Finding the Florida in Brest, he blockaded the port.  It was in the depth of winter and the shore was dangerous, but Winslow did his duty so well that the Florida dared not poke her nose outside, until he was compelled, because of shortness of provisions, to steam over to Cadiz to obtain them.  He made all haste to return, but when he arrived the Florida had slipped out and was gone.

There was no telling to what part of the world she had fled, and Captain Winslow sailed to Calais, where he learned that the rebel Rappahannock was awaiting a chance to put to sea.  He held her there for two months, when a French pilot purposely ran the Kearsarge into the piers along shore.  It was done by prearrangement with the officers of the Rappahannock, in order to give the latter a chance to put to sea.  The indignant Winslow drove all the French pilots off his ship, and by vigorous work got her off by daylight the next morning.  Meanwhile the Rappahannock, which had greatly overstayed her time, was ordered by the French authorities to leave.  Winslow heard of this, and, without waiting for some of his men and officers who were on shore, he moved out of the harbor.  When the commander of the Rappahannock saw the Kearsarge once more off the port of Calais, he knew it was all up and dismantled his ship.

There was one Confederate scourge that had been roaming the seas for months which Captain Winslow was anxious, above all others, to meet; that was the Alabama, commanded by his former room-mate, Captain Raphael Semmes.  The Kearsarge, like many other vessels of the United States, had been hunting here and there for the ocean pest, but it seemed impossible to bring her to bay.

On Sunday morning, June 12, 1864, the Kearsarge was lying off the town of Flushing, Holland, with many of the officers and men ashore, and with everything wearing the appearance of a protracted rest for the crew.  Some hours later, however, a gun was fired as a signal for every member of the ship’s company to come aboard at once.  The cause of this sudden awaking was a telegram from Minister William L. Dayton, at Paris, notifying Captain Winslow that the Alabama had arrived at Cherbourg.  On Tuesday, Winslow appeared off the fort, and saw the cruiser within, with her Stars and Bars floating defiantly in the breeze.  Had Captain Winslow followed, he would have been compelled by law to remain twenty-four hours after the departure of the Alabama, so he took a station outside, determined that the cruiser should not escape him again.

In this case, however, the precaution was unnecessary, for Semmes had made up his mind to fight the National vessel.  He had been charged with cowardice in running away from armed ships, and he had destroyed and captured so many helpless merchantmen that he felt something was due to retrieve his reputation.  A comparison of the crews and armaments of the Kearsarge and Alabama will show that they were pretty evenly matched, though the slight numerical superiority of the Union ship was emphasized by the fact that her men were almost wholly American, while those of Semmes, as already stated, were nearly all English.