John McIntosh Kell of the Raider Alabama, and: American Civil War Navies: A Bibliography (review)

72CIVIL WAR HISTORY in the service file of a deserter from the 5th North Carolina is this notation: "Stay in service brief (15 minutes)." James I. Robertson, Jr. Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University John Mcintosh KeIl of the Raider Alabama. By Norman C. Delaney. (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1973. Pp. 270. $8.50.) American Civil War Navies: A Bibliography. By Myron J. Smith, Jr. Vol. Ill of American Naval Bibliography. (Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1972. Pp. ix, 347.) The first of these volumes seems to indicate that there will be no lack of publications concerning the CSS Alabama in the near future, for Kell's claim to fame was solely that he served as her executive officer. One presumes that we can look forward to further biographies since Alabama carried a number of other officers. However, it is unlikely that we will learn much about her career from these, if the present example is any indication. Indeed, only some fifty pages are devoted to Kell's service in Afobama. But perhaps that is as well, for her exploits have been related repeatedly, while the details of "Captain" Kell's life, if not especially exciting, at least have a quality of freshness. Professor Delaney traces his subject's ancestry to the earliest days of the Georgia colony and then describes Kell's early years on a small plantation near Darien. In 1841 he obtained an appointment as midshipman in the United States Navy through the assistance of influential family friends, and for the next twenty years his life was quite typical of that of young naval officers, save that he was cashiered by general court martial in 1849 for having refused to obey what he considered an illegal order. Like the three fellows who were dismissed with him, KeIl was reinstated in 1850, thanks to influential acquaintances and an opportune change of Secretaries of the Navy. After serving unspectacularly in California during the Mexican War and with Commodore Perry's East India Squadron during the opening of Japan, Lieutenant KeIl was stationed at the Warrington Navy Yard, Pensacola, when Georgia elected to secede. That same day he resigned his commission and accepted an appointment to Georgia's state navy, later joining the naval service of the Confederacy. Within a short time the Georgian was summoned by Raphael Semmes, an old acquaintance, to be executive officer of the USS Sumter, the first Confederate warship to put to sea, and after her sale at Gibraltar in 1862, he joined Alabama in like capacity. He was responsible for the discipline and training of the ships' companies, no small task especially in the latter which was manned largely by foreign mercenaries , and for the conditions of the ships themselves. From Delaney's account, KeIl does not seem to have been completely successful—prob- BOOK REVIEWS73 ably the personnel problem was really insoluble given the circumstances of Ahbama's career. When Alabama succumbed to the gunfire of an abler antagonist off Cherbourg, KeIl was rescued by the English yacht Deerhound and returned to the Confederacy in a blockade runner. His last service was in command of the James River ironclad Richmond, but ill health forced his relief before the war's end. Thereafter, KeIl devoted himself to farming and increasing his family , apparently achieving greater success in the latter, for he sired ten children, seven of whom were born after Appomattox. The necessity of educating those who survived—three died in childhood—caused him to seek public office; he held the appointive position of adjutant general of Georgia from 1887 to the end of his life in 1900. On the whole, this is a good book, although a few technical errors were noted, and one wonders about the author's failure to utilize such works as Morison's biography of Matthew C. Perry and Charles G. Summersell's Cruise of the CSS Sumter. Smith's bibliography sets out to record titles of all of the books, articles, and documents published in the United States relating to the naval history of the Civil War, listing them alphabetically by author. No effort is made to indicate relative values—it is disappointing to...