A Confederate soldier gives the following account of the sinking of that famous vessel and his subsequent adventures:

“I was with Semmes, everywhere he went, in the naval brigade, and in blockade running, and was on the Alabama all the time he commanded her. I was with him when she sank, and was picked up when he was, by the Deerhound. A sharp fight it was, I assure you, but it wasn’t altogether the eleven-inch guns of the Kearsarge that did the business. We never had a chance of success, and our men knew it; and then we had no gunners to compare with the Kearsarge’s.

“Our gunners fired by routine, and when they had a gun loaded, fired it off blind. They never changed the elevation of their guns all through the fight, and the Kearsarge was working up all the time, taking advantage of every time she was hid by the smoke to work a little nearer, and then her gunners took aim for every shot. We never tried to board the Kearsarge, but, on the contrary, tried our best to get away, from the time the fight commenced.

“We knew very well that if we got in range of her Dahlgren howitzers she would sink us in ten minutes.

“Semmes never supposed he could whip the Kearsarge when he went out to fight her. He was bullied into it, and took good care to leave all his valuables on shore, and had a life-preserver on through the fight. I saw him put it on, and I thought if it was wise in him, it wouldn’t be foolish in me to do the same. When Semmes saw that the ship was going down, he told us all to swim who could, and was one of the first to jump into the water, and we all made for the Deerhound.

“I was a long way ahead of Semmes, and when I came up to the Deerhound’s boat, they asked me if I was Semmes, before they would take me in. They would not take me in till I told them I was an officer on the Alabama, and as soon as they had Semmes aboard they made tracks as fast as they knew how, and left everybody else to be drowned or picked up by the Kearsage.”