 For example, the CSS "Alabama", a Confederate sloop-of-war commissioned on 24 August 1862, spent months capturing and burning ships in the North Atlantic and intercepting grain ships bound for Europe.Other Confederate commerce raiders included the CSS "Sumter", CSS "Florida", and CSS "Shenandoah".The elements contributing to the decline of the merchant marine were already operative before the Civil War, and the result would undoubtedly have been the same if that conflict had not come.