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On this Date in 1864

Posted on 06/19/2018 5:30:41 AM PDT by Bull Snipe

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1 posted on 06/19/2018 5:30:41 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe
17 United States sailors of the USS Kearsarge were awarded the Medal of Honor in the Battle of Cherbourg, sinking the rebel pirate ship Alabama.

And the Alabama was in fact a pirate ship, by the admission of its own captain, Mr. Semmes.

2 posted on 06/19/2018 7:12:31 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: Alter Kaker
History is written by the people who win, and it colors everything they did as good, and everything the losers did as bad.

It's just another form of propaganda.

3 posted on 06/19/2018 7:17:53 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Alter Kaker

Sixty five ships sunk or captured, 2,000 crewmen captured.
Not one death among them. Unusual for a pirate, don’t you think.


4 posted on 06/19/2018 7:33:37 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe
Off the three-mile limit in '64,
(Roll, Alabama, roll!)
The Alabama sank to the ocean floor.
(Oh, roll, Alabama, roll!)

The Alabama was all they got;
(Roll, Alabama, roll!)
Captain Semmes escaped on a British yacht.
(Oh, roll, Alabama, roll!)

--from The Alabama (c. 1870)

5 posted on 06/19/2018 8:07:32 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: Bull Snipe
After the war, Confederate partisans named a range of hills near Lone Pine, Calif. the Alabama Hills, after the ship. In the twentieth century, dozens of movies, mostly westerns, were shot in the Alabama Hills. Many of these are shown at an annual film festival in Lone Pine.

To even the score, Union partisans in the area established Kearsarge City, a mining community which became a ghost town when the mines petered out, and Kearsarge Pass, a popular destination for hikers today.

6 posted on 06/19/2018 8:20:01 AM PDT by Fiji Hill
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To: DiogenesLamp
History is written by the people who win, and it colors everything they did as good, and everything the losers did as bad. It's just another form of propaganda.

Um, no, sorry but objective facts are facts - what you're spewing is leftist relativism. Captain Semmes, the loser of the battle (and the war), wrote history. He admitted that his actions constituted piracy. That's not victor's justice, that's his own admission.

7 posted on 06/19/2018 8:44:06 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: Bull Snipe
Unusual for a pirate, don’t you think.

It was smart on Semmes' part, as the only reason the Alabama was able to mount operations was because of support from the UK. If he had been killing merchant sailors, the British would have withdrawn support a lot earlier. As it was, the US government sued the UK for damages and won a major award in international arbitration.

8 posted on 06/19/2018 8:49:16 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: Alter Kaker

Commerce raiding is a legitimate tactic in maritime warfare.
CSS Alabama was commissioned ship in the Confederate Navy, not a privateer. CSS Alabama was acting under orders from the Confederate Navy Department, not a letter of Marque.
That is not piracy. That is naval war at sea. She was no more a pirate ship than any submarine torpedoing a commercial vessel of the enemy. Both the Royal Navy and the French Navy recognized her as a legitimate warship of the Confederate Navy and not a privateer. Otherwise they would have been hunting her down, just as the U.S. Navy was.


9 posted on 06/19/2018 8:52:31 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: Alter Kaker
He admitted that his actions constituted piracy.

That is not enough context to discern the truth. When the former confederate states voted to ratify the 13th amendment, is there any reasonable person who would believe this actually constituted the will of the people of those states rather than a coerced position?

We know military guns forced them to "ratify" that amendment, and we also know that it was simply the will of the power in Washington that they do so, not real consent.

So how do we know what sort of pressure was brought on this captain? If he thought they constituted piracy at the time he did them, then why did he do them?

Sounds like a coerced confession, which again, makes it the desired propaganda of the winners.

10 posted on 06/19/2018 9:07:44 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

Amply demonstrating once again that you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.


11 posted on 06/19/2018 2:43:27 PM PDT by rockrr ( Everything is different now...)
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To: rockrr
Amply demonstrating once again that you haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.

I will admit to not knowing a great deal about the doings of the CSS Alabama other than it's final encounter near France, about which I know a little, but not much more than is mentioned here.

Regarding the coercion of the Southern states in voting for an amendment because they were forced to do so, and therefore representing a deliberate breach of the constitutional process, I know all I need to know.

It is a pretense that the 13th and 14th amendments were passed legally, but at this point the powers in Washington didn't care about law or the constitution, they were reveling in the raw exercise of power.

12 posted on 06/19/2018 2:52:40 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Bull Snipe
She was no more a pirate ship than any submarine torpedoing a commercial vessel of the enemy.

That was very controversial in the First World War. Submarines didn't make their presence and demands known in the way that surface ships couldn't help doing.

P.S. The artist Edouard Manet was on the coast when the battle took place and rendered it in this painting.


13 posted on 06/19/2018 2:56:19 PM PDT by x
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To: x

Germans used warships and converted merchant ships as surface commerce raiders during WWI. They even used a 3 masted sailing ship for one. The Seeadler captured 15 ships before grounding on a reef ended her career. They used warships such as Graf Spee and converted merchant ships such as Atlantis during the WWII. By the time WWII rolled around, the controversy over using submarines to interdict enemy shipping had all but disappeared. The CSS Alabama was well within it rights to attack and sink U.S. flagged commercial vessels.


14 posted on 06/19/2018 3:14:00 PM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe
The CSS Alabama was well within it rights to attack and sink U.S. flagged commercial vessels.

Only if you accept the premise that the CSA constituted a legitimate separate nation. If you maintain the fiction that they were merely a "rebel" section of a single nation, than any activity by any ship under their control constitutes mere criminal acts.

As I have said several times before. The "condition" of the CSA is in a quantum state of superposition, being both legitimately a separate nation, and simultaneously a rebelled section of a single nation, depending on the need of the winning government to paint it as one thing or the other.

It's status is completely subjected to the instantaneous needs of the victor, and could be changed as necessary to fit whatever rationalization argument they wished to put forth.

15 posted on 06/19/2018 10:52:31 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

Semmes was indicted in 1866 on charges of treason. Those charges were later dropped. Semmes was not indicted for piracy. That would indicate that the senior officials of the Johnson administration recognized that he was acting within the accepted bounds of Naval warfare. The Royal and the French navies seemed satisfied that Semmes was acting in that manner also. Had they believed otherwise there standing orders would have allowed them to pursue the Alabama as a pirate.


16 posted on 06/20/2018 2:41:35 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe
Dodged my point. They treated him as if he was a real captain of a real ship of war of a sovereign nation. They did not treat him as if he were a criminal in rebellion against his government.

This business of "rebellion" was a carefully crafted legal fiction created for the sole purpose of lending some quasi legitimacy to the deliberate attack on another country.

17 posted on 06/20/2018 6:51:07 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: DiogenesLamp

Didn’t dodge your point, wasn’t interested in it.


18 posted on 06/20/2018 7:51:05 AM PDT by Bull Snipe
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To: Bull Snipe
Didn’t dodge your point, wasn’t interested in it.

No, why would you be? Nobody wants their side's nose rubbed in their side's double standard.

But your response reminded me of Leon Trotsky — ‘You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.’

19 posted on 06/20/2018 8:26:17 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp ("of parents owing allegiance to no other sovereignty.")
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To: Bull Snipe

If memory serves, Raphael Semmes was the only many to hold flag rank in both the army and the navy simultaneously - Rear Admiral in the Confederate Navy and Brigadier General in the Confederate Army.


20 posted on 06/20/2018 8:29:54 AM PDT by DoodleDawg
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