The earliest known portrait of Raphael Semmes, circa 1857. It is inside an ebony oval pendant with a gold suspension loop. The image was owned by the Semmes family until it was bought by antiques collector Gary Hendershott in the 1970s and then acquired by the History Museum of Mobile. Image courtesy History Museum of Mobile collection, Photo by Jeff Tesney
At the close of the Civil War, Raphael Semmes was paroled and came home to Mobile. By this time, he had spent much of his life at sea, first in the service of the United States Navy, and then the Confederate States Navy. He looked older than his 55 years. Distinguished with iron-gray hair, his most notable feature was a peculiar mustache which jutted out from his face into sharp, waxed points. Semmes was a small, thin man whose frame appeared more substantial under the thick naval cloak he always wore. Despite a handsome countenance, his face was sunburnt and weather-beaten from the salt air. Raphael Semmes was a paradox. In the South, he had become a legend for his chivalrous wartime exploits as captain of the cruiser, Alabama. Not so, however, in the North. There his name was detested as that “pirate Semmes,” a “wolf” who preyed on Union commercial vessels, burning and plundering one after another until the damages exceeded 15 million dollars, yet managing to elude capture time after time. Even today, there are many who find him repugnant for committing barbaric depredations against civilian merchants, then seeking vindication under the guise of war.
Semmes had not seen his wife, Anne Elizabeth, but once since March of 1861, and then only briefly in late 1864, following the loss of the Alabama. After returning from England, he was eager to see her and their daughters, Anna and Electra, both still living at home. After a weary three-week journey by wagon and steamboat, Semmes arrived home, and was shocked at what he found. Anne Elizabeth, described as a “handsome girl” with “a brilliant brunette complexion,” was hoeing in the vegetable garden alongside three black women, who had formerly been her house slaves. She later explained to him that without their help and loyalty she and her daughters would have had nothing to eat. It was true. After four years of the war’s hardships the store shelves were dusty and barren; there was no money except worthless Confederate script; the best people of the city were poor; and life was hard and cruel.
Moved by the sight of his wife toiling in the garden, Semmes immediately began looking for some way to support his family. Although he was licensed to practice law, his civil rights had not yet been restored. Semmes had been excluded from President Andrew Johnson’s amnesty proclamation because of his piratic notoriety and high rank in the Confederacy. Such circumstances required him to consider leaving home again in search of a livelihood for his family. He explored several alternatives, including serving in a foreign navy, establishing a steamship line, and even selling insurance. However, due to his uncertain legal status none of those options seemed feasible. In a state of limbo, without an income, he could no longer afford their home, compelling the family to move to a more common residence. In October, he wrote his son-in-law, Pendleton Colston, a Baltimore lawyer: “I have determined after all to remain in Mobile. I have purchased a place four miles west of the city and within 10 minutes’ walk of the Spring Hill railroad . . . Spencer [a son] and myself will open a law office in town, and compete for a share of the business.”
Unlike other Confederate military officers who had been paroled, Semmes was not to be left alone. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy and a vengeful Republican was his chief tormentor, and continued to haunt him. Frustrated with his wartime failures to capture the man he called “the wolf of Liverpool,” Welles was determined Semmes be arrested, tried, and imprisoned for the losses the Union had suffered from the raids of his cruiser, Alabama. Ignoring his parole, Welles contended Semmes had violated his surrender after the sinking of the Alabama by taking refuge aboard an English yacht, escaping, and subsequently resuming hostilities against the United States. That, Welles believed, along with the incalculable damage he had caused Federal shipping around the world during the war years should be reason enough to charge and imprison Semmes. Yet, it’s true, Republicans, including Welles, continued seeking political acclaim as retribution against such notorious rebels as Semmes.
Semmes was painfully aware of the impending charges against him, and protested he was only trying to save himself from drowning when he was rescued by the English yacht. Nevertheless, because Welles was so insistent on bringing charges, Semmes worried: Would he ever be able to have a peaceful and successful life again? His worries were realized on December 15, 1865. While relaxing with his family there was a knock on the door. A detachment of 20 marines had surrounded his house, and he was arrested and charged with illegally escaping Union custody after surrendering his ship. Now, Welles had his man.
Semmes spent his first Christmas after the war under guard while traveling by steamboat then train to the Marine barracks in Washington, D.C. awaiting trial. There, in a small room, he spent the next four months keeping a diary of his ordeal, and writing letters to friends in official positions, seeking their help. Meanwhile, Secretary Welles appointed John A. Bolles, a lawyer and judge advocate general for the Navy to investigate Semmes’s wartime actions and prosecute him for any and all possible crimes. While Bolles was conducting discovery into any possible crimes under the laws of war and the seas, Ann Semmes arrived in Washington, determined to appeal to President Andrew Johnson for her husband’s release.
After a thorough investigation, Bolles could find nothing of legal merit to charge the accused, and reported to Welles: “that neither treason nor piracy could be charged against Semmes.” At the same time, President Johnson was relentlessly besieged by Semmes’s wife. Welles admitted: “The President . . . wished to get rid of the subject, for Semmes’s wife was annoying him, crying and taking on for her husband.” Welles finally gave up on the trial, and released him on April 7, 1866. Johnson, however, in an effort to ease the political repercussions of his release, refused to grant Semmes a pardon, and forbid him from holding any public office or practicing law.
Semmes then returned home to Mobile, still without a means of making a living. Everyone welcomed him back, and in May of 1866 elected him Probate Judge. But as ordered, U.S. authorities prohibited him from taking the office, forcing him to leave Mobile again in search of employment. Following a brief tenure as professor at Louisiana State Seminary, he accepted a position as editor of the Memphis Daily Bulletin. While in Memphis he began speaking on lecture tours and writing his memoirs, which were later published as “Memoirs of Service Afloat during the War Between the States.” Late in 1867, after editorial disputes with the owners of the Bulletin, Semmes returned to Mobile, but was still unable to practice law. By 1869, however, circumstances improved. His civil rights were finally restored, his book was a success, and he began practicing law with one of his sons.
Home at last, Semmes was finally able to put the war behind him, except that is, for Secretary Welles, whom he vowed to never forget or forgive. But those memories were past. “For the last few years I have been leading a very quiet life,” he wrote to a friend in 1872. “The Yankees have, at last, ceased to abuse me, or indeed, even to talk to me.” Now in his later years, Semmes devoted his time to a limited practice of law, and spending time with Anne Elizabeth and his grandchildren, who called him “Big Papa.” He enjoyed reading, and was a master of the English language and fluent in French and Spanish. Semmes was well-read in many subjects, especially the science of the sea and international law.
In the late 1870s, the people of Mobile honored the old sea captain by presenting him with a splendid two-story house on Government Street which still stands as a historical marker. Semmes was seen most evenings walking down Government Street from his law office to his new home. A young boy remembered “the great admiral,” as Mobile boys called him, as “very erect and commanding of presence.” He also recalled that even on the hottest summer days Semmes always wore the old naval cloak draped over his shoulders. It was conspicuous for its bright red lining, which “used to fascinate me,” recalled the boy. “Everything else about him was so dark and somber that the carmine lining seemed to shriek out.”
Late in life, Semmes managed to acquire a small, summer cabin at Point Clear where he taught his grandchildren to swim, and took them hiking through the woods, teaching them about the plant and animal life on the eastern shore of Mobile. There, at Point Clear, Semmes died in 1877, just short of his sixty-eighth birthday, and was buried in Catholic Cemetery in Mobile. Twenty-three years later, in 1900, the citizens of Mobile dedicated a statue to his memory, which now stands in the gallery of the History Museum of Mobile. The plaque at the base reads: “Sailor, Patriot, Statesman, Scholar, and Christian Gentleman.” Yet others would take issue with such tributes, and remain emphatic that Semmes was a pirate and a defender of slavery in a nation committed to freedom and democracy.
Russell W. Blount Jr. is the author of five books on the American Civil War as well as a number of articles on 19th-century America in historical journals and publications.
