A Blakely-rifle shell, passing through the engine-room sky-light, and dropping harmlessly in the water beyond the vessel.
Two shots below plank-sheer, abreast of boiler hatch.
A rifle-shell, passing through funnel, bursting without damage inside.
One, starboard after-shroud main-topmast rigging.
One, starboard forward shroud, mizzen rigging.
One, through mizzen peak-signal halyards, which cut the stops when the battle was nearly over, and for the first time let loose the flag to the breeze.
This list of damages received by the Kearsarge proves the exceedingly bad fire of the Alabama, notwithstanding the numbers of men on board the latter belonging to our "Naval Reserve," and the trained hands from the gunnery ship "Excellent." I was informed by some of the paroled prisoners on shore at Cherbourg that Captain Semmes fired rapidly at the commencement of the action "in order to frighten the Yankees," nearly all the officers and crew being, as he was well aware, merely volunteers from the merchant service.[10] At the expiration of twenty minutes after the Kearsarge discharged the first broadside, continuing the battle in a leisurely, cool manner, Semmes remarked: "Confound them; they've been fighting twenty minutes, and they're as cool as posts." The probabilities are that the crew of the Federal vessel had learnt not to regard as dangerous the rapid and hap-hazard practice of the Alabama.
From the time of her first reaching Cherbourg until she finally quitted the port, the Kearsarge never received the slightest assistance from shore, with the exception of that rendered by a boiler maker in patching up her funnel. Every other repair was completed by her own hands, and she might have crossed the Atlantic immediately after the action without difficulty. So much for Mr. Lancaster's statement that "the Kearsarge was apparently much disabled."
The first accounts received of the action led us to suppose that Captain Semmes' intention was to lay his vessel alongside the enemy, and to carry her by boarding. Whether this information came from the Captain himself or was made out of "whole cloth" by some of his admirers, the idea of boarding a vessel under steam--unless her engines, or screw, or rudder be disabled--is manifestly ridiculous. The days of boarding are gone by, except under the contingencies above stated; and any such attempt on the part of the Alabama would have been attended with disastrous results to herself and crew. To have boarded the Kearsarge, Semmes must have possessed greater speed to enable him to run alongside her; and the moment the pursuer came near her victim, the latter would shut off steam, drop astern in a second of time, sheer off, discharge her whole broadside of grape and canister, and rake her antagonist from stern to stem. Our pro-southern sympathizers really ought not to make their _protegé_ appear ridiculous by ascribing to him such an egregious intention.