The Kearsarge was struck as follows:
One shot through starboard quarter, taking a slanting direction aft,
and lodging in the rudder post. This shot was from the Blakely rifle.
One shot, carrying away starboard life-buoy.
Three 32-pounder shots through port bulwarks, forward of mizzen-mast.
A shell, exploding after end of pivot port.
A shell, exploding after end of chain-plating.
A 68-lb. shell, passing through starboard bulwarks below main rigging,
wounding three men--the only casualties amongst the crew during the
engagement.
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.
One forward pivot port plank sheer.
One forward foremast-rigging.
A shot striking Launch's toping-lift.
A rifle-shell, passing through funnel, bursting without damage inside.
One, starboard forward main-shroud.
One, starboard after-shroud main-topmast rigging.
One, main topsail tye.
One, main topsail outhaul.
One, main topsail runner.
Two, through port-quarter boat.
One, through spanker (furled).
One, starboard forward shroud, mizzen rigging.
One, starboard mizzen-topmast backstay.
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."