Raphael Semmes, born in Maryland in 1809, entered the U.S. Navy as a midshipman in 1826 and studied law on the side until he was admitted to the bar. During the Mexican-American War his ship, the USS Somers, capsized in a squall off Veracruz and 37 sailors drowned, so he joined the landing forces and marched inland to Mexico City. When Alabama seceded in 1861 he joined the Confederate Navy, turned the steamer Habana into the CSS Sumter, broke the blockade at New Orleans and captured 18 U.S. merchant ships before a coal embargo at Gibraltar and the arrest of his paymaster in Tangier forced him to sell the ship.

Commanding the British-built CSS Alabama from August 1862 to June 1864, Semmes sailed from the Atlantic to the East Indies, captured 65 merchant ships and sank the USS Hatteras, refueling under the 24-hour neutral port rule. Off Cherbourg the USS Kearsarge, its hull hung with chain armor hidden behind wood panels, sank the Alabama, and a British yacht carried Semmes to England. He returned to command the James River Squadron, scuttled his ironclads, led sailors as a Naval Brigade, and insisted his surrender parole list both his naval and army ranks, which shielded him from piracy charges.

• The Tangier incident saw Semmes argue neutrality law through diplomatic channels to free his arrested paymaster.
• The Alabama’s powder and fuses had decayed after two years at sea, and many shots failed to explode.
• Semmes threw his sword into the sea rather than surrender it to Captain John Winslow.
• After the war he taught moral philosophy at Louisiana State University for five months, edited a Memphis paper, and died in 1877 after eating bad shrimp.
• Jules Verne compared the Nautilus to the Alabama in a letter, and the Alabama’s Liverpool backers worked out of Nautilus House.