Raphael Semmes was the Confederacy’s most famous naval officer. Many of his Northern contemporaries, however, considered the Yankee-hating Semmes nothing more than a pirate. In either guise, Semmes commanded the most successful sea raider of all time. During a two-year cruise, his Alabama took nearly 100 Federal merchant vessels out of the war and became a household word on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Her final battle, off the coast of France against the USS Kearsarge, was an epic clash befitting the last one-on-one duel of wooden ships. A commander who carried out his mission without being able to call in a Southern port and whose crew had no allegiance to the Confederacy, Semmes is a compelling figure in American military history. John M. Taylor is the author of William Henry Seward: Lincoln’s Right Hand and General Maxwell Taylor: The Sword and the Pen .