The Confederate cruiser Shenandoah was the last of a colorful line of Civil War sea raiders to elude the vigilance of neutral European governments and put to sea with destruction of Northern commerce as her mission. The end of the war found her far from a home port.
It was on October 1, 1864, that a group of Confederate naval officers, who had been waiting orders in England and France, received instructions from Commodore Samuel Barron, senior Confederate naval officer in Europe, to proceed at once to Liverpool and there report to Captain James D. Bulloch, the South’s naval agent at that port.
Bulloch ordered the group to outfit itself for a two-year cruise and to have trunks packed into wooden boxes so they would look like ordinary merchandise. The boxes were then sent on board the steamer Laurel. Five days later the officers, numbering 23, and 12 enlisted men from the crew of the sunken raider Alabama, embarked in the Laurel, which promptly went to sea.
The Laurel was a small steamer owned by the Confederate government and used as a blockade runner. On this particular voyage she cleared for Matamoras, but her real destination was the Madeira Islands where she was to rendezvous with the Sea King, later renamed the Shenandoah, which sailed from London on the same day. Five days of steaming at her best speed brought the Laurel into the harbor of Funchal, where she waited two days before the Sea King appeared.)
The Sea King had been purchased in London by an English merchant and loaded with coal, provisions, and other stores for a long voyage. She was manned by officers and men of the British merchant service and cleared for Bombay. None of her crew, with the exception of the captain who had received certain hints, suspected that the ship was bound on any other voyage than the one named in the shipping articles.
Just as she weighed anchor, however, Lieutenant William C. Whittle, C.S.N., who was to be executive officer of the Shenandoah, was put on board as a passenger under an assumed name. As soon as the Sea King was outside English jurisdiction, Lieutenant Whittle revealed his true identity to Captain Corbet, showed his authority from the ship’s original owner, took charge and immediately ordered a course set for Madeira Islands, where she arrived without incident, finding the Laurel awaiting her.
The Sea King did not enter the harbor but signaled the Laurel from the offing and that steamer joined the newcomer under the lee of Desertas Island, an uninhabited rock, where they were anchored alongside and the guns, ammunition, and other stores that crammed the Laurel’s hold were transferred to the deck of the Sea King as rapidly as possible.
The Sea King's men numbered more than 40 and it had been hoped that most of this crew would enlist in the raider, but this hope was soon dashed. After leaving London, the sailors began suspecting that something unusual was about to transpire. They became restive and when their ship anchored in the lee of a barren rock in midocean and began taking on guns and ammunition, they demanded an explanation from their officers.
Apprised of the ship’s true mission, the sailors became angry, and most of them refused to remain when the ship was renamed Shenandoah and commissioned as a Confederate naval vessel. Only a few firemen and coal passers signed up, the rest trooping aboard the Laurel for transportation to Tenerife. When the Shenandoah was ready for sea her enlisted personnel numbered 19, including one cook and a cabin boy, far short of a normal complement of 150 men.
Lieutenant James I. Waddell, commanding the Shenandoah, was much discouraged and believed it unsafe to cruise with so small a crew, but his officers urged adherence to the original plan. They told him if he would navigate the ship they would work her and do such other labor as needed until recruits from prizes could be obtained. Waddell finally consented and the Shenandoah put to sea October 19, with a crew numbering 43, of whom 24 were officers.
The Shenandoah was a full-rigged ship of fine sailing qualities. She carried a cloud of canvas, having cross-jack, royal studding sails, and jib topsail. She had rolling topsail yards, which were of great assistance in shortening sail with sailors so scarce. The ship was built of wood with iron knees and frames, iron masts and bowsprit, and steel yards. All of her standing rigging was of wire.
She was an “auxiliary screw” type vessel, having a propeller that could be hoisted out of water when not in use and a funnel that shut down like a telescope flush with the rail. Her engines were small, intended for use only in calm weather, and she could not steam more than 8 knots under the most favorable conditions. She was a fast sailer, however, and more than once logged 17 knots under canvas.
The armament, which was mounted with great difficulty, consisted of 6 guns; two rifled 32-pounders forward and four 8- inch shell guns amidships. There were also two little brass “popguns” on the poop, which the ship had carried as a merchantman.
When the Shenandoah put to sea, her decks were so littered with heavy guns, gun carriages, boxed stores, rope, ammunition, and other supplies that her scanty crew found it almost impossible to work the ship. Moreover, the stores loaded at London were stowed without any expectation of their being used during the voyage, so that they also had to be overhauled.
The officers and men were divided in gangs, and set to work with a will. Fortunately, the weather continued fine, and in 10 days the Shenandoah's men had brought order out of chaos. Gun ports had been cut and the weapons mounted and secured. The ammunition was safely stowed, the fore and after holds carefully rearranged, and the ship generally well snugged down.
During these days of herculean efforts, the Shenandoah was sailing south for the Cape of Good Hope and eventually the hunting grounds of the American whaling fleet in the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans. On October 29, the tenth day of the cruise, the bark Alina of Searsport, Maine, became the raider’s first prize about 15 degrees north of the equator.
The Alina, bound from England to Buenos Aires with railroad iron, represented a total value of $95,000. She was scuttled after her crew of nine had been removed. Six of the bark’s men decided to join the Confederate crew.
A number of captures were made during the next few weeks including the schooner Charter Oak, the ship Kate Prince, bark D. Godfrey, brig Susan, and schooner Lizzie M. Stacey. All were destroyed save the Kate Prince which was released in bond to carry the captured crews into Bahia. Not all departed, however, for several additional recruits were obtained, including the captain of the Susan who was a German and knew little about the war between the States. Most American seamen of that time were foreigners and it was due to this fact that so many shipped on board the raider when their vessels were destroyed.
The Shenandoah entered the South Atlantic whaling grounds but did not stop to cruise in those waters since her intended field of operations was still thousands of miles away. The whaling bark Edward, of New Bedford, was captured while her crew was engaged in cutting up a whale alongside. The bark was burned and her men taken into Tristan da Cunha, where the raider replenished her food supplies, and then shaped a course around the Cape of Good Hope for Australia.
No prizes were captured until December 29, when the bark Delphine of Bangor, Maine, was overhauled in the Indian Ocean. A high sea was running and the Shenandoah was under reefed topsails, with propeller up and fires out. The bark edged close to exchange signals, thinking the stranger an Englishman. The Shenandoah hauled into the wind and the Delphine passed under the raider’s stern. The latter fired a warning gun and the bark’s astonished master hove to.
The Delphine's people, including the captain’s wife, were transferred with difficulty in the high seas by means of two whaleboats taken from the Edward. The bark was then burned, and the Shenandoah resumed her voyage. The weather cleared and a stop was made for water and provisions at St. Paul Island. The raider then set out for Melbourne, making her first Australian landfall on January 25, 1865. By late afternoon of that day, the ship was anchored in Hobson’s Bay.
Here she was docked for needed repairs to her propeller shaft. Despite the repeated protests of United States consular officers, colonial authorities let the Confederate cruiser take as much time as she required for overhauling. So it was not until February 18 that the Shenandoah went to sea again. She cruised for a few weeks off the coast of New Zealand encountering nothing but rough weather, and then set a course for the North Pacific.
The raider stopped at Ascension Island, one of the Carolines, just north of the equator, a customary stop for whaling ships. Four American whalers were in the harbor when the Shenandoah reached the island. These were the ships Hunter and Edward Carey and the barks Pearl and Harvest, all of which were captured. After spending two weeks at Ascension Island, the Shenandoah put to sea on April 15 and resumed her northerly course, soon reaching the outer edge of the Japan seas, where she cruised for a week in the track of vessels crossing the Pacific.
No American ships were sighted, however, and so Waddell headed on to the Okhotsk Sea which the raider entered May 20. The only prize made in this area was the whaling bark Abigail, which was burned after her crew had been transferred to the Shenandoah. Fifteen of these whale-men joined the cruiser’s complement, which had been previously augmented somewhat from other prizes. On June 21, the Shenandoah entered the Bering Sea, crossing the 180th meridian of longitude.
The week which followed was the busiest of the entire cruise as far as captures were concerned. Not a day passed without at least one prize being made. A total of 25 whaling ships were taken, of which all but three or four were burned. Those escaping a fiery fate were bonded and sent away with the captured crews.
The Shenandoah's last captures were made June 28, when 11 vessels were taken. Nine of these were fired and all were burning at the same time within a few miles of one another. One of the 11 had been so damaged by ice floes that her captain had decided to abandon her, so a sale of all the equipment had drawn the others to the vicinity. Most of these were actually at anchor and the entire fleet was bagged with ease.
The raider had passed through the Bering Strait and into the Arctic Ocean before her captain decided further northward cruising was too dangerous. After one day spent in the Arctic, the ship was turned southward and on July 5 passed into the open Pacific, leaving the ice behind.
The next month was uneventful, with the Shenandoah steering southward to get into the track of the China traders and the Pacific mail steamers. Then on August 2 she spoke the English bark Barracouta, which conveyed the stunning news that the Confederate government had collapsed and the war had ended. The important question as to the disposal of the Shenandoah then arose.
Captain Waddell decided to take his ship around Cape Horn and into the nearest English port, but her actual destination was not made known to any one. Immediately after parting company with the Barracouta, the Shenandoah's guns were dismounted, her ports closed, and all small arms were stowed away in the hold. The ship was kept under sail, saving the little fuel remaining for condensing fresh water and a possible emergency.
After doubling the Horn, a council of officers, called by the captain, voted to take the ship into Liverpool, and course was set for that port which was reached November 6, and the cruise of the Shenandoah was ended with Waddell surrendering his ship to the English authorities.
When the pilot boarded the ship that November morning, he was besieged with questions concerning the war in America, as the officers in particular had been hoping that there might be some mistake about the news received in the Pacific.
This anxiety furnished the spark for a cartoon that appeared in the English magazine Punch representing the Shenandoah, with Captain Waddell astride one of his guns shouting through a megaphone to a distant pilot boat, “Is Queen Anne dead?”
The Shenandoah was actually cruising but eight months after the enemy's property, during which time she made thirty-eight captures, an average of a fraction over four per month.
She released six on bond and destroyed thirty-two.
She visited every ocean except the Antarctic Ocean.
She was the only vessel which carried the flag around the world, and she carried it six months after the overthrow of the South.
She was surrendered to the British nation on the 6th November, 1865.
The last gun in defense of the South was fired from her deck on the 22d of June, Arctic Ocean.
She ran a distance of 58,000 statute miles and met with no serious injury during a cruise of thirteen months.
Her anchors were on her bows for eight months.
She never lost a chase, and was second only to the celebrated Alabama.
I claim for her officers and men a triumph over their enemies and over every obstacle, and for myself I claim having done my duty. —Extracts from notes on the C.S.S. Shenandoah by her commander, James Iredell Waddell, C.S. Navy.