WHITE-DAVID

FREEMAN WHO BECAME CONFEDERATE NAVY SLAVE

The Confederate States Navy screw sloop-of-war CSS ALABAMA was perhaps the most famous commerce raider of the Confederacy during the Civil War as the ship is credited with having burned at least 65 Union vessels of various types, most of them merchant ships.  During ALABAMA’s raiding ventures, captured ships’ crews and passengers were detained—usually in irons—until they could be placed aboard a neutral ship or placed ashore.

On the afternoon of October 9, 1862, the ALABAMA captured the Philadelphia-based packet TONAWANDA.  On board were 75 civilian passengers including David Henry White, a free  African-American teenager from Lewes, Delaware, who served as an assistant cook, on his second such voyage. In his post-war memoir, Captain Raphael Semmes of the ALABAMA falsely described White as a ‘passenger’ on the TONAWANDA, and ‘the slave of a Delaware businessman’, descriptions which have escaped scrutiny and become the conventional narrative. In reality, White was not a passenger (he was crew); and not previously enslaved. Semmes forcibly kidnapped White from the TONAWANDA, and enslaved him for the remainder of the ALABAMA’S cruise.

White was not mustered as a seaman or as a gunner but instead was appointed to the wardroom mess with the designation Wardroom Boy.  Although Semmes reported that White was paid ‘according to his grade’, he was in fact demoted from his position of ‘passenger cook’ on the TONAWANDA (@$15/mo.) to that of “Boy” on the ALABAMA (@$9.68/mo).  Furthermore, while White has been described as a loyal servant of the Confederacy who never took numerous opportunities to escape, there is no evidence that he was ever allowed on shore alone in the numerous Confederacy-friendly ports the ALABAMA visited.

On June 19, 1864, ALABAMA engaged in battle with USS KEARSARGE off the coast of Cherbourg, France.  ALABAMA was sunk during the engagement, and although most of the ALABAMA’s officers were saved, White was abandoned to drown as the ALABAMA’s officers escaped on a consort vessel, the DEERHOUND, destroying a life boat on its way.

Submitted by CDR Roy A. Mosteller, USNR (Ret)

REVISED BY ANDREW SILLEN