Memoirs of Service Afloat, during the War Between the States

xvi, 833 pp. Original red cloth, gilt titles. While this is an important Confederate biography, perhaps the most striking detail is the six color plates depicting important naval scenes of the American Civil War, including blockade running by the Sumter and several battles involving the Alabama. Also illustrated with engraved portraits "Published in 1869, Raphael Semmes's Memoirs of Service Afloat was the first major southern memoir issued after the Civil War, written by the most important Confederate naval figure to emerge from the conflict. It appears here in its first indexed and professionally edited version, with an introduction and notes by Semmes's biographer John M. Taylor. According to Taylor, Semmes's impressive military performance would not be rivaled by any sea raider until the advent of the submarine. Commanding two cruisers, first the Sumter and then the famous Alabama, Semmes engineered a rout of the Federal merchant marine, burning or bonding a total of sixty-four vessels with the Alabama alone before its dramatic defeat by the USS Kearsarge off Cherbourg in 1864, an event that nonetheless served to enhance his reputation - as a pirate in the North and a hero in the South. His memoir is a rollicking account of the voyages of the Sumter and the Alabama, with digressions on his natural surroundings and sociopolitical topics. Written soon after the war, Semmes's work conveys a zeal for the Lost Cause and an unrelenting bitterness toward the Yankees that ironically tend to obscure his own deeds of skill, daring and humanitarianism."