Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1894-09-27
A FAMOUS wARsHIP.
Sad Fate of the Kearsarge. Conqueror
the Alabama.

Sad Fate of the KearsArEe. C0nqueror *
the Alabama.
Standing before the bulletin-boards
OF any of the newspapers of the coun--
try, on morning in the early days of
last February. we should have found
ourselves in group of people eagerly
discussing the news. We should have
heard EXPLANATIONS of surprise, sor-
row. and regret arising on every side:
what! the old Kearsarge wrecked"
''What a pity to lose the famous old
shipr' .eToo bad that she should be
lost!'-while the older men in the
crowds. turning to the younger, were
recalling incidents of those stirring
times when the Alabama, built in
England for the confederate states,
was for nearly two years the terror of
the seas.
During the height of the civil war,
from the Sunday, August "a, 1862, when
she was put in commission under the
command of Capt. Raphael Semmes,
near the Azores, to that Sunday, June
~, 1864, when she was sunk off the
coast of France, the Alabama roamed
at will over the North Atlantic, South
Atlantic and Indian oceans. From
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS " olASdPoTt her name
was known and spoken with fear. APP
pearing and disappearing, she captured
and looted prizes, pursued and de-
stroyed merchantmen. but eluded all
naval pursuit. Escaping every danger.
she accomplished more work and did
more harm than any other ship of an
cient or modern times.
So great, indeed, was the injury done
to American commerce, that at length
the government built ship of good
live-oak in the maynard of Ports
mouth, n. H., and naming her the
Kearsarge, after one of the mountain
peaks of the Old Granite State, COM
missioned her, under the command of
Capt John A. Winslow, to hunt down
this famous ''Corsair of the Seas
The Kearsarge Immediately went in
search of the Alabama, and found her
at last in the harbor of Cherbourg, on
the northern coast of France. The
Alabama had run in there for coal,
and Capt. Winslow, having made sure
of his famous enemy, awaited her of
the coast. Visitors from Paris, and all
the country round, hocked to town, as
rumors of a coming naval combat filed
the air, and the rumors proved not with
out foundation; for on Sunday morn
ing, June 10, 1864, while thousands OF
spectators lined the shore, the Ala
bama, flushed with her past exploits,
and confident of success, sailed proudly
out to meet the Kearsarge beyond the
neutral waters of the bay.
eve, as victors, will continue last
nights festivities on shore this even
ing" said the Alabama's officers to
their friends, on taking leave, laughing
merrily over the hand-shakings and
good-bys. One hour and two minutes
from the time the first guns were fred,
those very confident officers were swim
ming for their lives and the Alabama,
riddled with shot and shell. her hull
pierced through and through by the
eleven-inch shells from the great after
pivot gun of the Kearsarge, and with
many of her crew killed and wounded,
had disappeared forever beneath the
waves.
1.-THE Alabama sunk!' How the news,
when it arrived, flashed over this coun-
try, and with what rejoicing it was re-
ceived in all the loyal states!-H. Gil.
bert Frost, in ST. Nicholas.