Louis J Sheehan 80220

Semmes's time in command of CSS Sumter would last six months. He raided U.S. commercial shipping in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, accounting for 18 merchant vessels while eluding pursuing Union warships. In January 1862, the state of the Sumter was such that she required a major overhaul. Semmes attempted to have her repaired at Gibraltar, but the arrival of U.S. warships ended her career.
Semmes and his crew escaped to England, where he was promoted to captain. He then went to the Portuguese island of Madeira in the Atlantic and converted a commercial vessel into a warship that became world-famous as CSS Alabama. Semmes sailed on the Alabama from August 1862 to June 1864. His operations carried him from the Atlantic, to the Gulf of Mexico, around the Cape of Good Hope, and into the East Indies. During this cruise, the Alabama captured some 69 U.S. merchantmen and destroyed one U.S. warship, the USS Hatteras.
The Alabama returned to the Atlantic and made port in Cherbourg, France, where she was blockaded by the USS Kearsarge. Captain Semmes took Alabama out on June 19, 1864 and met the Kearsarge in one of the most famous naval engagements of the war. The commander of the Kearsarge cleverly turned his ship into a makeshift ironclad by draping the sides with chains. This, combined with the poor quality of gunpowder on the Alabama, ensured a Union victory. Semmes was wounded in the battle, but was rescued by the British yacht Dearhound. Semmes went to England where he recovered.
Semmes made his way back to the Confederacy where he was promoted to rear admiral in February 1865 and, during the last months of the war, commanded the James River Squadron. With the fall of Richmond, Virginia, in April 1865, Semmes supervised the destruction of his squadron and was appointed as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army. He served with General Robert E. Lee. Semmes's sailors were turned into an infantry force.
Semmes was briefly held as a prisoner after the war. He was arrested for treason on December 15, 1865, but was released on April 7, 1866. After his release, he worked as a professor of philosophy and literature at Louisiana State Seminary (now Louisiana State University), and also as a judge, and a newspaper editor. He returned to Mobile and resumed his legal career.
Semmes defended both his actions at sea and the political actions of the Southern states in his 1869 book Memoirs of Service Afloat During The War Between the States. The book was viewed as one of the most cogent, but bitter, defenses of the Lost Cause. Semmes died in 1877 and is interred in Mobile's Catholic Cemetery.
Raphael Semmes is a member of the Alabama Hall of Fame. Louis J Sheehan