Wolf of the Deep: Raphael Semmes and the Notorious Confederate Raider CSS Alabama

By Stephen Fox
Illustrated, maps, notes, index, 317 pp., 2007. Alfred A. Knopf, 201 E 50th St., New York, NY 10022, $25.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Joseph Derie
Joseph Derie is a VMI graduate and a long time Civil War buff and military book reviewer. A retired Coast Guard officer and licensed officer of the Merchant Marine, he is a Certified Marine Investigator and marine surveyor.

Review:
Wolf of the Deep is another recounting of the story of the CSS Alabama and its illustrious Captain, Raphael Semmes.

From its commissioning into the Confederate Navy in the Azores in August 1862, to its sinking by the USS Kearsarge off Cherbourg in June 1864, the Alabama would sink or capture 66 vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, by far the largest total of any commerce raider in history.

The sinking by the Kearsarge would later prove a "near run thing," as a shell fired by the Alabama would later be found in the Kearsarge's rudderpost. Only a faulty Confederate fuse (there were many of them from the Alabama that day) kept the Kearsarge from losing its steering and lying helpless under the guns of the Alabama.

Wolf of the Deep weaves the story of the Alabama and its cruise together with the U.S. Navy's generally ineffectual efforts to capture the Alabama, the story of Raphael Semmes and his life prior to the Alabama and first-hand accounts of the ship by captured Union sailors.

Interestingly, it is apparent that Semmes' prewar Union Navy colleagues would not have thought of him as the bold and dashing raider he developed into almost overnight, and that the Alabama was (by the accounts of some of the officers and men captured) something of a mess with a generally unruly crew.

The U.S. Navy's efforts to intercept the Alabama came to naught because of an intellectual failure to examine the problem, apparently sending ships where she had been reported rather than trying to figure out where she might go and sending ships into those areas.

The USS Kearsarge got lucky three times. The first time was its position. It was off Holland when it heard the Alabama had arrived in Cherbourg, so it could arrive quickly before the Alabama cleared port.

The second time was Semmes' decision to fight. The Alabama didn't have to go out and fight. Semmes could have paid off most of the crew, leaving a skeleton crew aboard, and keep the vessel in Cherbourg until it was sold, decommissioned or other arrangements made to strike it from the Confederate Naval list.

The decision to fight a larger, better-armed purposely built man-of-war (the Alabama was not designed for a stand-up fight with a naval vessel, but rather for speed and stealth against merchant ships) was the last desperate roll of the die - and it almost worked.

The third time the Kearsarge was lucky was the aforementioned shell in its rudderpost.

There is much in here about Semmes the man and his family. His wife was from Cincinnati and lived there during part of the Civil War, fleeing south to their home in Mobile when life in Ohio became intolerable due to her husband's notoriety. While Semmes had been away at the Mexican War she became pregnant. Semmes apparently forgave her and accepted the child.

The final chapter contains information about the French Navy's 1984 discovery of the Alabama off Cherbourg and the efforts to salvage some of its relics. The book also includes contemporary newspaper accounts and contemporary published poetry about the Alabama.

Wolf of the Deep is a well-written account and does have something new to say about an old story. It will be of interest to Civil War navy aficionados, even though they may have thought they had read everything about the Alabama, as well as those who want to learn more about the Confederacy's war on marine commerce. It is also recommended as a gift to those who like to read history.