After five successful commerce raiding missions in the Atlantic Ocean, CSS Alabama put into Cherbourg Harbor on June 11, 1864.

After 22 months of sailing, the Alabama boilers were burned out; machinery needed repairs; loose at every joint and her copper bottom was in rolls.

Union Captain Winslow telegraphed USS St. Louis to request her assistance, but the fighting began before she could arrive.

Captain Winslow spotted the departing Confederate raider, so he turned his ship around to take the impending battle out of French territorial waters.

[citation needed] The first shell, a 32-pounder, struck the starboard gangway, cutting part of the chain armor and denting the wooden planking underneath.

Eventually, after just over an hour of exchanging artillery fire, Alabama had received shot-holes beneath the waterline from Kearsarge's Dahlgren guns and began to sink.

Thirty or so were rescued by Deerhound, a British yacht, which Captain Winslow asked to help evacuate Alabama's crew, and three French pilot boats.

Instead of delivering the captured Confederates to Kearsarge, Deerhound set a course for Southampton, thus enabling Captain Semmes' escape.

[5] For many years after the battle, Confederate Captain Semmes stated that he would never have chosen to test Kearsarge had he known of her armor-clad protection.

In November 1984, the French minesweeper Circé located the wreck of Alabama at a depth of 60 meters (200 ft), a little under 10 kilometers (5.4 nmi; 6.2 mi) north of the western approaches of Cherbourg roads (49°45′9″N 01°41′42″W / 49.75250°N 1.69500°W / 49.75250; -1.69500).

In 1988, a nonprofit organisation named the CSS Alabama Association[8] was created to conduct a scientific survey of the wreck.

On 3 October 1989, France and the United States signed an agreement recognising the wreck as a common historic heritage for both nations and established a joint scientific team for its exploration.