NEW YORK:
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH,
No. 770 BROADWAY.
1864.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, BY ANSON D. F.
RANDOLPH, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.
EDWARD O. JENKINS,
Printer and Stereotyper,
20 NORTH WILLIAM STREET.
This Record
OF
A MOST GLORIOUS VICTORY
GAINED IN THE CAUSE OF
JUSTICE AND HUMANITY,
IS
DEDICATED TO
THAT NOBLE OFFSPRING OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
The Sanitary Commission of the United States,
BY
THEIR OBEDIENT SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.
LONDON, _July 14, 1864_.
The writer of this pamphlet is an English gentleman of intelligence now
residing in London, who has spent some time in this country, and is known
and esteemed by many of our best citizens. He visited Cherbourg for the
express purpose of making the inquiry and investigation, the results of
which are embodied in the following pages, and generously devotes the
pecuniary results of his copyright to the funds of the SANITARY
COMMISSION.
The Alabama and the Kearsarge.
The importance of the engagement between the United States Sloop-of-war,
Kearsarge, and the Confederate Privateer, Alabama, cannot be estimated by
the size of the two vessels. The conflict off Cherbourg on Sunday, the
19th of June, was the first decisive engagement between shipping propelled
by steam, and the first test of the merits of modern naval artillery. It
was, moreover, a contest for superiority between the ordnance of Europe
and America, whilst the result furnishes us with _data_ wherefrom to
estimate the relative advantages of rifled and smooth-bore cannon at short
range.
Perhaps no greater or more numerous misrepresentations were ever made in
regard to an engagement than in reference to the one in question. The
first news of the conflict came to us enveloped in a mass of statements,
the greater part of which, not to use an unparliamentary expression, was
diametrically opposed to the truth; and although several weeks have now
elapsed since the Alabama followed her many defenceless victims to their
watery grave, these misrepresentations obtain as much credence as ever.
The victory of the Kearsarge was accounted for, and the defeat of the
Alabama excused or palliated upon the following principal reasons:--