Rear Admiral Raphael Semmes, CSN
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Skipper of CSS Alabama. Semmes held the ranks of both Admiral and
General (although the latter was never made official).
1809-1877
Raphael Semmes was born in Charles County, Maryland, on 27 September
1809. Entering the Navy as a Midshipman in 1826, he subsequently
studied law and was admitted to the bar while remaining in the
service. During the Mexican War, he commanded the brig USS Somers in
the Gulf of Mexico. She was lost in a storm off Vera Cruz in December
1846, but Semmes was commended for his actions in that incident.
While on extended leave after the war, he practiced law in Mobile,
Alabama. Promoted to the rank of Commander in 1855, Semmes was
assigned to Lighthouse duties until 1861, when Alabama's secession
from the Union prompted him to resign from the U.S. Navy and adhere
to the Confederacy.
Appointed a Commander in the Confederate Navy in April 1861, Raphael
Semmes was sent to New Orleans to convert a steamer into the cruiser
CSS Sumter. He ran her through the Federal blockade in June 1861 and
began a career of commerce raiding that is without equal in American
naval history. During Sumter's six months' operations in the West
Indies and the Atlantic, he captured eighteen merchant vessels and
skillfully eluded pursuing Union warships. With his ship badly in
need of overhaul, he brought her to Gibraltar in January 1862 and
laid her up when the arrival of Federal cruisers made a return to sea
impossible.
After taking himself and many of his officers to England, Semmes was
promoted to the rank of Captain and given command of the newly-built
cruiser CSS Alabama. From August 1862 until June 1864, Semmes took
his ship through the Atlantic, into the Gulf of Mexico, around the
Cape of Good Hope and into the East Indies, capturing some sixty
merchantmen and sinking one Federal warship, USS Hatteras. At the end
of her long cruise, Alabama was blockaded at Cherbourg, France, while
seeking repairs. On 19 June 1864, Semmes took her to sea to fight the
Union cruiser USS Kearsarge and was wounded when she was sunk in
action. Rescued by the British yacht Dearhound, he went to England,
recovered and made his way back to the Confederacy.
Semmes was promoted to Rear Admiral in February 1865 and commanded
the James River Squadron during the last months of the Civil War.
When the fall of Richmond, Virginia, forced the destruction of his
ships, he was made a Brigadier General and led his sailors as an
infantry force. Briefly imprisoned after the conflict, he worked as a
teacher and newspaper editor until returning to Mobile, where he
pursued a legal career. Raphael Semmes died on 30 August 1877.
