blakely gun?” was asked; “we don’t seem to be doing her any harm.”
At one time the after pivot gun of the Alabama, commanded by Lieutenant Wilson, had been run out to be fired, when a shell came through the port, mowing down the men and piling up a gastly mass of human flesh. One of the thirty-two pounders had to be abandoned in order to fill up the crew of the gun. The deck was red with blood, and much effort was necessarily expended in getting the wounded below.
“Out of Those Frowning Dahlgrens Blazed Her Answer.”
Water rushed into the Alabama through gaping holes in her sides, and she was visibly lower in the water. There was no concealing the fact that the vessel could not float any great length of time. Captain Semmes made one last attempt to reach the coast—or at least that saving marine league, whose shelter he had denied to so many of his victims. As the vessels were making their seventh circle the foretrysail and two jibs were ordered set. The seaman who executed the order was struck while on the jib boom by a shell or solid shot and disembowelled. Nevertheless, he succeeded in struggling to the spar deck, and ran shrieking to the port gangway, where he fell dead. The guns were pivoted to port, and the battle recommenced, with the Alabama’s head turned toward the shore.
Chart of Battle off Cherbourg.
The effort was a vain one. Again the shells plowed through the Alabama’s hull, and the chief engineer came on deck to say that the water had put out his fires. Lieutenant Kell ran below and soon satisfied himself that the vessel could not float ten minutes. The flag was ordered hauled down and a white flag displayed over the stern. But the gunners were unable to realize that they were whipped. Semmes and Kell were immediately surrounded by excited seamen protesting against surrender. Even a statement of the condition of things below decks failed to convince all of them of the futility of further fighting. It is said that two of the junior officers, swearing that they would never surrender, rushed to the two port guns and reopened fire on the Kearsarge. At this point there is a flat contradiction in the statements of eye witnesses. Lieutenant Kell denies that there was any firing of the Alabama’s guns after the colors had been hauled down, and that her discipline would not have permitted it. Semmes and Kell both aver that the Kearsarge fired five shots into them after their flag had been hauled down.
When the firing had ceased Master’s Mate Fullam was sent to the Kearsarge with a boat’s crew and a few of the wounded in the dingey (the only boat entirely unharmed) to say that the Alabama was sinking and to ask for assistance in transferring the wounded. He told Captain Winslow that Captain Semmes had surrendered. But during the interval the Alabama was rapidly filling, and the wounded and boys who could not swim were hastily placed in two of the quarter boats, which were only partially injured, and sent to the Kearsarge in command of F. L. Galt, surgeon of the Alabama, and at that time also acting as paymaster.
The order was then given for every man to jump overboard with a spar and save himself as best he could. The sea was quite smooth, and the active young officers and men found no difficulty in keeping afloat. Captain Semmes had on a life preserver, and Lieutenant Kell supported himself on a grating. Assistant Surgeon Llewelyn, an Englishman, had tied some empty shell boxes around his waist, and although these prevented his body from sinking, he was unable to keep his head above water, never having learned to swim. One of the men swam to him a little later and found him dead.
The Alabama settled at the stern. The water entering the berth deck ports forced the air upward, and the huge hulk sighed like a living creature hunted to its death. The shattered mainmast broke and fell. The great guns and everything movable came thundering aft, increasing the weight at the stern, and, throwing her bow high in the air, she made her final plunge. The end of the jib boom was the last to disappear beneath the waters, and the career of the famous cruiser was ended forever.
The Deerhound having approached at the close of the battle, Captain Winslow hailed her and requested her owner, Mr. John Lancaster, to run down and assist in saving the survivors, which he hastened to do. Steaming in among the men struggling in the water, the boats of the Deerhound were dispatched to their assistance, and ropes were also thrown to them from the decks. Master’s Mate Fullam asked permission of Captain Winslow to take his boat and assist in the rescue, which was granted. Two French pilot boats also appeared on the scene and assisted in the work. One of these pilot boats took the men saved by it on board the Kearsarge, but the other, having rescued Second Lieutenant Armstrong and a number of seamen, went ashore. Those taken to the Kearsarge, including the wounded, numbered seventy, among whom were several subordinate officers and Third Lieutenant Joseph D. Wilson. Captain Semmes had been slightly wounded in the arm and was pulled into one of the Deerhound’s boats in a thoroughly exhausted condition. Lieutenant Kell was rescued by the same boat. Fifth Lieutenant Sinclair and a sailor, having been picked up by one of the Kearsarge’s boats, quietly dropped overboard and reached one of the Deerhound’s boats in safety. The Deerhound, having picked up about forty officers and men, steamed rapidly away and landed them on the coast of England at Southampton.