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promiscuously,” wrote Semmes, “about the streets of Liverpool … they looked as little like the crew of a man-of-war, as one can well conceive. Still, there was some physique among these fellows, and soap, and water, and clean shirts would make a wonderful difference in appearance.”30 The officers, on the other hand, were mostly Southerners, the notable exceptions being the master’s mate, twenty-one-year-old George Townley Fullam from Hull, and the assistant surgeon, David Herbert Llewellyn, a vicar’s son who had recently completed his residency at Charing Cross hospital.31 Semmes considered the Alabama to be a ship of war rather than a privateer, and he demanded navy-style obedience from the men. “My code was like that of the Medes and Persians—it was never relaxed,” he wrote. “I had around me a staff of excellent officers, who always wore their side arms, and pistols, when on duty, and from this time onward we never had any trouble about keeping the most desperate and turbulent characters in subjection.”32 The highest wages of any fleet and the promise of fantastic amounts of prize money also helped to maintain discipline.

The Alabama scored its first capture on September 5, an unarmed whaler, which was raided for supplies and then set afire. The merchant crew was allowed to go ashore in its whaleboats. Those men were lucky; other crews were held prisoner belowdecks until Semmes could unload them at a neutral port. By Christmas, the Alabama had successfully pounced on ten U.S. ships.33 One capture often led to another, since Semmes would use the information gleaned from logbooks and timetables to chase after sister ships. But at Galveston, Semmes was offered a different opportunity—to prove to the world that the Alabama was capable of much more than merely preying on civilian ships. For the first time, she was meeting adversaries of her own class.34

As soon as Semmes caught sight of the five blockading ships in front of Galveston, he ordered the Alabama to retreat slowly, hoping to entice one of the vessels into a chase. The Federal captain of the Hatteras took the bait, believing that he had caught a blockade runner in the act, and hardly noticed that Galveston was becoming smaller and smaller in the distance. “At length,” recounted Semmes, “when I judged that I had drawn the stranger out about 20 miles from his fleet, I furled my sails, beat to quarters, prepared my ship for action, and wheeled to meet him.”35 The ships faced each other nose to nose, a mere hundred yards apart and yet only partially visible in the clear, moonless night. Using a bullhorn, the warship challenged first, ordering the unknown vessel to identify herself. Semmes cheekily shouted back, “This is her Britannic Majesty’s steamer Petrel.” There followed an awkward pause while the captain of the Hatteras pondered his next move. He had no wish to provoke the Royal Navy, but there was something suspicious about the ship floating before him. After some rapid calculation of consequences, he announced he was sending over a boarding party. Semmes called back that he was delighted, thus buying the Alabama a few precious minutes to load her guns. They heard orders being shouted and the creaking sound of a boat being lowered into the water. This was the signal for First Lieutenant Kell to cry out, “This is the Confederate States Steamer Alabama!” followed by a broadside from the cannons. The captain of the Hatteras quickly returned fire. Each time the Alabama landed a shell on her adversary, one of the sailors was heard to shout, “That’s from the ‘scum of England’!”36 In less than fifteen minutes the Hatteras was completely disabled and starting to sink. The survivors from the warship were picked up and held in the brig until the Alabama docked at Port Royal in Jamaica on January 20.

If that were not enough to shake the U.S. Navy’s morale, a week later the blockading fleet at Mobile Bay in Alabama failed to stop the midnight escape of the infamous CSS Florida, the ship originally known as the Oreto. After her hurried exit from Liverpool in March 1862, the