About the lecture:
The British-built CSS Alabama, commanded by Capt. Raphael Semmes, was the most successful of all Confederate commerce raiders. The cruiser captured or burned 65 Union merchant ships and the sidewheeler gunboat USS Hatteras. After two years of roving the seas searching for prey, Alabama required major repairs and was put into Cherbourg, France. There the sloop of war USS Kearsarge, commanded by James Winslow, engaged and sank Alabama on June 19, 1864.