It was about ten o’clock that Winslow, with his glass pointed toward shore, saw the head of the Alabama coming round the point of the mole, some three miles distant.  He immediately beat to quarters.  The Couronne accompanied the Alabama to the limits of French waters, and then turned back.  The English yacht Deerhound had hurried down from Caen, upon being telegraphed of the impending fight, and the owner, with his family on board, followed the Alabama at the risk of receiving a stray shot that would wind up the career of the pleasure craft and all on board.

Some time before Captain Winslow had arranged his sheet chains for a distance of fifty feet amidships and over the side of his vessel, extending six feet down.  They were intended as an additional protection to his machinery, and the practice is common among warships.  The chains were secured by marline to eyebolts protected with one-inch boards.  This natural precaution was the foundation for Captain Semmes’ charge that the Kearsarge was partly armored.  During the fight this part of the ship was hit only twice, so that the protection, if it be considered such, bore an unimportant part in the battle itself.

Captain Winslow was determined that no question about neutral waters should be raised.  Accordingly, as the Alabama approached, he steamed out to sea, as if running away from his antagonist.  Another object he had in mind was to prevent the Alabama, in case she was crippled, from escaping by running into the harbor.

When the Kearsarge had reached a point some seven miles from land, she swung around and made directly for the Alabama, although such a course exposed her to the raking broadsides of the enemy.  Reading his purpose, Semmes slowed his engines and sheered off, thus presenting his starboard battery to the Kearsarge.  When the vessels were about a mile apart, the jets of fire and smoke from the side of the Alabama, followed by the reverberating boom of her cannon, showed that she had fired her first broadside.  It did only trifling damage to the rigging of the Kearsarge.  A second and part of a third broadside were delivered, with no perceptible effect.  All the time, under a full head of steam, Winslow was rushing toward his enemy for the death grapple.  Still in peril of being raked, he now sheered when half a mile distant and fired his broadside of five-second shells, at the same time endeavoring to pass under the Alabama’s stern, but Semmes defeated the manoeuvre by also sheering his vessel.  The effort of each was now to keep his starboard broadside presented to the other, the attempt causing the two ships to describe an immense circle, the diameter of which steadily decreased, until it was barely a third of a mile.