Roswell`s Historic Bulloch Hall hosts an exhibit from Liverpool, England,
on Capt. James Dunwoody Bulloch and the C.S.S. Alabama.
The display explores the life of Capt. James Dunwoody Bulloch, Confederate Agent, who commissioned the commercial raider, CSS Alabama. Photographs and panels show the Liverpool connection with the Southern States during the Civil War.
Bulloch Hall is at 180 Bulloch Ave., Roswell. Call 770-992-1731 for information.
Mark Sargant, Liverpool history archivist, set up the exhibit with the help of researchers Roy Rawlinson and Bob Jones at the Waterloo Library to mark the centenary of the death of Bulloch. Bulloch lived in Waterloo during the mid-19th Century when he comssioned the ship.
The CSS Alabama, a 1,050-ton screw steam sloop of war, was built at Liverpool for the Confederate Navy. After leaving England in the guise of a merchant ship, she rendezvoused at sea with supply ships, was outfitted as a combatant and placed in commission on Aug. 24, 1862.
Commanded by Captain Raphael Semmes, the Alabama cruised in the North Atlantic and West Indies during the rest of 1862, capturing more than two-dozen Union merchant ships, of which all but a few were burned.
Alabama began the new year by sinking USS Hatteras near Galveston, Texas, on Jan. 11, 1863. She then moved into the South Atlantic, stopped at Cape Town in August, and went on to the East Indies, seizing nearly 40 more merchantmen during the year, destroying the majority and doing immense damage to the seaborne trade of the United States.
The Confederate cruiser called at Singapore in December 1863, but soon was back at sea to continue her commerce raiding. However, Alabama was increasingly in need of an overhaul and only captured a few ships in 1864.
On June 11 of that year, Captain Semmes brought her to Cherbourg, France, for repairs. The Union steam sloop Kearsarge soon arrived off the port, and, on June 19 the Alabama steamed out to do battle. In an hour of intense combat, she was reduced to a sinking wreck by the Kearsarge`s guns. As Alabama disappeared beneath the surface, her surviving crewmen were rescued by the victorious Federal warship and by the English yacht Deer hound. Her wreck was located by the French Navy in the 1980s.
