Semmes: Rebel Raider (Military Profiles) Review

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(More customer reviews)Veteran historian John M. Taylor provides a small vantage point on the Civil War at sea, through the personna of Confederate commerce raider Raphael Semmes, in this Potomac Military Profiles entry. The naval aspects of the Civil War tend to be neglected in most histories; Semmes might have shone in any naval war.
Taylor opens his narrative with an account of the famous duel between Semmes' CSS Alabama and the USS Kearsarge off Cherbourg, France, in June 1864. Semmes was ill-advised to seek the confrontation; the sinking of the Alabama essentially ended his career at sea. However, as Taylor proceeds to relate, Semmes had his reasons to be confident, even risk-taking.
The author quickly sketches Semmes' youth and his early career in the US Navy, including his adventures afloat and ashore in the Mexican War. The narrative properly gets underway with Semmes' bold voyage of commerce raiding with CSS Sumpter, 1861-1862. The Sumpter would end up blockaded in harbor at Gibralter; the Confederacy found Semmes a bigger, better vessel. His two year voyage with CSS Alabama was marked by a string of prizes taken in the Caribbean Sea, and the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. Mostly notably, Semmes won a ship on ship fight with USS Hatteras off Galveston, Texas, in 1863.
Semmes was an unreconstructed Southerner who moreover was despised by Northerners during and after the war for alleged piracy. Taylor has brought his outstanding naval career back into the foreground with "Semmes: Rebel Raider", which is highly recommended to students of the Civil War.


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One man-Capt. Raphael Semmes-dominates the history of Confederate naval operations in the American Civil War. Although the Confederates were hopelessly outnumbered at sea, Semmes roamed the oceans first in the CSS SUMTER and then the CSS ALABAMA, capturing nearly 100 Federal merchant ships and precipitating a flight from the American flag that decimated the Federal merchant marine. Revered in the South as a hero, the North reviled and feared the Yankee-hating Semmes as a pirate. Regardless of his reputation, his wartime exploits were remarkable.Noted historian and biographer John M. Taylor illustrates how, under Semmes's command, the ALABAMA became a household name in America and overseas and struck fear into the hearts of ships' crews and passengers alike. Incredibly, Semmes and the ALABAMA traveled 75,000 miles, and as far east as Singapore, without ever taking refuge in a Confederate port. In 1864, off the coast of Cherbourg, France, the Union's USS KEARSAGE finally caught up with the Confederate raider and fought the last ever ship-to-ship gun duel between wooden warships.

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