USS Kearsarge

USS Kearsarge, a Mohican-class sloop-of-war, is best known for her defeat of the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama off Cherbourg, France during the American Civil War. Kearsarge was the only ship of the United States Navy named for Mount Kearsarge in New Hampshire. Subsequent ships were later named Kearsarge in honor of the ship.
Kearsarge was built at Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery, Maine, under the 1861 American Civil War emergency shipbuilding program. The new 1,550 long tons (1,570 t) steam sloop-of-war was launched on 11 September 1861; she was sponsored by Mrs. McFarland, the wife of the editor of the Concord Statement, and was commissioned on 24 January 1862, with Captain Charles W. Pickering in command. Soon after, she was hunting for Confederate raiders in European waters.
Kearsarge departed Portsmouth, New Hampshire on 5 February 1862 for the coast of Spain. She then sailed to Gibraltar to join the blockade of Confederate raider CSS Sumter, forcing the ship's abandonment there in December 1862.
On 14 June 1864, Kearsarge arrived at Cherbourg and found Alabama in port. The raider had returned there for much needed repairs after a very long, multiple ocean cruise at the expense of 65 Union merchant ships. Kearsarge took up station at the harbor's entrance to await Semmes' next move.
One hour after she fired her first salvo, Alabama had been reduced to a sinking wreck by Kearsarge's more accurate gunnery, and by its powerful 11 in (280 mm) Dahlgren smoothbore pivot guns. Alabama went down by the stern shortly after Semmes struck his colors, threw his sword into the sea to avoid its capture, and sent one of his two remaining longboats to Kearsarge with a message of surrender, and a rescue appeal for his surviving crew. Kearsarge finally sent ship's boats for the majority of Alabama's survivors, but Semmes and 41 others were instead rescued by the nearby British yacht Deerhound, and escaped to the United Kingdom. The battle between Kearsarge and Alabama is commemorated by the United States Navy with a battle star on the Civil War campaign streamer. In addition, 17 of Kearsarge's crew received the Medal of Honor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Kearsarge_(1861)