Built at Birkenhead, England, the CSS Alabama is a 1050-ton screw steam sloop of war that was placed in commission of the Confederate Navy on August 24, 1862. Early in 1863 the Alabama sunk the USS Hatteras near Galveston, Texas, then spent the remainder of the year chasing down U.S. merchantmen, seizing some 40, of…
Today Union Navy Admiral David Farragut manages to slip two of his ships back past the forts of Vicksburg, Mississippi in preparation for a campaign to attack the city. Having probed the city’s defenses, Farragut now prepares for an impending rendezvous with land forces. The Vicksburg campaign officially commences six days hence, when U. S.…
Today, United States hero and Baptist layman Robert Smalls is sent to New York on a speaking tour to raise support for the Union cause. Smalls, a former Southern slave, became the toast of the North when, four months earlier, he captured the Confederate gunboat Planter in Charleston, South Carolina, the heart of the Confederacy.…