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Overview
Naval hero for all the South, Raphael Semmes (1809-1877) sailed two famous Confederate raiders. He outfitted CSS Sumter in 1861 and captured 18 Union merchant ships in six months before the raider was blockaded at Gibraltar. Next he took command of CSS Alabama, an English-built raider, and terrorized U.S. merchant vessels on the high seas from August 1862 until the raider was sunk in battle off Cherbourg in June 1864. During that two-year period, he captured more enemy merchant ships than any other cruiser captain in maritime history. He is considered one of the greatest ship's commanders that America has produced.
In this first, full-scale biography that relies on Semmes's private papers, unpublished diaries, and correspondence, Spencer has produced a well-balanced and comprehensive account of the man, as well as the naval officer. The biographer paints a vivid portrait of Semmes—the intellectual, the family man, lawyer, romanticist, nationalist—providing a greater understanding of the man behind the heroic deeds.
Semmes was born in Maryland to a slave-holding family and entered the United States Navy in 1826. In 1849, he moved his family to Mobile, Alabama, to be near the navy base at Pensacola, Florida, and to practice law during leaves. Semmes was an astute student, not only of international and maritime law but also of weather patterns; astronomy; flora and fauna; naval, social, and cultural history; and the classics. His study of constitutional law led him to side with his adopted state in 1861, a move that set the stage for his place in history.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780817388935 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Alabama Press |
| Publication date: | 06/15/2015 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 262 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Raphael Semmes
The Philosophical Mariner
By Warren F. Spencer
The University of Alabama Press
Copyright © 1997 University of Alabama PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-8893-5
CHAPTER 1
The Student Mariner-Philosopher
Raphael Semmes was a product of his time. In an age of nationalism and romanticism, he was both a nationalist and a romanticist; but he was also very much more. He had almost no formal education, yet he was an intellectual and an avid reader. A strong family man, he was orphaned at an early age and spent most of his married life at sea. An observer of man and nature, of which he wrote movingly, he never quite understood himself.
In both his private and his public writings — he wrote two books of his experiences, one a best-seller in the 1850s — Semmes unconsciously revealed more of himself than of his topics. He has been the subject of five biographies that concentrate on his Civil War experiences and thus fail to reveal his developing intelligence and the complexity of his nature.
Raphael was born into the sixth generation of a Roman Catholic, slaveholding family that had settled in southern Maryland as early as 1662. The progenitor of the Semmes family in America was Marmaduke Semme (the s was added in the second generation), 1635–93. Marmaduke's origins in England are uncertain, but he received 50 acres of land, indicating he was gentleman enough to have paid his fare across the Atlantic Ocean. He was also listed as an "innholder" and by the time of his death had accumulated some 800 acres of additional land.
Raphael's descent was through Marmaduke's second son, James (1671–1728), who inherited "Middle Plantation" in Cecil County, Maryland. James soon sold his land and moved westward to Chandler's Town, later known as Charles Town, then Port Tobacco. Presumably from the proceeds of the sale of "Middle Plantation," he bought several plantations from the Chandlers. He had eight children by his wife, Mary Goodrich Semmes. By his will he distributed his lands among seven of his eight children, leaving to his fourth son, James (1713–87), only 3,000 pounds of tobacco. This son, known in the family as Lieutenant James for his military service during the American Revolution, was Raphael's great-grandfather by his second wife, Mary Simpson, who was the great-granddaughter of Maryland's second governor, Thomas Green. Their eldest son, Benedict Joseph (1753–1824), was called Joseph by the family. Born in Charles County, he inherited several large tracts of land and married Henrietta Thompson. They were Raphael's grandparents.
Joseph and Henrietta Thompson Semmes had seven children. Their fourth child and third son was Richard Thompson (1784–1823), Raphael's father, who married Catherine Taliaferro Middleton Winter. Richard's three brothers — Alexander (1780–1816), Raphael (1786–1846), and Benedict Joseph (1789–1863) — were to play important roles in young Raphael's life.
Richard Thompson Semmes and Catherine Middleton, daughter of Samuel Middleton and Catherine Taliaferro Hooe, were married in 1808. Catherine, a widow, brought to the marriage the home and lands of Efton Hills, Charles County, Maryland. They had two sons, Raphael, September 27, 1809, and Samuel Middleton, March 5, 1811, and a daughter who died in childhood, all born at Efton Hills. Upon Catherine's death Richard Thompson married another widow, Kitty Brawner, who contributed to the union eleven slaves and other real and personal property. When Richard Thompson Semmes died in 1823, his two sons were placed under the guardianship of their uncles Raphael Semmes and Alexander Semmes, both of Georgetown, D.C.
Within a few years after Richard Thompson Semmes's death, executors acting in behalf of the boys' parents petitioned the court for the sale of lands that had belonged to the parents. The records do not reveal the value or the sale price of the lands, nor do they reveal to whom the proceeds were to go. Perhaps Uncle Raphael, in whose home the boys lived, compensated himself from those funds for their education and upkeep. It is also possible that the money provided the boys with an income in their early manhood years. Raphael never mentioned financial difficulties during his bachelorhood. It is possible, even likely, that young Raphael, fourteen years old when his father died, and young Samuel, twelve years old at the time, enjoyed an income that helped to sustain them until their professional incomes became sufficient to do so. Young Raphael's income during his navy training, and even after his commissioning as a passed midshipman, was insufficient to support him during unpaid leaves and while he studied law. And a lieutenant's salary was insufficient to allow him in 1837 to invest in land speculations. Even as a lieutenant he would have needed outside income to support a growing family.
Uncle Raphael sent the boys to a private school for a short time and later provided them with individual tutors. But their real education came at the dinner table where Uncle Raphael led discussions on the interpretation of the United States Constitution, especially the relationship between the individual states and the central government, and on politics. Later the uncle claimed as close friends such leaders as President Franklin Pierce, Senator Henry Clay, and Congressman Alexander Stephens of Georgia. As time passed, Uncle Raphael prospered, becoming a well-known merchant and businessman. By 1831 he was a popular tavern keeper, a director of the Farmers and Mechanics Bank, and a commissioner of the Potomac Insurance Company of Georgetown, and in the early 1830s he and a partner operated Semmes and Company, a wholesale grocery business. The table talk also must have centered on life at sea, for in his youth Uncle Raphael had sailed for a maritime company to ports throughout the world, having crossed the Atlantic Ocean nineteen times. Uncle Alexander Semmes owned a fleet of merchant ships based in Georgetown, in one of which young Raphael's father had held half-interest. But his influence on the orphaned boys was slight because they lived in Uncle Raphael's home and because Alexander was frequently at sea, where he was lost sometime between September 21, 1826, and December 1827.
His education, such as it was, led Raphael to become an avid, if lonely reader. He became introverted: His memoirs make no mention of a childhood friend other than his brother and cousins. He began to read classical history and philosophy, natural science, and biographies of the great seafarers, such as Christopher Columbus, and of great leaders, such as Genghis Khan and Julius Caesar. He was familiar with Shakespeare, eighteenth-century rationalism, and early nineteenth-century romanticism.
During those years in Georgetown — 1823 to 1826 — he must also have learned of his various ancestors who had served the young republic: Through his grandmother, he was fourth cousin to Francis Scott Key, author of "The Star Spangled Banner"; on his mother's side he was a direct descendant of Arthur Middleton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence; and Uncle Raphael himself had served as a captain in the army during the War of 1812. The quiet boy-scholar undoubtedly dreamed of his own contributions to his country's history — but how? He and his brother Samuel, close in age and thrown even closer together by their parents' deaths, undoubtedly discussed their future. The table talk about the United States Constitution led Samuel to decide upon the practice of law, and Raphael was drawn to it also. But he was more influenced by their uncles' talk of life at sea. At the age of fourteen or fifteen he decided to enter the United States Navy and also to study law.
He turned to the political influence of Benedict Joseph Semmes (1789–1863). This youngest uncle had studied medicine at Philadelphia Medical College, then at Baltimore Medical College, from which he graduated in 1811. Despite a successful practice in Piscataway, Prince George's County, Maryland, he also was drawn to politics. In 1823 he won a seat in the Maryland House of Delegates, serving as Speaker for a number of years, and later became a notable Maryland senator. From 1829 to 1833 he was a Democratic representative in Congress. It was Uncle Benedict Semmes who in 1826 used his political influence in Maryland to secure from President John Quincy Adams an appointment as midshipman in the United States Navy for young Raphael Semmes.
Prior to the establishment of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis (1845), officer appointees learned their trade by on-the-job training. A midshipman was an officer-trainee, not an officer. Young Raphael's career was typical of the training process.
The presidential appointment was effective April 1, 1826. Five months later, on September 8, Raphael was called to active duty. Now, almost seventeen years old, he reported to the USS Lexington in New York City. For some reason, not in the records, on September 11 he was given unlimited leave; then on October 15 he was ordered aboard the USS Erice, on which he served until August 7, 1829. Again granted leave until January 7, 1830, he was assigned to the USS Brandywine, on which he served until November 7, 1831. He had two leaves of one month each while aboard the Brandywine. On the two ships, he sailed in the waters of the West Indies, along the eastern coast of South America, and across the Atlantic Ocean into the Mediterranean Sea — waters and places he would later visit as captain of the CSS Sumter and Alabama. During one of his leaves from the Brandywine he visited Cincinnati, Ohio, with the ship's surgeon, where he met Anne Elizabeth Spencer, whom he would later marry.
At sea a midshipman's duties were varied and often menial: He had to awaken the various officers for their watch tours and perform any other duty the captain or lieutenants ordered. Apart from such tasks, the trainee learned about the ship's rigging, the tides and currents, and the prevailing winds. He also learned mathematics, astronomy, artillery management, and navigation from a tutor who was aboard to teach the midshipmen. His sleeping quarters were small and damp. All in all, the midshipman's life was hard: He could sleep only in short snatches; he was always at the beck and call of the officers; and his mess was the same as that of the enlisted sailors.
Semmes spent most of his off-duty time reading and studying naval regulations, natural science, and history. He never participated with his fellow midshipmen in their pranks, and he seldom went ashore with them. They considered him to be reserved and aloof — a reputation that would follow him throughout his service in navies of both the United States and the Confederate States.
In 1831, five years after his appointment, Semmes was assigned with other midshipmen to the Navy School at the Norfolk, Virginia, Navy Yard. For almost three months they studied intensive courses in the subjects they had practiced at sea, and then they were examined by an officer board. Not all midshipmen were approved by the officers, but Raphael passed second in his class. On April 28, 1832, almost exactly six years after his presidential appointment, he was commissioned a passed midshipman in the United States Navy. He was almost twenty-three years old. Except for a short tour (October 8–30, 1833) as keeper of the U.S. Navy chronometers, he was on leave from February 6, 1832, until July 25, 1835.
The frequent extended leaves were suffered by all officers. It was a matter of the navy having more officers than it could use at one time, but the unpaid leaves placed a financial burden on the officers. To support himself, not to mention any family he might have, a navy officer needed some additional source of income. Many, such as John McIntosh Kell, Semmes's first lieutenant on both the Sumter and the Alabama, came from families with large land holdings and could simply return home and participate in the operation of the land. That fact explains why so many pre–Civil War officers were from the South. But Semmes had no land to fall back on and his legacy, if it existed, probably would be insufficient; what to do? This time his younger brother, Samuel, came to his rescue.
Samuel had early decided on a career in law. By 1832, still a bachelor, he had already established his practice in Cumberland, Maryland. Raphael simply went to Cumberland and read law in Samuel's office. He was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1835. So at the age of twenty-six he was both a navy officer and a qualified lawyer. Through the years prior to the Civil War, he came to be called the "sea-lawyer."
In July of the same year he was recalled to navy duty and assigned as acting master of the frigate USS Constellation, which was participating in the Seminole Indian War (1832–42) in Florida. In 1836 Semmes was given temporary command of a small steamer, the Lt. Izard, to transport troops and supplies to join General C. K. Call's planned attack against the Seminoles in the Everglades. But first he had to explore the Withlacoochee River to determine whether he could tow the supply barge about twelve miles upriver. Unfortunately, during the night of October 11 the Lt. Izard ran aground and was wrecked; Semmes had to abandon the steamer. It was the first of three ships under his command that he would lose. He and his men, tired and worn by the ordeal, were sent to the Pensacola Navy Base. According to one newspaper account, twenty-four of Lt. Izard's twenty-eight crew members were "enfeebled and worn down by disease." As would occur two more times in his naval career, Semmes received a promotion or a better assignment after losing a ship to the waters. In March he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, effective February 9, 1837, and received a three months' leave.
The rank of lieutenant was a milestone in an officer's career. Only three higher ranks existed — commander, captain, and admiral. Should an officer fail to achieve a lieutenancy by the age of thirty, his chances of further promotion would be slight. And although the annual salary was quite small, it was considerably larger than a passed midshipman's. The frequent unpaid leaves placed further strains upon an officer's financial condition. In Semmes's case, however, his law practice in Cincinnati — and perhaps his legacy — afforded him a comfortable income. In early 1837, he purchased four lots at $200 each in a real estate development called the "New City of Pensacola." The terms provided that he pay one-fifth cash and one-fifth a year for four years. A month after the purchase, he sold three of the lots back to the developers and received $128 above the price he had paid for them. Thus he reduced the cost of the lot he retained to only $72. Unfortunately, before he completed payment on the remaining lot, the panic of 1837 forced the "New City of Pensacola" into bankruptcy; thus he lost $72 in the venture.
Before the collapse of the "New City of Pensacola," however, Semmes had returned to his law practice in Cincinnati. But law was not his primary interest. He earlier had begun to court Anne Elizabeth Spencer, who at the age of eighteen was a "stately, handsome woman with regular chiseled features, brilliant brunette complexion and hazel eyes." Her grandfather, a colonel in the revolutionary army, had been among the first to settle in Cincinnati, and her parents — Oliver Marborough Spencer and Electra Ogden — were prominent citizens. Anne Elizabeth had just made her debut when Raphael arrived. Although ten years his junior and an Episcopalian, Anne accepted his proposal and agreed to a Roman Catholic ceremony. They were married on May 5, 1837. Anne later embraced Raphael's church. Despite Raphael's frequent sea assignments that would mar their marriage, it nonetheless was a happy union, blessed with six children. The births came almost in pairs, determined it seems by Lieutenant Semmes's sea duty assignments. The first pair were both sons, born soon after his marriage to Anne Elizabeth: Samuel Spencer (1838–1912) and Oliver John (1839–1918), the latter born at the Norfolk Navy Yard where Lieutenant Semmes was serving his first assignment after the wedding. The second pair were daughters: Electra Louise (1843–1925), born shortly after Semmes was assigned to the Pensacola Navy Base while on survey duty, and Katherine Middleton (1845–1937), born after a three-month leave just prior to the lieutenant's Porpoise cruise. The last pair — a daughter and a son — were born further apart: Anna Elizabeth (1847–1936), early during the Mexican War, and Raphael, Jr. (1849–1918), after the lieutenant's return from the war. All the children received good educations and grew into constructive and creative adulthood. More important, each child played a distinct role in Semmes's life, as will be seen later in his story.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Raphael Semmes by Warren F. Spencer. Copyright © 1997 University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press.
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