Assault on New York City - Part Two

[Note: you can listen to a podcast of this part of the story here.]

The Confederate Captain goes to sea:

During the war, Raphael Semmes developed a hatred for New York City and its newspapers, which caricatured him as a pirate. And he had a secret plan to steam his ship into New York harbor after dark and attack lower Manhattan. Not that New York City was defenseless against the Confederate raiders like The Alabama. A series of forts in the harbor’s islands, and on either side of the channel (now spanned by the Verazano Narrows Bridge) offered excellent spots from which to fire on enemy ships. Yet a surprise attack? A bold sudden assault at night on the North’s financial heart? Might it have worked? The first proposal to do so apparently came from the Confederate Secretary of The Navy, Stephen R. Mallory, who wrote to Captain Franklin Buchanan, Commander of another raider, The CSS Virginia:

SIR: I submit for your consideration the attack of New York by the Virginia. Can the Virginia steam to New York and attack and burn the city? She can, I doubt not, pass Old Point safely, and in good weather with a smooth sea could doubtless go to New York. Once in the bay she could shell and burn the city and the shipping. Such an event would eclipse all the glories of the combats of the sea, would place every man in it pre-eminently high, and would strike a blow from which the enemy could never recover. Peace would inevitably follow. Bankers would withdraw their capital from the city. The Brooklyn Navy Yard and its magazines and all the lower part of the city its magazines and all the lower part of the city would be destroyed, and such an event, by a single ship, would do more to achieve our immediate independence than would the results of many campaigns. Can the ship go there? Please give me your views.

If the captain replied, I have been unable to find it in the records. One way or the other, The Virginia never attacked. Late in the war, in August of 1864, the captain of another confederate raider would almost pull off such a raid. But Captain John Taylor Wood could not convince harbor pilots to lead his ship, The CSS Tallahassee, into New York harbor where he intended to burn ships on both sides of the East River and to fire on the Navy Yard in Brooklyn. Nonetheless, he was able to do significant damage in the outer harbor. He burned a bark and two brigs at Sandy Hook, New Jersey, as well as a half dozen other ships the following day between Montauk and Fire Island. In all, The CSS Tallahassee took 30 Union ships during a nineteen day long raid along the coast, returning safely to port in Wilmington.

Semmes First Ship:

Raphael Semmes' action in the war started long before his planned New York assault with The Alabama. In the fledgling Confederate Navy, Semmes’ first ship was a New Orleans passenger vessel he converted for battle and renamed the CSS Sumter. It was the first ship to fly the Confederate flag. Northern newspapers claimed that Semmes attacked unarmed civilian ships on the high seas and was, at best, a “privateer” who roamed the seas, stealing private property for personal profit. Ironically, Semmes himself had earlier written that for a so- called “privateer” ship to be legal, “it was necessary for at least a majority of the officers and crew of each cruiser should be citizens”…any other ship, he wrote,

“...would have become, from that moment, a pirate.” Yet about both ships he commanded, Semmes wrote “I had not half a dozen Southern men…most were foreign born”. There were even “A few Yankees on board,“ he added.

Most of the Sumter (and later The CSS Alabama) crew were experienced seamen, attracted by the promise of adventure and gold. Only the Captain and his officers were true-believers in the Confederate cause. As with much of live on board ship, there was a routine to the raids Semmes conducted. When the lookout posted atop the mast spotted a ship, the crew of The CSS Sumter would raise the flag of another country*…often British… and Semmes would go after his prey, chasing down the captains who ran. When they were close, a shell would be fired over the targeted ship as a warning…additional shells would be fired if necessary… until the “enemy” vessel stopped. A boarding party of armed confederates would bring the captain and his papers back to Semmes to determine if the ship was owned by Northerners or if it carried Northern cargo. If either was so, Semmes would remove the crew and any goods needed for his own mission. More often than not, he would then set fire to the empty ship. Prisoners would be dropped off at the nearest land or put on another boat to be carried to shore. In cases in which he could not burn the ship, he would collect a bond, the captain's promise to pay The Confederacy the value of the ship after a southern victory in the war. As the war progressed, as sailing became more and more dangerous for Northern shipping companies, the ownership of the majority of the U.S. merchant marine was transferred to other flags…or not. Ship captains would sometimes carry counterfeit papers showing foreign ownership. But Semmes legal training allowed him to him to easily identify false papers, after which he would quickly condemn the ship to flames. After taking eighteen “prizes” with the CSS Sumter, Semmes was forced to abandon the badly worn ship in Gibraltar Harbor, where it had been blockaded by a U.S. warship. Meanwhile, the Confederacy had been busy obtaining better equipped raiders. The South had insufficient southern shipbuilding facilities, so the government signed contracts with British shipbuilders for what would become the CSS Florida and the CSS Alabama.

The Confederates paid with cotton credits. Britain was officially neutral in the war, and it would be a violation of that neutrality for English companies to build warships for the South. The shipbuilders argued that the vessels were launched without any armament, and thus were not military craft. But it was clear from their designs that the vessels were not built for fishing, shipping or pleasure. Their superstructure featured openings for the cannons that would be added once the craft left English waters. An American consul, Thomas Dudley, called the unarmed ships “embryonic warships”, but the British Government looked the other way.

After the war, England would pay heavily for allowing the ships to be built. The international court decision in 1872 known as the “Alabama Claims” would require Britain to pay $15.5 Million to the U.S. for damages caused by the Alabama and other raiders. Forced to abandon the CSS Sumter in Gibraltar, Semmes began his trip back home. But while waiting in Nassau to catch a blockade runner home, he received a telegram ordering him to report to Liverpool. A new ship awaited him, a 200 foot warship built with speed and stealth in mind. She was powered by both a full rigging of sail and a coal-powered steam engine. For her time, the ship was high-tech. The propeller could be lifted out of the water into a well, preventing it from slowing the vessel when she was under sail. There was a condenser device to provide fresh water for the crew. The coal holds were positioned around the engine to protect it from shells. And the smokestack could be lowered into the deck, making it more difficult to identify the ship from a distance.

By the time Semmes got to England, the new ship had sailed to the Azores to be fitted with the cannons and supplies that would transform her into a true weapon of war. When he caught up with it, Semmes proclaimed the ship “as fine a vessel as ever floated.”

(Semmes--front---and his First Lieutenant, Georgian John Kell, on board The CSS Alabama. There are no known quality photos

of the ship from a distance. The image above is from a series

by a Capetown photographer. August 12, 1864)

At the shipyard, she had been called "The Enrica" (a foreign sounding name to add to the fantasy that she had nothing to do with the U.S. Civil War) and "The 290" (she was the 290th hull built by The Laird Company). But once Semmes recruited and sworn in a crew of just over one-hundred, he christened her as The CSS Alabama on August 24, 1862. The captain and his new crew quickly turned to the business of commerce raiding. [ADDENDUM: Another part of Semmes lore is the appearance of a comet, "a shooting star" the first night the CSS Sumter went raiding, and the first night Semmes took command of the Alabama as well! Read about it on the blog we created as a companion to the documentary that was shelved.] * This was apparently a common practice on both sides during the war and before. [NEXT: in Part Three, to be posted Sunday, September 20th, The CSS Alabama burns its way across the seas as the Yankees fume. He targets his enemies in New York City.] [PHOTO: Some of the many CSS Alabama models that are part of the collections at The Museum of Mobile.]