Raphael Semmes was an American Confederate naval officer. His daring raids in command of the man-of-war "Alabama" interfered with Union merchant shipping during the middle two years of the American Civil War.
Background
Raphael Semmes was born in Charles County, Maryland, on September 27, 1809. He was the fourth child of Richard and Catherine Middleton Semmes. He came from a well-established Roman Catholic family in Maryland. For generations his ancestors raised tobacco and owned slaves in Charles and St. Mary’s counties in the southern part of the state. Orphaned at an early age, he was raised by an uncle, Raphael Semmes.
Education
Raphael attended the Charlotte Hall Military Academy until 1826, later he studied law.
Career
Raphael's uncle, Benedict Semmes, helped secure his appointment as a midshipman in the United States Navy in 1826. In addition to his training as a naval officer, Semmes also was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1834. Shore duty allowed him to pursue his law practice, first in Cincinnati, Ohio.
During the Mexican War (1846-1848), Semmes commanded the USS Somers, a brig assigned to blockade the Mexican port of Veracruz. A fierce gale caused the ship to founder, and 39 members of the crew lost their lives. Semmes narrowly escaped drowning. A court of inquiry found no fault with Semmes and praised him for the way he handled his ship. Semmes next accompanied General Winfield Scott's army as it fought its way to the Mexican capital and ended the war as a volunteer aide to Brigadier General William J. Worth.
While on extended leave after the war, he practiced law in Mobile, Alabama. He wrote "Service Afloat and Ashore During the Mexican War," a book about his war experiences published in 1851.
Promoted to the rank of Commander in 1855, Semmes was assigned to Lighthouse duties until 1861, when Alabama's secession from the Union prompted him to resign from the United States Navy and adhere to the Confederacy.
Appointed a Commander in the Confederate Navy in April 1861, Raphael Semmes was sent to New Orleans to convert a steamer into the cruiser, CSS Sumter. He ran her through the Federal blockade in June 1861 and began a career of commerce raiding that is without equal in American naval history. During Sumter's six months' operations in the West Indies and the Atlantic, he captured eighteen merchant vessels and skillfully eluded pursuing Union warships. With his ship badly in need of an overhaul, he brought her to Gibraltar in January 1862 and laid her up when the arrival of Federal cruisers made a return to sea impossible.
After taking himself and many of his officers to England, Semmes was promoted to the rank of Captain and given command of the newly-built cruiser CSS Alabama. From August 1862 until June 1864, Semmes took his ship through the Atlantic, into the Gulf of Mexico, around the Cape of Good Hope and into the East Indies, capturing some sixty merchantmen and sinking one Federal warship, USS Hatteras. At the end of her long cruise, Alabama was blockaded at Cherbourg, France, while seeking repairs. On 19 June 1864, Semmes took her to sea to fight the Union cruiser USS Kearsarge and was wounded when she was sunk in action. Rescued by the British yacht Deerhound, he went to England, recovered, and made his way back to the Confederacy.
Semmes was promoted to Rear Admiral in February 1865 and commanded the James River Squadron during the last months of the Civil War. When the fall of Richmond, Virginia, forced the destruction of his ships, he was made a Brigadier General and led his sailors as an infantry force.
In 1866, he was a professor at Louisiana Military Institute, and from 1867 until 1877, he served as editor of the Memphis Daily Bulletin, Semmes returned to Mobile, where he practiced law, delivered lectures, and wrote "Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States."
Raphael was a member of the Roman Catholic Church.
Politics
Semmes's strong support for states' rights and antipathy to the election of a Republican president resulted in his resignation from the United States Navy, a month after Alabama seceded from the Union. Before hostilities began, Semmes was sent north by President Jefferson Davis on a secret mission to purchase military supplies for the Confederacy from munitions brokers there.
Personality
To his crew, Raphael was known as "Old Beeswax," for his habit of twisting his waxed mustache while pacing the quarterdeck.
Connections
On May 5, 1837 Raphael married Anne Elizabeth Spencer in 1837. The couple had six children: Samuel Spencer, Oliver, Electra, Katherine, and Raphael.