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Old Beeswax

www.sonofthesouth.net

Originally aired on May 02, 1997 - In part 140 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson tells us about Raphael Semmes, who was simultaneously a Confederate Admiral and General. It was Semmes alone who was responsible for a third of all Confederate Naval captures.

#140 – The Admiral-General

Quickly now, who was the only man simultaneously a Confederate admiral and Confederal general? If you do not know the answer, here is a hint: he was the most swashbuckling naval figure of the Civil War. That should help identify him as Raphael Semmes, known affectionately at the time as “old Beeswax”.

Semmes came from a prominent Maryland family. He entered the U. S. Navy as a midshipman in 1826. He found time in the 1830s to gain admittance to the Maryland bar. After service in the Mexican War with the blockading fleet, Semmes moved up the naval ladder and became chief of the Lighthouse Bureau.

He was living in Mobile, Alabama, when civil war came. Semmes was among the first commanders appointed in the Confederate States Navy. It did not take him long to get to sea. Receiving permission to convert the former packet Havana into a commerce raider christened the CSS Sumter, Semmes departed New Orleans with an enthusiastic crew. In six months he captured 18 merchant vessels. U. S. Navy frigates finally trapped the Sumter by running her into port in Gilbraltar.

Semmes managed to escape to England. There, in September, 1862, the newly promoted captain took command of what became the most famous of the Confederate privateers, the Alabama. With Southern officers and a British crew, Semmes set sail on a two-year odyssey. The Alabama prowled the ocean in search of Union merchant ships. In all, 69 such vessels fell to the Confederate raider. Semmes alone was responsible for a third of all Confederate naval captures during the Civil War.

He looked the part of a seagoing rascal, with long hair framing a high forehead, sunken but blazing eyes, and a heavily waxed mustache turned up. In the North, his name became an object of loathing and terror. To those merchants who continued to send goods on non-neutral ships, Semmes was an evil ghost, able to appear and disappear at will, leaving nothing behind but the report of another Northern ship high-jacked at sea.

The saga ended in June, 1864, just outside the harbor of Cherbourg, France. The USS Kearsage brought the Alabama to bay. The battle lasted barely an hour. It was an odd sort of engagement: a mobile, but not entirely localized, battle at sea. The contestants were not sailing vessels but steamships.

The more powerful Kearsage inflicted mortal wounds. As the Alabama was sinking, a passing English yacht rescued Semmes. He returned to Richmond by way of Mexico. In February, 1865, the energetic Semmes received promotion to rear admiral and command of the James River Squadron.

That assignment lasted two months. With the evacuation of Richmond, Semmes destroyed the naval stores and accompanied President Jefferson Davis to the new capital at Danville. Semmes took charge of the town’s defenses – a logical action since no high-ranking army officer was available. Moreover, naval personnel formed the bulk of the troops in Danville. Davis gave the admiral a presidential appointment as an army brigadier general to be commensurate with his duties.

Along with other Confederate officials, Semmes fled southward with the news of Lee’s surrender. On May 1, 1865, he applied for parole. Semmes shrewdly listed his rank as general rather than admiral. He wished to forestall any attempt to place him on trial for piracy as a result of his exploits at sea.

The old sailor then returned to Mobile. He was named a county probate judge, but Reconstruction officials blocked him from the post. Semmes taught for a while at what later became Louisiana State University. He served a brief time as a Memphis newspaper editor. Ultimately he returned to Mobile and practiced law until his death in 1877.           

To the end, acquaintances said the “Old Beeswax” always had a gentleman’s manners but a corsair’s heart.