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Sinclair, Arthur, IV (or Jr.)

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First Lieutenant, Confederate States Navy, (1837-1925)

First Lieutenant Arthur Sinclair, IV (or Jr.), Confederate States Navy, (1837-1925)


Arthur Sinclair, IV, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on 5 May 1837, the son and grandson of U.S. Navy officers. He served at sea under his father in the 1850s but had returned to civilian life by the time of the the 1860-61 secession crisis. Sinclair entered Southern naval service and served in CSS United States and in other ships during 1861, and on board the ironclad Virginia during her battle with USS Monitor on 9 March 1862. He was subsequently sent to join CSS Mississippi at New Orleans, but she was destroyed at about the time he arrived. Appointed to the rank of Acting Master in August 1862, he was an officer of CSS Alabama, under Captain Raphael Semmes, during her destructive commerce raiding career in 1862-64.


First Lieutenant Sinclair was present during the battle between Alabama and USS Kearsarge on 19 June 1864. When his ship was sunk, he was rescued by the English yacht Deerhound and taken to Southampton. He later served as an officer of the inactive cruiser CSS Rappahannock at Calais, France. Following the Civil War, he primarily lived in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was a merchant. In the 1890s he wrote a memoir of CSS Alabama, entitled "Two Years on the Alabama". Arthur Sinclair died in Baltimore in November 1925.


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