CSS Alabama gets nod for destroying
greatest number of Civil War vessels

Some Civil War records are almost impossible to find. Such as, which ship destroyed the most vessels during the war?

Until someone finds a better record, the CSS Alabama has to rank at the top.

This 1,050-ton sloop of war burned/destroyed either 65 or 69 Union vessels of various types – depending on differing accounts – after being placed in commission in August 1862.

Perhaps the most prominent victim was the USS Hatteras that was sunk in combat off the coast of Galveston, Texas, in January 1863. The world should soon get its first good look at the ship’s wreckage as sophisticated 3-D sonar radar images are being collected by divers in the Gulf.

The Alabama was built for the Confederate Navy at Birkenhead, England, and disguised as a merchant ship, was outfitted as a combatant. The ship cruised in the North Atlantic and West Indies during 1863 and captured more than two dozen Union merchant ships.

After sinking the Hatteras, the Alabama moved into the South Atlantic, stopped at Capetown and went to the East Indies. She seized nearly 40 more merchantmen during 1863, destroying the majority and immensely damaging the seaborne trade of the Union.

The ship was in need of an overhaul and only captured a few ships in 1864. In June, the Alabama was taken to Cherbourg, France, for repairs and later that month unsuccessfully confronted the USS Kearsarge. She sank and her wreck was located by the  French Navy in the 1980s.

During all of Alabama's raiding ventures, captured ships’ crews and passengers were never harmed, only detained until they could be placed aboard a neutral ship or placed ashore in a friendly or neutral port.