was born in Charles County, Maryland on September 27, 1809. In February of 1861, Semmes resigned from the U.S. Naval Commission, and headed south. He helped in the capture of Sumter, and commanded it afterward. In 1862 he took command of the British-built Alabama. Semmes terrorized the Union's merchant marine on every body of water from the West Indies east to Singapore until the U.S.S. Kearsarge sank his ship near Cherbourg on June 19, 1864. Semmes destroyed or captured more than 80 vessels. Partly as a result of his depredations, the U.S. merchant marine lost its preeminence. He wrote Confederate Raider "Alabama" in 1869, and several other books later.
Bibliography: Davis, Evangeline and Burke, Rebel Raider: A Biography of Admiral Semmes (1966); Roberts, Walter A., Semmes of the "Alabama" (1938); Summersell, Charles Grayson, The Cruise of the C.S.S. "Sumter" (1965).
