CS Navy

John Ocho was born Juan Ochoa, in Bilbao, Spain, the largest city in the Basque country of northern Spain, in 1847; his name later being changed from it’s original spelling. Later in life John became a seaman apprentice aboard the ship “T.B. Wales”, an East India trader returning to Boston, Massachusetts from Calcutta, India. Passengers aboard included the Captain’s wife, a former U.S. Consul, his wife and three daughters. During the voyage it was overtaken and captured, during the American Civil War, on November 10, 1862 by the Confederate cruiser “CSS Alabama”. With its crew and passengers being taken prisoner, John and seven other crewmembers decided to join the Confederate Navy and by August 22, 1863 John was rated as a Confederate seaman. After its capture the “Alabama” headed for a French island in the Caribbean north of Dominica, Maritinque, and then on to Fort-de-France the capital city of Maritinque, for coal arriving on November 18, 1862; where Captain Semmes put his prisoners ashore. John participated in many battles and the capture and destruction of many ships until the Confederate cruiser put into port on June 11, 1864; when Captain Semmes took her to Cherbourg, France, for repairs. The Union steam sloop “Kearsarge” soon arrived off the same port and on June 19^th the Alabama steamed out to do battle with her. In an hour of intense combat, however, the “CSS Alabama” was reduced to a sinking wreck by the Kearsarge's guns. John and other fellow seamen were then taken aboard the “Kearsarge” as prisoners of war.

After being transported to a Union prison John was eventually paroled, after which he made his way back to England to acquire his accrued wages from the owners of the “T.B. Wales”; before returning to the merchant marine service. After doing so he served aboard the ships “Abrolhos” in 1865 and the “Maggie” in 1866. After leaving the Merchant Marines John migrated to New Zealand, where he found work as a handcart man, pushing a simple cart transporting goods, and fell in love with a lady who readily accepted gifts from him; but who later turned her back on him. The loss of what he considered his true love caused John to become mentally unstable, and he was hospitalised and eventually sent to “Avondale”, the Auckland Lunatic Asylum. in Auckland, New Zealand where he died. 

John Ocho died at 56 years of age on May 16, 1889 and was buried in the Waikumete Cemetery, one of the largest cemeteries in the Southern Hemisphere having over 70,000 gravesites, in Auckland, New Zealand; Public Burial “A”, Row 1, Plot 70, J. S. Garrett Funeral Director presiding. He had no other relatives in New Zealand.

Bilbao, Spain Birth Records

CSS Alabama, Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection, Washington, DC.

Illustrated London News, October 10, 1863, vol. 43, no. 1225

New Zealand Birth, Marriage and Death Records

Raphael Semmes: The Philosophical Mariner, Warren F. Spencer

U.S. Naval Historical Center

Waikumete Cemetery, Auckland, New Zealand

Waitakere City Council, New Zealand

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