A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [344]
The French port admiral informed Semmes that he had made a mistake in choosing Cherbourg over Le Havre. Cherbourg was a naval station and subject to government oversight; Le Havre was a commercial port with many private docks where the Alabama could have settled without interference. The admiral could not allow Semmes to dry-dock his ship without permission from the emperor, who was enjoying a brief sojourn in the country. While they waited for the emperor’s return to Paris, USS Kearsarge sailed into view. (The American legation in Paris had alerted Captain Winslow to the arrival of the Alabama.) Although Captain Winslow led his crew in a rousing cheer when he announced they were going to fight the Alabama at last, he was feeling as exhausted as Semmes. “I find I have not the health that I had,” he wrote on June 13. “I am fast running down hill.”19
“Here we are,” wrote Semmes’s English assistant surgeon, David Herbert Llewellyn, to one of his old colleagues at Charing Cross Hospital. “An enemy is outside. If she only stops long enough we go out and fight her. If I live, expect to see me in London shortly. If I die, give my best love to all who know me.”20 Semmes could have waited for the emperor’s permission to dry-dock, but he deliberately chose to fight the Kearsarge. “The two ships are so equally matched that I do not feel at liberty to decline it,” Semmes wrote in his journal, ignoring the difference between the Kearsarge’s spruce condition and the Alabama’s dilapidated state.
Accordingly, on Sunday morning, June 19th, between 9 and 10 o’clock [recalled Lieutenant John Kell], we weighed anchor and stood out of the western entrance of the harbor, the French iron-clad frigate Couronne following us. The day was bright and beautiful, with a light breeze blowing. Our men were neatly dressed, and our officers in full uniform. The report of our going out to fight the Kearsarge had been circulated and many persons from Paris and the surrounding countryside had come down to witness the engagement.21
Seven miles beyond French waters, the Kearsarge floated quietly while Captain Winslow carried out the Sunday inspection of the ship and crew. The routine seemed no different from the week before, except that today the guns were loaded and, perched high above the deck, special lookouts were scanning the horizon.22 The Alabama sailed into view with a growing flotilla of spectator ships behind her. A band aboard one vessel played “Dixie”; on another the crew gave “three cheers for the Alabama.” In the few moments left before battle stations, Semmes made his final speech to the crew, telling them:
Remember that you are in the English Channel, the theatre of so much of the naval glory of our race, and that the eyes of all Europe are at this moment, upon you. The flag that floats over you is that of a young Republic, who bids defiance to her enemies, whenever, and wherever found. Show the world you know how to uphold it!23
When the two ships were a mile apart, they turned broadside to broadside and began firing at each other in classic dueling fashion. On the Alabama, Dr. Llewellyn was operating on a wounded sailor when a shell burst open the wardroom, sweeping the table and patient from under him.24 Two more shells struck the pivot gun, killing its crew. Just one of the Alabama’s guns scored a direct hit on the Kearsarge—a shell landed on the sternpost—but it failed to explode. The Kearsarge demolished the Alabama in less than an hour. Only when the vessel was clearly listing did Semmes give the order to abandon ship. Nine of the crew were dead; at least two dozen more lay wounded about the deck. Dr. Llewellyn came up to help load the worst injured onto a dinghy. The