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Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 79.5cm
The Confederate steamship Alabama is portrayed in port profile under steam and sail off Cork. Roches Point and lighthouse can be seen under the bowsprit.
She was wooden hulled and had an auxiliary barque rig with single funnel. The vessel is flying the Confederate flag at the after peak and a Confederate pennant from the top of the main mast.
The steamship is one of the most famous ships built at Laird's yard in Birkenhead. Despite Britain's neutrality in the American Civil War there was much sympathy for the Confederate cause in Liverpool and the Alabama was secretly built for the Confederacy at Laird's, known only by her job number 290. She left the Mersey on 28 July 1862 called 'Enrica' supposedly for further sea trials. Instead she sailed to the Azores where she was fitted out with armaments and ammunition. During her career as a commerce raider she sank 68 federal vessels and was herself sunk by USS Kearsarge after being trapped in the harbour at Cherbourg in June 1864.
Samuel Walters is probably the best known and most accomplished of all the ship portrait artists who worked in Liverpool. He was the son of Miles Walters and was brought up in the docklands area of London before moving to Liverpool with his family about 1826. He initially worked in his father's studio and studied at the Liverpool Academy School. Many of his paintings were produced as engravings and he also experimented with photographic reproductions from the 1860s.
This painting is currently on display in the International Slavery Museum, on the third floor of the Merseyside Maritime Museum building.