The article was published in Polish. Below is an English translation of its opening. Wersja polska
CSS Alabama was the most famous ship of the Confederate States Navy and at the same time the most successful surface commerce raider in the history of naval warfare. During her short but turbulent career, however, she fought armed enemy ships only twice. The second of those clashes – the fight off Cherbourg on 19 June 1864, which ended with Alabama sunk by USS Kearsarge – is widely known, immortalised in a painting by Édouard Manet and in a sea shanty. This article presents a less well-known episode: Alabama’s first encounter with a Union warship, which took place on the evening of 11 January 1863.
