Repercussions
During her two-year career as a commerce raider, Alabama caused disorder and devastation across the globe for Union merchant shipping. The Confederate cruiser claimed 65 prizes valued at nearly $6,000,000 (approximately $123,000,000 in today's dollars). In an important development in international law, the U. S. Government pursued the "Alabama Claims" against the British Government for the devastation caused, and following a court of arbitration, won heavy damages.
Ironically, a decade before the beginning of the Civil War, Captain Semmes had observed:
"(Commerce raiders) are little better than licensed pirates; and it behooves all civilized nations to suppress the practice altogether." --Raphael Semmes, 1851
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