Zusatztext Meticulously researched and entertaining. . . . A true tale of pirates! spies and naval warfare that reads like a thriller. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Excellent. . . . An amazing account of adventures on the high seas! full of spies! treachery! and rousing battles. The Charleston Post & Courier Rollicking. . . . A virtuoso display of historical sleuthing [with] more than enough high seas excitement and intimate revelations to keep the reader turning the pages well into the night. The Mobile Press-Register Amazing. . .sheds light on a seldom observed aspect of [the Civil] War. The Tennessean Informationen zum Autor Stephen Fox Klappentext The electrifying story of Raphael Semmes and the CSS Alabama! the Confederate raider that destroyed Union ocean shipping and took more prizes than any other raider in naval history. In July! 1862! Semmes received orders to take command of a secret new British-built steam warship! the Alabama. At its helm! he would become the most hated and feared man in ports up and down the Union coastand a Confederate legend. Now! with unparalleled authority and depth! and with a vivid sense of the excitement and danger of the time! Stephen Fox tells the story of Captain Semmes's remarkable wartime exploits. From vicious naval battles off the coast of France! to plundering the cargo of Union ships in the Caribbean! this is a thrilling tale of an often overlooked chapter of the Civil War. Leseprobe Chapter One: The Captain and the Ship Like most of the military heroes of the Civil War, Raphael Semmes burst into that sudden historical spotlight after an earlier career of no particular distinction. During thirty-five years in the Navy of the United States, he had often clashed with his superiors and railed at the clogged pipelines of promotion. He seemed distracted by intellectual and literary interests, or his second career as a lawyer, or the needs and pulls of his large family. Naval colleagues such as David Dixon Porter, more single-minded than Semmes, doubted his seriousness. While in the United States Navy, Semmes had little reputation as an officer, Porter recalled after the war."He was indolent and fond of his comfort, so that altogether his associates in the Navy gave him credit for very little energy. What was, then, the astonishment of his old companions to find that Semmes was pursuing a course that required the greatest skill and vigor; for there never was a naval commander who in so short a time committed such depredations on an enemy's commerce, or who so successfully eluded the vessels sent in pursuit of him."Porter's later praise and criticism of Semmes were both filtered through the distorting passions of the opposite sides they had taken in the war. Porter was himself one of the many frustrated Union pursuers of the Confederate commander, and that public failure no doubt sharpened the edges of his dismissal of the prewar Semmes. Yet his final judgment of a former colleague who was so often underestimated seems balanced and well deserved. The inertness he had displayed while in the United States Navy had disappeared, Porter wrote of the captain who bestrode the deck of the Alabama . He had become a new man.At the core of this transformation was Semmes's internal sense of himself as a Southernerevolving over many years, prodded along by events, and not finally firmed until after the start of the war. His Roman Catholic ancestors had for five generations lived in the border state of Maryland, a terrain contentiously split between its free-labor northern counties and slaveowning southern regions. In Charles County, twenty-five miles south of Washington, the Semmeses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries grew tobacco and owned slaves. At times they attained wealth and prominence as members of the local Catholic gentry.Raphael was born on September 27, 18...

8220;Meticulously researched and entertaining. . . . A true tale of pirates, spies and naval warfare that reads like a thriller.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution“Excellent. . . . An amazing account of adventures on the high seas, full of spies, treachery, and rousing battles.”—The Charleston Post & Courier “Rollicking. . . . A virtuoso display of historical sleuthing [with] more than enough high seas excitement and intimate revelations to keep the reader turning the pages well into the night.”—The Mobile Press-Register “Amazing. . .sheds light on a seldom observed aspect of [the Civil] War.”—The Tennessean

Auteur

Stephen Fox

Texte du rabat

The electrifying story of Raphael Semmes and the CSS Alabama, the Confederate raider that destroyed Union ocean shipping and took more prizes than any other raider in naval history.

In July, 1862, Semmes received orders to take command of a secret new British-built steam warship, the Alabama. At its helm, he would become the most hated and feared man in ports up and down the Union coast—and a Confederate legend. Now, with unparalleled authority and depth, and with a vivid sense of the excitement and danger of the time, Stephen Fox tells the story of Captain Semmes's remarkable wartime exploits. From vicious naval battles off the coast of France, to plundering the cargo of Union ships in the Caribbean, this is a thrilling tale of an often overlooked chapter of the Civil War.

Résumé
The electrifying story of Raphael Semmes and the CSS Alabama, the Confederate raider that destroyed Union ocean shipping and took more prizes than any other raider in naval history.

In July, 1862, Semmes received orders to take command of a secret new British-built steam warship, the Alabama. At its helm, he would become the most hated and feared man in ports up and down the Union coast—and a Confederate legend. Now, with unparalleled authority and depth, and with a vivid sense of the excitement and danger of the time, Stephen Fox tells the story of Captain Semmes's remarkable wartime exploits. From vicious naval battles off the coast of France, to plundering the cargo of Union ships in the Caribbean, this is a thrilling tale of an often overlooked chapter of the Civil War.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter One: The Captain and the ShipLike most of the military heroes of the Civil War, Raphael Semmes burst into that sudden historical spotlight after an earlier career of no particular distinction. During thirty-five years in the Navy of the United States, he had often clashed with his superiors and railed at the clogged pipelines of promotion. He seemed distracted by intellectual and literary interests, or his second career as a lawyer, or the needs and pulls of his large family. Naval colleagues such as David Dixon Porter, more single-minded than Semmes, doubted his seriousness. “While in the United States Navy, Semmes had little reputation as an officer,” Porter recalled after the war."He was indolent and fond of his comfort, so that altogether his associates in the Navy gave him credit for very little energy. What was, then, the astonishment of his old companions to find that Semmes was pursuing a course that required the greatest skill and vigor; for there never was a naval commander who in so short a time committed such depredations on an enemy’s commerce, or who so successfully eluded the vessels sent in pursuit of him."Porter’s later praise and criticism of Semmes were both filtered through the distorting passions of the opposite sides they had taken in the war. Porter was himself one of the many frustrated Union pursuers of the Confederate commander, and that public failure no doubt sharpened the edges of his dismissal of the prewar Semmes. Yet his final judgment of a former colleague who was so often underestimated seems balanced and well deserved. “The inertness he had displayed while in the United States Navy had disappeared,” Po…