WI: The Deerhound is sunk at the Battle of Cherbourg?

What if during the Battle of Cherbourg, Captain John Winslow is gravely wounded and unable to command the ship resulting in his officers, who OTL had begged him to fire upon the British yacht, and the officer's shell the Deerhound? The French ironclad, the Couronne, had escorted the CSS Alabama along with the Deerhound out of French waters to it's conflict with USS Kearsarge so it's still in the general area, would it get involved after this attack on the Deerhound? Could this incident drag the UK in the ACW?
 
So the French and the British are just going to do anything about the US sinking the Deerhound?

If the Couronne shows upset the Kearsage will back off the Deerhound, otherwise it would be a very short and one sided fight. If the French warship does not intervene then the British demand and after some stalling receive compensation as the Americans when their overseas squadron tend to guest at British naval stations like Gibraltar and Hong Kong decide it does not pay to too long annoy the world's premier naval power.

Possibly Winslow's career stalls prior to reaching rear admiral. However the Kearsage was not that heavily armed so no guarantee she can even hit the Deerhound let alone sink her before she gets out of range. Still assuming she does get sunk she was a private vessel messing about too close to someone's else's war so I suspect sympathy will be muted beyond making the Americans part with some money to make sure they try and avoid any further such 'accidents'.
 

Spengler

Banned
America pays some money and Deerhound is a nice footnote in history. It did in fact decide to get involved in someone elses war. Who knows though maybe in the 30s some vile southern romanticist write a book lionizing the crew of the Deerhound.
 
Top