"Battle of the U.S.S. Kearsarge and the C.S.S. Alabama" is a painting by French artist Édouard Manet.
USS Kearsarge, a Mohican-class sloop-of-war, is best known for her defeat of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama during the American Civil War. The Kearsarge was the only... ship of the United States Navy named for Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire. Subsequent ships were later named Kearsarge in honor of the ship. She was built at Portsmouth Navy Yard in Portsmouth, New Hampshire under the 1861 American Civil War emergency shipbuilding program. The new 1,550 long tons steam sloop of war was launched on 11 September 1861 sponsored by Mrs. McFarland, wife of the editor of the Concord Statement, and commissioned on 24 January 1862, with Captain Charles W. Pickering in command. Soon after, she was hunting for Confederate raiders in European waters. Kearsarge departed Portsmouth on 5 February 1862, for the coast of Spain. She thence sailed to Gibraltar to join the blockade of Confederate raider CSS Sumter, forcing her abandonment in December. However, Sumter's commanding captain, Raphael Semmes, soon commissioned Confederate raider CSS Alabama on the high seas off the Azores.more
CSS Alabama was a screw sloop-of-war built for the Confederate States Navy at Birkenhead, United Kingdom, in 1862 by John Laird Sons and Company. Alabama served as a commerce... raider, attacking Union merchant and naval ships over the course of her two-year career, during which she never anchored in a Southern port. She was sunk in battle by the USS Kearsarge in 1864 near the Port of Cherbourg, France. Alabama was built in secrecy in 1862 by British shipbuilders John Laird Sons and Company in North West England at their shipyards at Birkenhead, Cheshire. This was arranged by the Confederate agent James Dunwoody Bulloch, who was leading the procurement of sorely needed ships for the fledgling Confederate States Navy. He arranged the contract through Fraser, Trenholm Company, a cotton broker in Liverpool with ties to the Confederacy. Initially known as hull number 290, the ship was launched on 15 May 1862 and secretly slipped out of Liverpool on 29 July 1862 as the Enrica. Agent Bulloch arranged for a civilian crew and captain to sail Enrica to Terceira Island in the Azores.more
The Battle of Cherbourg, or sometimes the Battle off Cherbourg or the Sinking of CSS Alabama, was a single ship action fought during the American Civil War between a United States... Navy warship, the USS Kearsarge, and a Confederate States Navy warship, the CSS Alabama, on June 19, 1864, off Cherbourg, France. After five successful commerce raiding missions in the Atlantic Ocean, CSS Alabama turned into Cherbourg Harbor on June 11, 1864. The rebel sloop-of-war was commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes, formerly of CSS Sumter. It was Captain Semmes intention to dry dock his ship and receive repairs at the French port. The Confederate Navy vessel was crewed by about 170 men and armed with six 32 pound cannons, one 110-pounder and one 68-pound gun. The Alabama had been pursued for two years by the screw sloop-of-war USS Kearsarge, under Captain John Winslow. The Kearsarge was armed with two 11 inch smoothbore Dahlgren guns which fired approximately 166 pounds of solid shot, four 32 pound guns and one 30-pounder Parrott rifle. She was manned by around 150 sailors and officers.more
The American Civil War , often referred to as The Civil War in the United States, was a civil war fought over the secession of the Confederacy. In response to the election of an... anti-slavery Republican as President, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25 states supported the federal government . After four years of warfare, mostly within the Southern states, the Confederacy surrendered and slavery was outlawed everywhere in the nation. Issues that led to war were partially resolved in the Reconstruction Era that followed, though others remained unresolved. In the presidential election of 1860, the Republican Party, led by Abraham Lincoln, had campaigned against expanding slavery beyond the states in which it already existed. The Republicans strongly advocated nationalism, and in their 1860 platform they denounced threats of disunion as avowals of treason. After a Republican victory, but before the new administration took office on March 4, 1861, seven cotton states declared their secession and joined to form the Confederate States of America.more
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. His early masterworks, The Luncheon on the Grass and Olympia, engendered great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are considered watershed paintings that mark the genesis of modern art.... Born into an upper class household with strong political connections, Manet rejected the future originally envisioned for him, and became engrossed in the world of painting. He married Suzanne Leenhoff in 1863. The last 20 years of Manet's life saw him form bonds with other great artists of the time, and develop his own style that would be heralded as innovative and serve as a major influence for future painters. Édouard Manet was born in Paris on 23 January 1832, to an affluent and well connected family.more