Group lists new U.S. Civil War site - in France

CHERBOURG, France - American cannon blasts bellowed in the English Channel 140 years ago, and bloodied bodies lined the deck of a sinking Confederate ship. Teary onlookers watched in horror from the Normandy coast.

On June 19, 1864, far from battlefields at home, the USS Kearsarge hunted down and sank a dreaded Confederate raider in one of the most important naval battles of the U.S. Civil War - off the coast of France.

The Confederate State Ship Alabama today lies where it sank under 198 feet of swirling currents about 8 miles off the French city of Cherbourg.

On Thursday, the Civil War Preservation Trust, an American nonprofit group, named this English Channel town a historic Civil War site - the first outside the United States. Officials dedicated a plaque commemorating the battle at the Cite de la Mer museum, which is exhibiting a cannon recovered from the Alabama.

The Alabama, built for the Confederacy by a company in Liverpool, England, was one of the most successful raiders ever. In 22 months, its crew boarded 447 vessels, including 65 Union merchant ships, and took 2,000 prisoners, according to the CSS Alabama Association.

"This ship caused a lot of panic in the United States," Robert Neyland, head of underwater archaeology at the U.S. Naval Historical Center, said from Washington.

Five days before its last battle, the Confederate raider stopped for repairs in Cherbourg, where the Kearsarge tracked the ship after a long hunt. Capt. Raphael Semmes, who commanded the three-masted Confederate sloop, then challenged Kearsarge Capt. John Winslow to a one-on-one battle.

French witness accounts and Semmes' journal described a gruesome battle between the steam- and sail-powered ships lasting more than an hour.

The historical center said 10 of the Alabama's 155 crew members were killed in the battle, four drowned and 15 went missing in action and were presumed dead.

Semmes' great-great grandson, Oliver Semmes, attended Thursday's ceremony.

A French naval mine sweeper discovered the 234-foot-long, 30-foot-wide boat in 1984. Divers and robots have retrieved relics - including the cannon, revolver bullets and coins - in more than 1,000 dives.

After a two-year pause, explorations will resume next year. The ship belongs to the United States, but is in French territorial waters.

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