"CSS Alabama"

Water Colour & White Gouache Body Colour on Water Colour Board

Image size: 18x 26 1/2 inches (45.5 x67 cm)

Signed, and dated '16,lower right

SOLD

The painting shows Alabama at sea, overhauling a whaler flying Norwegian colours, but looking very American - perhaps she is, perhaps she isn’t...

The story of the Alabama is a well-known tale of the American Civil War. It is one of gallantry, bravery and daring from a southern view and outright piracy from a northern opinion...

She was built amid secrecy in Birkenhead by John Laird very quickly as Hull 290 at a cost of £51,716 and sailed from the Mersey on July 29th 1862, under temporary command, to Praya in the Azores, officialy the Spanish Enrica.

She was commissioned on August 24th 1862 as CSS Alabama asd received her guns and her captain, Commander Raphael Semmes CSN. He had previously commanded the Confederate raider Sumter with considerable success.

Although her officers were southerners Alabamawas largely manned by Liverpool sailors, who as so often with the British,acquired a reputation for drunkenness ashore.For almost two years Alabama attacked northern merchant shipping in the Atlantic, Caribbean, Pacific and Indian Ocean, especially whalers. In her raiding she captured 65 ships, worth around $6,000,000 in 1864 value, and 2000 prisoners. Captain Semmes treated prisoners with courtesy and not one man from the captured Union merchant ships was lost.

Alabama sank the Union warship Hatteras off Galveston Texas but eventuallywas trapped in the French port of Cherbourg by the USS Kearsarge. On the 19th June 1864 Alabama sailed and engaged Kearsarge.Alabama’s powder and shells were defective and Kearsarge was protected by chain armour and carried a regular fully trained naval crew.Alabama was sunk in front of thousands ofspectators including the painterManet. Raphael Semmes and many of the ships crew escaped capture. Semmes returned to the Confederacy and carried on the fight, becoming an Admiral of the Confederate Navy.After the war he was arrested by the US for his raiding in Alabama and spent time in prison. On release he returned to continue his original profession as a lawyer and died in 1877.

The wreck ofAlabama was found in 1984 and has since been explored and is the subject of continuing archaeology. The Alabama has been the subject of stories, books and songs, notably the South African song still popular Daar Kom die Alibama, and the sea shanty Roll Alabama Roll recorded by the band Bellowhead among others.

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