CSS Alabama vs. USS Kearsarge-- Part 7: Honors for Winslow and the Kearsarge

For Union Captain John Winslow and the Kearsarge, the victory was well deserved and rewarding.  Throughout the North news of the Alabama's end was greeted with jubilation and relief.

Secretary Welles wrote the Captain:  I congratulate you for your good fortune in meeting the Alabama which had so long avoided the fastest ships of the service ... for the ability displayed in the contest you have the thanks of the Department...

"The battle was so brief, the victory so decisive, and the comparative results so striking that the country will be reminded of the brilliant actions of our infant Navy, which have been repeated and illustrated in this engagement... Our countrymen have reason to be satisfied that in this, as in every naval action of this unhappy war, neither the ships, the guns, nor the crews have deteriorated, but that they maintain the ability and continue the renown which have ever adorned our naval annals."

Winslow received a vote of thanks from Congress, and was promoted to commodore with his commission dated 19 June 1864, his victory day.

And to think eighty years later the waters off Cherbourg, France were the scene of another great American/Allied victory with the Normandy Invasion and D-Day.

--Old B-R'er