The Rebel Raiders : The Astonishing History of the Confederacy's Secret Navy

Rating:
Summary: Astonishment upon Astonishment
Review: Astonishing revelations fill this book. Perhaps you thought that the American civil war was fought in America and was decided at Gettysburg. The story is not so simple. The English ruling class favored the South so strongly that they flaunted their own laws and found ways for the Confederacy to build and outfit raiders in England. These few raiders destroyed the American whaling fleet and ran insurance rates so high that the American mercantile fleet was driven from the seas (and suffers to this day). The cotton textile industry in England was in disaster. Workers were naked and hungry. The ruling class was on the verge of recognizing the South and forcing an armistice on the two parties. Then the North launched the most effective barrage of the war. Charity in the form of food and clothing came from the North to the unemployed textile workers in England. The English under class, against their own short-term interest made its voice heard, and England remained neutral.

Chap 1. Montgomery: Mallory, the Confederacy's Secretary of the Navy selects James Bulloch to build a raider navy in England. Mallory has never met nor heard of Bulloch, but on the recommendation of a mutual friend (Judah Benjamin, the Attorney General) and a brief interview decides Bulloch is the man. It was an excellent choice. Astonishing.

Chap 2. Liverpool: Bulloch arrives in Liverpool unexpected and with no credentials. He presents himself to a man he has never met, Charles Prioleau, the managing director of the Confederacy's unofficial English bank, who agrees to fund the venture. Astonishing. Prioleau introduces Bulloch to an English lawyer who sets about gutting English law to allow the building of warships, on the grounds that warships without guns aren't warships. Astonishing. Do these guys know a secret handshake?

Chap 3. Number 290: Bulloch contracts the building of warship 290. Obviously a warship, but without weapons, the customs inspector ignores it.

Chap 4. Nemesis: American Quaker, Thomas Dudley comes to England to oppose Bulloch.

Chap 5. The Enrica: 290 is named Enrica. Dudley and Bulloch vie.

Chap 6. The Passmore Affidavit: William Passmore, English able seaman attests that he was recruited to join the 290, with clear understanding that it was a warship for the South. This is clearly against English law.

Chap 7. Escape: The English drag their feet and Bulloch barely gets Enrica out of England.

Chap 8. Terceira: Enrica receives her guns and supplies in a neutral port. Semmes takes command. The ship becomes CSS Alabama.

Chap 9. First Blood: American whalers around Azores are destroyed by Alabama.

Chap 10. The Grand Banks: more destruction.

Chap 11. Off the Georges Bank: and more destruction.

Chap 12. The Pirate Semmes: battle in the press.

Chap 13.'An Instance of Sublime Christian Heroism' : England is close to meddling in US affairs. Not so astonishing if you are the biggest baddest nation on the planet. America sends charity to England. The English working class wins one for Lincoln. Astonishing.

Chap 14. USS Hatteras: Semmes lures Union gunboat USS Hatteras out into the Gulf of Mexico, sinks it, and rescues survivors.

Chap 15. Straws in the Wind: CSS Florida joins the war.

Chap 16. Brazil: more ships seized. CSS Georgia joins the battle. Semmes turns a captured ship into his auxiliary vessel.

Chap 17. The Laird Rams: At Laird's, Bulloch is building two seagoing ironclad rams that could pulverize the Union Navy's wooden ships, shell Union harbors, and turn the tide of the war. Congress debates whether to authorize a raider war on British mercantile shipping. The British begin to wonder about the beast they unleashed. They need not worry for about half a century. The US cabinet considers sending a squadron of ships to destroy the rams at dock. US envoy Adams informs Lord Russell that there will be war if the rams put to sea. Russell detains the rams. Astonishing.

Chap 18. Simon's Bay: CSS Alabama is getting worn out and the crew is getting surely. The Sea Bride is captured and sold. Semmes infuriates the crew by using the proceeds for operating funds instead of paying it out as prize money.

Chap 19. Singapore: Semmes finds that the American mercantile fleet won't come out of harbor.

Chap 20. To Cherbourg: Semmes takes Alabama to Cherbourg in France, looking for a dry dock and intending to pay off the crew and request replacement.

Chap 21. Battle: No dry dock facilities are available and the USS Kearsarge shows up. Semmes figures if he waits that more Union ships will show up, so that his best chance is to fight now. The CSS Alabama badly needs repair, is leaking, has moist powder, defective fuses, and broken machinery, but Semmes chooses to fight. Alabama is lost.

Chap 22. The Shenandoah: Bulloch purchases Bombay trader Sea King to be christened CSS Shenandoah, which destroys the American Pacific whaling fleet.

Chap 23. The Claims: the war is over and Britain finds that the side it did not support now has the largest, most-modern, most experienced Navy and Army in the world. The USN has double turreted sea going monitors that could destroy any British vessel without being scratched. The upstart is angry and dangerous and wants reparations. Congress passed a watered down neutrality act, based on the British act, that would allow Irish Republicans to outfit of merchant raiders in America and operate against Britain. Astonishing. Britain's government will not settle, but wealthy interests in England begin to consider that maybe they had more to loose by not settling.

Chap 24. Sumner's Speech: Senator Sumner gives a rousing speech in the senate attributing half the cost of the war to British perfidy. The speech is a sensation.

Chap 25. Geneva: Bismarck's German Confederacy emerges. Britain sees two dangerous upstarts that might unite against her. It looks like a really good idea to settle the Alabama claims.

Chap 26. l'Envoi: The precedent set by the Alabama tribunal eventually becomes international law. Astonishing.

Rating:
Summary: Author of the Monitor does it again
Review: James Tertius (is that Ter-tee-us, or Ter-shus?) de Kay is one of the most fun writers of military history alive. He's only hurt by the fact that he writes things on obscure and unusual topics, or treats them from an unusual angle. One of his books (Chronicles of the Frigate Macedonian) is essentially a biography of a ship, and another (Monitor) is that combined with a portrait of the man who designed her. One book mainly recounts a battle (The Battle of Stonington) in which no one was killed. The Rebel Raiders recounts the Confederacy's efforts to build commerce raiders in Britain, and the American authorities' attempts, largely unsuccessful, to stop them.

The first portion of the narrative is devoted to the construction of the ships in Britain, and James Bulloch's efforts in this regard. The second portion recounts Raphael Semmes' cruise in command of the Alabama, culminating in the famous battle off Cherbourg. A third part, shorter than the other two, recounts the efforts of the American government after the war to recoup the losses suffered by the American merchant marine because of the Alabama's cruise. Many ships that weren't sunk were sold to the British, who wouldn't, of course, pay full price or sell them back after the war.

De Kay is especially good at personalities, and this story abounds with them. Bulloch and Semmes are portrayed as interesting characters, and Charles Francis Adams, the American minister in London (a 19th Century ambassador) is active throughout the story. It's fascinating.

I do have a few criticisms. There's no index, and the one map given is inadequate. There was an attempt to recount all of the vessels purchased in Britain during the war, but the Stonewall, which made it out of port, and wound up in Cuba only to find out the war was over, isn't mentioned. Perhaps he's left that out for another book.

Given all of that, this is a wonderful book, and I recommend it strongly.