CSS Alabama's South African Expeditionary Raid

CSS Alabama's South African Expeditionary Raid commenced shortly after the Confederate States Navy ship CSS Alabama left Brazil and the south Atlantic Ocean and patrolled southward of the African continent near the Cape of Good Hope. The raid lasted from about the beginning of August 1863 to the end of September 1863.

The primary area of operation during this expeditionary raid was off the southern seaboard of Africa ranging east and west hunting for China clippers having to make the voyage around the Cape of Good Hope near Cape Town.

Raid overview

CSS Alabama worked its way slowly back and forth in the vicinity of Cape Town in one of the least successful of its seven raids, capturing a few Yankee barks. While operating in this area, the Union Navy's USS Vanderbilt put into Simon's Town in pursuit of CSS Alabama, but had no luck in finding the elusive Confederate raider. CSS Alabama rendezvoused a few times with its allied ship, CSS Tuscaloosa.

After this patrol station, CSS Alabama made its way eastwards into the Indian Ocean to continue its unhindered wrecking of enemy commerce in the Indian Ocean as far as Indonesia.

Raid bounty

CSS Alabama's South African Expeditionary Raid

Date	Ship name	Tonnage	Ship type	Location	Disposition of prize
August 5, 1863	Sea Bride	?	Bark	Near Cape Town	Captured & sold
August 9, 1863	Martha Wenzell	?	Bark	Cape of Good Hope	Captured & let go

References

• Hearn, Chester G., Gray Raiders of the Sea, Louisiana State Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8071-2114-2
• Luraghi, Raimondo, A History of the Confederate Navy, U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1996. ISBN 1-55750-527-6