The Great Civil War Lie

NY Times: Disunion: One of the North's worries was the ability of Great Britain to build large dangerous ships. One, in particular, the Scorpion class, with more modern cannon turrets vs. the deck mounted rails for large ordnance, was stopped, though two were built and later used by the British Navy as shown in Wikipedia. One built and completed, the CSS Alabama, created havoc in the Atlantic until finally sunk by the USS Kearsarge, off the coast of Cherbourg, France, where some of the Confederates are buried. The Union compelled the designer/owner of what became known as the submarine "Alligator" to be used and ordered up the James River to Appomattox, though then lower water levels wouldn't allow it to submerge, perhaps a possible fleet of them served as a warning to other nations. Reparations in Switzerland amounted to over $20 million, fined for the construction of the CSS Alabama I've read after the Civil War. The "Alligator" also sunk off of Cape Hatteras, NC, as did the USS Monitor, and is being searched for as part of the inventory of the more recent "Battle of the Atlantic".

• June 6, 2013 at 2:10 a.m.