Here Comes the Alabama

Daar Kom Alabama, Alabama Kom oor die See. Compiled by Tony Westby-Nunn 1862 was the crucial year in in the American Civil War, which came at a time of national decision in American history. The free soil Northern states had suffered several minor defeats at the hands of the slave-owning Southern Confederacy. The war, as Captain Semmes of the Confederate cruiser Alabama noted, was at its height, when the slaughter of Shiloh lay ahead; and which the South had to win to retain control of the Mississippi, the Father of Waters. On 29 July 1862, a fine morning, a group of friends of the Messrs Laird, shipbuilders of Birkenhead, near Liverpool, sailed down the Mersey for a short trip on the cruiser 290. Immediately after lunch the visitors were taken off the ship, which proceeded away from Birkenhead towards Wales. It was a well-known fact that the 290, apparently unarmed, had been commissioned by James D. Bulloch, a former naval officer, on behalf of the Confederate Navy, and was to be paid for out of Southern credits with a Liverpool cotton firm. The ship sailed under the English flag towards the Portuguese island of Terceiva in the Azores. On Sunday, 24 August, the Confederate flag broke from the mast of the former 290 now the Confederate steamer Alabama, simultaneously as Captain Raphael Semmes read the Southern President Jefferson Daviss letter appointing him Captain. The ships name was redolent of the deep South with its slaves and cotton fields. But apart from her officers, not one of the crew was an American. Moreover they were aware she was to be a Southern raider. This was of importance in the post-war dispute over Englands purported role as a neutral; and was cited as an infringement of the Foreign Enlistment Act, which however, was only adopted by the British Parliament in 1870, laying down the arbitration rules. (Edna and Frank Bradlow, Here Comes the Alabama, Westby-Nunn Publishers, p.10.ff). To return to the Alabama launching on the 24 August. A ship is the sum of three considerations; the vessel herself, the crew, and the captain. The Alabama was particularly fortunate in the last a rigid disciplinarian whose training and experience were eminently suitable for the ships purpose, in Semmess words as a scourge of the enemys commerce rather than for battle. (Raphael Semmes, My Adventures Afloat (London, Richard Bentley, 1869). If Semmes was the man for the Alabama, she was the ship for him. Lieutenant Arthur Sinclair, Sailing Master on the Alabama (Two Years on the Alabama (London, Grey & Bird, 1896) described her as the most perfect cruiser of any nation afloat. (See, Here Comes the Alabama, pp.23.ff) for a detailed description of the ships main features). Her dimensions were light compared to other similar ships, for to repeat Semmess words, she was not intended to operate as a battleship. Her objective was to strike a quick blow to a

weaker opponent, and then run. Semmes always deserved the motto on the Alabamas steering wheel, Aide toi et Dieu t'aidera. Despite the problems she later caused Lairds, her superior workmanship was apparent, (apart from the wood used for her construction) and a credit to the English shipbuilding trade; and her final cost (under 52 000) remarkably low. Finally to consider Semmess crew. As previously noted only the officers were American, and mostly from the Confederate states. For the rest, the original 85 men whose numbers rose to 100, were not interested in the issues for which the Alabama had been signed up. Typical tough, ignorant, heavy drinkers from English slums, later they were also recruited from captured ships (except North Americans). Consequently, on the whole, few were docile and gave the officers more trouble than they were worth. The Alabamas first victories were the American whaling fleet, which generally remained in the Azores until about October, when the weather deteriorated. Within eleven days the first prize was from Massachusetts; the Ocmulgee, of which the present writer has a scrimshaw dated 1862. On the whole Semmes treated prisoners decently, although he apparently kept them in irons, and got shot of them as quickly as possible. However Semmes and his opponents used various devices ostensibly to make conditions more difficult for the participants, such as the Northern privateers aiming to destroy ships of the Alabama type or enforce the Southern blockade. Consequently differing perceptions as to their role was bandied about; for example at the Cape, by the South African Advertiser, compared to hostile critics of Semmes such as Punch in England. To the latter, like the Cape Dutch press (Het Volksblad, De Volksfriend) the Alabama was a privateer, pure and simple; to the South African Advertiser her work was perfectly legitimate in war. The Alabamas movements were carefully based on the movements of her intended prizes during the changing seasons. She fought only two engagements; one with the Hatteras, the Federal gunboat; and the other with her own nemesis, the Kearsarge. Following the termination of the whaling period, the grain ships of the American Eastern seaboard became the target, until the possibility of Northern gunboats being sent after the Alabama resulted in Semmes making for the West Indies. Proceeding subsequently to the Texan coast, having sunk the Hatteras, Semmes landed her crew on the British island of Jamaica, before his crossing the South Atlantic en route to the Cape of Good Hope, whose officials were outrageously partial to the South (P.D.Hayward, The Cruise of the Alabama (Boston, 1886). Prior to this however, the Alabama captured the Conrad, which was commissioned by Semmes as a Confederate cruiser and renamed Tuscaloosa after a small Alabama town. The Tuscaloosas commissioning was unsuccessful, causing much post-war legal discussion. This however was a future development. In early July Semmes abandoned South America, and turned his activities to the Cape of Good Hope, reaching land locked Saldana Bay on 29 July. This was the first visit of Semmes and his crew to Africa, and he, in particular, was

enchanted by what he found in that land-locked, wild, desolate bay, including the native South African pelargonium plant, which he mistook for a geranium. Crowds of visitors from neighbouring farms clambered on the ship, intently examining it. Repairs, (largely required, as noted because despite their excellent design, Lairds had used inadequately seasoned wood) were organised on a major scale, together with hunting trips ashore for the officers. On one of these Assistant Engineer S. Cummings accidentally shot himself, and was buried in the family graveyard on the farm Kliprug. His grave is the sole memorial in Africa to the increasing hopelessness of the Confederate cause, as the year 1863 progressed. Meanwhile on 6 August 1863, the Cape Argus carried a fanciful account by its editor of events happening around Cape Town. Amid all the excitement among the citizenry crowding the town, it had been reported that the Alabama would be arriving in Table Bay probably at about 4 oclock. Huge crowds raced to watch events from the Kloof Road, and then below, at first hand. Virtually Cape Towns whole population was consequently able to see the Alabama, coming from the North West, legally capture the Federal barque Sea Bride emerging from the South East on a calm sea, in calm weather. Visitors scrambled aboard and were received politely by the ships officers, most of them young men, the Argus enthused, as fine and gentlemanly a set of fellows as we ever saw, who seemed to enjoy talking freely about their exploits. Her guns alone are worth going off to see and everything about her speaks highly for the seamanship and discipline of the commander and his officers. She has a very large crew, fine, lithe-looking, fellows, the very picture of English men-of-wars men. In fact, as previously noted, the officers all were Americans, mainly from the Confederacy; while the crew were largely drawn from the slums of Britain. But certainly the incident brought the Civil War to the very threshold of Englands depressed and distant empire. Sir Thomas Maclear, Astronomer Royal at the Cape, noted in his diary in July 1863, that the mass of Cape inhabitants sympathised with the South (Cape Archives, Maclears Diary). This enthusiasm for the Southern cause, and the overwhelming hospitality accompanying it, was a repetition of the enthusiasm shown in Jamaica by English planters. It generates a certain degree of cynicism for the modern reader however, given the fact that the Capes connection with the United States was an economic one, based on the Norths purchase of Cape wool for manufacture. And the Colonys Dutch population were, as suggested previously, on the whole not Semmess admirers. (Cape Argus, 11.2.1864). One of Semmess potential victims, who succeeded in invading him was Captain E. Cooper of the Federal ship Urania, who eluded Semmes under the protection of British neutrality, for which he was later, at a banquet in New York, rewarded and complemented fulsomely by the leading insurance companies for his skill and daring. (South African Advertiser & Mail, 8.2.1864). The excitement generated by the Alabama continued for nearly a year. Thomas Bowler, the well-known painter printed a picture of the ship leaving Table Bay, clearly showing the familiar view of Cape Town's situation at the base of the Table Mountain chain.

(Bowler purportedly also intended calling his new-born baby Alabama). The meeting of R. W. Murray, editor of the Cape Argus, with Semmes ripened into a relationship with the latter that lasted up to the day of the gallant patriots death. (South African Remniscenses, (Cape Town, J.C.Juta. 1894). South African Advertiser & Mail of 19 August 1863, supplied its readers with a detailed description of the physical characteristics of Semmes, then aged 53, and the recipient of the Cape populations unwavering adulation. The Sea Bride was sold to a Cape Town speculator, one Marcus, and dispatched to the isolated harbour of Angra Pequena for the sale; but the prizes lack of registration papers was a serious disadvantage, and it ultimately ended in the Far East in a state of disrepair. The Tuscaloosas remaining wool cargo was sold anonymously in England, without a decision being made on the fate of future captured cargoes brought there. Meanwhile in early August the Alabama left for Simons Town, in False Bay, for minor repairs; and to avoid transgressing English law governing the period allowed to belligerents in a neutral port. The social round experienced in Cape Town continued to accompany the repairs, and included time spent by Semmes with Admiral Sir Baldwin Walker, and even at one stage with the governor and his wife. But the news which arrived from England was less pleasant. In America the Battle of Gettysburg had taken place, with its terrible slaughter. And Semmess hopes of ambushing passing Yankee merchant ships on the route between the Cape and the East were a failure, caused by such ships total avoidance of this normally major commercial route. Further, the news that the Federal warship, Vanderbilt, whose captain, Baldwin was particularly determined to apprehend Semmes was likely to return to Simons Bay, led to Semmes judging this was an opportune moment to leave. On the night of 24 September, in a calm interlude during a particularly strong Cape gale, the Alabama left the Cape. The sole South African remnant today of these exciting events is the ghommalledjie (folksong) that was first heard in the so-called Malay Quarter overlooking the Cape Town harbour, a song whose very source and illusion are dubious. Daar Kom Alabama, Alabama Kom oor die see Daar Kom Alabama, Alabama Kom oor die see Nooi, nooi, die riet-kooi nooi, die riet-kooi is gemaak, Die riet-kooi is vir my gemaak Om daarop te slaap This translates roughly as Here comes the Alabama, the Alabama comes over the sea Here comes the Alabama, the Alabama comes over the sea. Girl, girl, the reed-bed girl, the read-bed is made up for me The reed-bed is made up for me On which I can sleep.

Thereafter the narrative of the Alabama encapsulates a number of disasters affecting both the ship, and the individuals associated with her. Firstly at Angra Pequena, an officer on the Federal warship Vanderbilt became involved in a violent incident, culminating when the mate of a boat loading wool for export was killed. This precipitated an exchange of opinions at a high official level, involving both the British Government and the Cape authorities; with the former not wishing to jeopardise its finely balanced relationship with the United States Federal Government. Meanwhile out East, Semmes was endeavouring to raise information, (gleaned from British sources) about his proposed Federal victims activities, initially in the Straits between Java and Sumatra; and, subsequently in the more dangerous China seas. The necessity of doing repairs to the Alabama made Semmes decide to return to the Cape via the Bay of Bengal and Madagascar Channel. Meanwhile the legal standing of the Tuscaloosa was continuing to complicate relations between the British Government and the Cape Governor, Sir Philip Wodehouse, as the Alabamas imminent arrival in Cape Town was expected. After cruising off the Cape for several days, she returned in March 1864, with the question of the Tuscaloosas ownership still undecided, and being disputed by Semmes. The last, however, and his officers were delighted to revisit the Cape, possibly in the hope that the warm hospitality experienced on their previous visit, would be emulated. Again the crowd of inquisitive sightseers and Confederate supporters crowded up the ships sides, including Semmess great admirer, Murray of the Cape Argus. But unlike during the previous visit, the reception of visitors was not as differential as it had been on that occasion. After three days, on Good Friday morning, the Alabama was prepared to sail, virtually at the same time as a Federal gunboat, en route to China, passed through the breakwater. In the North Atlantic the Alabama destroyed a couple of Federal ships, before entering Cherbourg harbour on 11 June 1864, and landing her prisoners. Semmes was prevented from laying up his ship to implement necessary repairs and rest his crew, by the fact that Cherbourg was a port under the government supervision, which was adversely affected by the Emperor, Napoleon IIIs absence at Biarritz. This was virtually the moment when the Federal ship Kearsarge arrived, and wished to take aboard prisoners off-loaded by Semmes. The latter in turn, challenged the Kearsarge to a duel outside the harbour. Given that conditions on the Alabama were unsatisfactory for such an action, Semmess reason for doing so seems to have primarily rested on the need to get out of Cherbourg before the Kearsarges auxiliaries arrived to complete and ensure the Alabamas destruction. The fight was to take place on Sunday, when the Alabama steamed out of Cherbourg, while a French battleship was to guarantee that the three-mile neutrality law was

observed. A huge crowd, including, again, several artists accompanied these manoeuvres. Edouard Manet was one such artist, whose picture of the scene, based on sketches done from a small pilot boat, hangs in the Johnson Collection, Philadelphia. (History Today, May 1955, article on the Alabama). The Alabama was ready for the engagement, which took place some seven miles offshore. Semmes knew all the details concerning the Kearsarges priming, except that her machinery was protected with metal cables hanging over the sides. (In other words, that she was an ironclad, and therefore far superior to a wooden ship-of-war). Also present to watch the encounter, was the Deerhound belonging to a wealthy Lancashire family, which rescued some forty members of the Alabamas crew.

The diplomatic results of the Alabamas destructive were infinitely more far-reaching, and continued to be felt after she sank beneath the Channel. In the subsequent negotiations over responsibility and compensation, Great Britain and the United States established a joint commission in January-February 1871 to resolve all disputes between them, which also involved Canada. The commission met in Washington and held 37 meetings. On 5 May 1871 the Treaty of Washington was signed after the various differences between the contracting parties had been settled, and celebrated with strawberries and ice cream. (Tom Bingham, The Alabama Claims arbitration, footnote n.69). Despite other disputed issues, the essence of the Treaty was that both parties agreed that all claims (known collectively as the Alabama Claims) made by the United States against the British Government, for acts committed particularly by the Alabama, be referred to a tribunal composed of five arbitrators nominated by the British monarch, the President of the United States, the King of Italy, the President of the Swiss Confederation, and the Emperor of Brazil. The arbitrators submissions and duties were fully stipulated (Bingham, op.cit., p15ff) decisions being made by a majority. On 15 September 1872, in Geneva, the arbitrators unanimously found against Britain on the basis of its failure to use due diligence with regard to its neutral obligations, notably in the case of the Alabamas depredations. Despite the major differences between the British and American positions, there was a surprising lack of recrimination; and ultimately an award against Britain of $15.5 million for damages was agreed on by the majority of arbitrators. This was, for those times a considerable sum, the greatest the world had ever seen. The significance of the Alabama arbitration is that it was one of the rare occasions in history when the worlds most important nation, at the height of its power, submitted an issue of great national moment, to decision by a body which could heavily outvote it. (Bingham, ibid. p24). And in doing so resolve its differences with the opposing nation, without recourse to violence, as befitted two civilised nations.

This subsequent international arbitration affected the Cape little; and details of the Alabama and her visits gradually faded in the publics collective mind. The Confederate flag, presented by Semmes to his Cape Town agent during the ships second visit, was seen by few Capetonians, even in later years when displayed in the Cape Town Museum. Far fewer South Africans visited Lieutenant Cummingss lonely grave on the farm Kliprug at Saldanha Bay. But for many other local inhabitants the Alabama will always be coming over the sea in the eternal words of the song. The latters origin, and the very date of such origin, are uncertain. The occasional memories of the elderly taken in conjunction with the words of the song, seem to suggest she was recognised when she returned to the Cape from the East, after her previous visit. But the verses lack cohesion; and only the word Kooi (an original Dutch naval term referring to a bed) seems to associate the song with the sea. That association will always live, however, in the memory of a Colonial people, themselves the descendants of slaves, commemorating the existence of a distant country, striving to retain its slave-owning character.