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USS Kearsage Sinks Alabama Exhibit |
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EXHIBIT RUNS TO SEPT 17, 2011
In honor of the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War – and the launch of the USS Kearsage at Portsmouth Harbor – the Portsmouth Athenaeum has a new exhibit for 2011. The 90-minute battle between Kearsage and the Confederate raider Alabama is among the most memorable sea battles of the Civil War. (Continued below)
Writing home in 1864 after the epic Kearsarge vs Alabama battle, ship's barber Martin Hoyt of Newington told his uncle he had a few close shaves himself as he manned his gun on the quarterdeck of the Portsmouth Navy Yard-built Kearsarge.
Hoyt's eight-page letter to his uncle is part of an exhibit at the Portsmouth Athenaeum, "Fire on the Water: Portsmouth's Kearsarge Sinks the Deadly Confederate Raider Alabama." Hoyt's account also gets a mention in a book about the battle by William Marvel, who is giving a gallery talk in June at the Athenaeum.
"Hoyt's letter was written immediately after the battle and is quite gripping,” said Richard Adams, who is curator of the free exhibit.
Adams said the 90-minute battle between the Kearsarge and the Alabama was witnessed by thousands of onlookers who lined the cliffs of Cherbourg, France. Hundreds of salvos were exchanged as Kearsarge Capt. John A. Winslow engaged the Alabama, which had put into the French port for a much-needed overhaul.
“Dozens of paintings were made, mostly taken from eyewitness accounts,” Adams said.
Several of those paintings will be on display in the Athenaeum's Randall Room, as well as photographs, musical pieces, and a model of the USS Sassacus, a steamer that disabled a Confederate ironclad. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is loaning the original construction plans of the three-masted, steam-powered Kearsarge as well as a sailor's hat from the era.
Capt. Winslow assumed command of the Kearsarge -- named for the mountain in New Hampshire -- in April 1863 and had spent more than a year in a fruitless quest for Confederate raiders. The Alabama, under the command of Raphael Semmes, had sunk 55 merchant ships, Adams said. Winslow was docked in Flushing, Holland, when he got word that Semmes was in the Normandy port.
“He anchored just outside the territorial waterline on June 14, 1864, and patiently awaited Semmes' next move,” said Adams, who described the Alabama's commander as “an aggressive fighter.”
Six days later, Semmes steamed out of Cherbourg and fired the first shots. Word about the impending battle had spread, and trains had brought spectators from as far away as Paris, Adams said.
“The two ships maneuvered around each other in seven concentric circles, each attempting to gain advantage in firing position,” Adams said. The superior marksmanship of the gunners aboard the Kearsarge decided the battle, and the Alabama raised a white flag of surrender after its rudder was disabled and boilers destroyed.
The Union victory -- widely celebrated on U.S. soil -- had international implications.
“The battle’s outcome served to shift foreign sentiment, in France especially, toward greater sympathy for the Union cause,” Adams said.
The Athenaeum exhibit is just one of a number of events going on in New Hampshire to observe the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. They include exhibits at Portsmouth's Strawbery Banke on Gen. Fitz John Porter (May 1-Oct. 31) and the Peterborough Historical Society (April 20-Oct. 29), self-guided tours of Civil War Portsmouth offered at the Discover Portsmouth Center, a series of Civil War Roundtable discussions in Epping and the Civil War diary and letters of John Hay at The Fells in Newbury (June 27-Oct. 10).
The Discover Portsmouth Center, 10 Middle St., will have a related exhibit opening June 4, “Maritime Portsmouth: The Sawtelle Collection.”
The Athenaeum exhibit, which runs through Sept. 17, draws heavily on the works of art and ephemera collected by Joseph Sawtelle, a Portsmouth philanthropist and avid student of local marine history who died in 2000.
On June 9 at the Athenaeum, author William Marvel will give a gallery talk at 7 p.m. Marvel's many books include “The Alabama and the Kearsarge: The Sailor's Civil War,” as well as “Mr. Lincoln Goes to War” and “Andersonville.” He has won a Lincoln Prize, the Douglas Southall Freeman Award, and the Bell Award.
On June 23 at 7 p.m., Alan Fraser Houston will present a talk on his recent book, “Keep Up Good Courage, A Yankee Family & the Civil War: The Correspondence of Corporal Lewis Q. Smith of Sandwich, N.H., Fourteenth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers, 1862-1865.”
Richard Adams and Richard Candee will conduct a Civil War Portsmouth Walking Tour on Aug. 6.
Reservations are required for both talks and the walking tour. For reservations and information, call the Athenaeum at 603-431-2538. The Athenaeum is a nonprofit membership museum and library founded in 1817.
Visit the Portsmouth Athenaeum WEB SITE here
