CSS Shenandoah

This article is about the 19th century ship CSS Shenandoah. For other uses, see Shenandoah.

CSS Shenandoah In drydock at Williamstown, Australia, in 1865
Career	Confederate Navy Jack
Name:	1st:Sea King, 2nd CSS Shenandoah, 3rd: El Majidi
Port of registry:	Liverpool, Lloyds's A-1
Builder:	Alexander Stephen & Sons, River Clyde, Scotland
Launched:	August 17, 1863
Acquired:	1863
Recommissioned:	October 19, 1864
Decommissioned:	November 6, 1865
Maiden voyage:	Transport troops to New Zealand & return, 10 months
Renamed:	CSS Shenandoah
Fate:	Surrendered to British authorities at Liverpool. Turned over to the U.S. Consul, Thomas Haines Dudley. Sold at auction in April, 1866 for £17,000. *approx. ($85,000. in 1866) to the Sultan of Zanzibar.
Status:	Beached during hurricane, Zanzibar, 1872
General characteristics
Type:	Extreme clipper hull
Displacement:	1160 tons
Length:	230 ft (70 m)
Beam:	32.5 ft (9.9 m)
Draft:	20 ft 6 in (6.25 m)
Decks:	poop, main, berth
Deck clearance:	7.5 feet (2.3 m)
Installed power:	200 HP A. & J. Inglis steam engine
Propulsion:	14 foot diameter bronze propellor
Sail plan:	Full rigged ship
Speed:	8 knots (15 km/h) under steam 16 knots (30 km/h) under sail
Complement:	109 officers and men
Armament:	4 × 8 in (203 mm) smoothbore cannons, 2 × 12 pounder (5 kg) rifled Whitworth cannons, 2 × 32 pounder (15 kg) cannons

CSS Shenandoah, formerly Sea King, was an iron-framed, teak-planked, full rigged ship, with auxiliary steam power, captained by Commander James Waddell, Confederate States Navy, a North Carolinian with twenty years' service in the United States Navy.

During 12½ months of 1864–1865 the ship undertook commerce raiding resulting in the capture and sinking or bonding of thirty-eight American merchant vessels, mostly New Bedford whaleships. This ship is notable for firing the last shot of the American Civil War, at a whaler in waters off the Aleutian Islands.

History and mission

File:CSSShenandoah-sketch.jpg

A pencil sketch of CSS Shenandoah, from the inside cover of a notebook kept by her Commanding Officer, James I. Waddell

She was designed as a British commercial transport vessel for the East Asia tea trade and troop transport. She was built on the River Clyde in Scotland. The Confederate Government purchased her in September, 1864 for use as an armed cruiser to capture and destroy Union merchant ships.

On October 8, she sailed from London ostensibly for Bombay, India, on a trading voyage. She rendezvoused at Funchal, Madeira, with the steamer Laurel, bearing officers and the nucleus of a crew for Sea King, together with naval guns, ammunition, and stores. Commanding officer Lieutenant James Iredell Waddell supervised her conversion to a ship-of-war in nearby waters. Waddell was barely able, however, to bring his crew to half strength even with additional volunteers from Sea King and Laurel.

The new cruiser was commissioned on October 19 and her name changed to Shenandoah. The ship, commanded by Captain Waddell, then sailed around the Cape of Good Hope of Africa to Australia. While at Melbourne, Victoria, in January 1865, Waddell obtained additional men and supplies.

In accord with operation concepts originated in the Confederate Navy Department and developed by its agents in Europe, Shenandoah was assigned to "seek out and utterly destroy" commerce in areas as yet undisturbed (i.e., attack Union ships), and thereafter her course lay in pursuit of merchantmen on the Cape of Good Hope–Australia route and of the Pacific whaling fleet.

En route to the Cape she picked up six prizes (i.e., captured six ships). Five of these were put to the torch or scuttled, after Captain Waddell had safely rescued crew and passengers; the other was bonded and employed for transport of prisoners to Bahia, Brazil.

Australia stopover

Main article: Australia and the American Civil War#CSS Shenandoah

File:CSS Shenandoah world travels 1865.png

Map ofShenandoah's 12½ month voyage around the world.

Still short-handed, though her crew had been increased by voluntary enlistments from prizes, Shenandoah arrived at Melbourne, Victoria, on January 25, 1865, where she filled her complement and her storerooms.

She also took on 40 crew members who were stowaways from Melbourne. However, they were not enlisted until the ship was outside the legal limits of Australian waters. The Shipping Articles show that all these 40 crew members enlisted on the day of her departure from Melbourne, February 18, 1865. Nineteen of her crew deserted at Melbourne, some of whom gave statements of their service to the United States Consul there. An 1871 hearing at the International Court in Geneva awarded damages of £820,000 against Britain to the US government for use of the port at Williamstown by the CSS Shenandoah.

Vessels captured

File:Shenandoah destroying whale ships .jpg

Shenandoah destroying whale ships

Sea King departed Liverpool October 8, 1864 and on October 19, off the coast of France, was surreptitiously re-commissioned as the warship CSS Shenandoah. En route to Cape Horn, she captured and disposed of eight prizes in the Atlantic Ocean.

Shenandoah took only one prize in the Indian Ocean, but hunting became more profitable after refitting in Melbourne. Enroute to the North Pacific whaling grounds, on April 3–4, Waddell burned four whalers in the Caroline Islands. After a 3-week cruise to the ice and fog of the Sea of Okhotsk yielded only a single prize, due to a warning which had preceded him, Waddell headed north past the Aleutian Islands into the Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Shenandoah then proceeded to capture 11 more prizes.

On June 27, 1865, he learned, from a prize Susan & Abigail, of General Robert E. Lee's surrender when her captain produced a San Francisco newspaper reporting the flight from Richmond, Virginia, of the Confederate Government 10 weeks previously. The same paper contained Confederate President Jefferson Davis's proclamation, after Lee's surrender, that the "war would be carried on with re-newed vigor." He then proceeded to capture 10 more whalers in the space of 7 hours in the waters just below the Arctic Circle. It was not until August 2 that Shenandoah learned of the final Confederate collapse when she encountered the British barque Barracouta. Among the devastating news was surrender of General Johnston's, Smith's, and Magruder's armies and, crucially, the capture of Mr. Davis and a part of his cabinet. Captain Waddell then disarmed the ship and proceeded back to surrender at Liverpool.

Names and dates of 38 vessels captured by Shenandoah

1. On October 30, 1864, the cargo bark Alina was scuttled south of the Azores, west of Dakar, near 16°47′N 26°43′W.

2. On November 6, the cargo schooner Charter Oak of Boston, Massachusetts was burned in the mid Atlantic at 7°35′N 27°46′W.

3. On Nov. 8, the cargo bark D. Godfrey of Boston was sunk southwest of the Cape Verde Islands 6°28.5′N 28°24′W.

4. On Nov.10, the cargo hermaphrodite brig Susan of Boston was scuttled southwest of the Cape Verde Islands.

5, 6. On Nov. 12, the neutral cargo ship Kate Prince of Portsmouth, New Hampshire was bonded for $40,000. at 1°45′N 29°22′W. Prisoners were sent to Bahia, Brazil and the bark Adelaide was ransomed for $24,000. and released.

7. On Nov.13, the cargo schooner Lizzie M. Stacey of Boston was scuttled and burned near the Equator.

8. On December 4, the whaling bark Edward was burned off Tristan de Cunha, near 37°47′S 12°30.5′W.

9. On Dec. 29, the bark Delphine of Bangor, Maine was burned at 12°13′S 68°33′E in the Indian Ocean, 1,550 kilometres (960 mi) south southwest of India.

During January 26 to February 17, 1865, repairs, crew recruiting and resupply was done at Hobson's Bay, Australia.

10. On April 3, the whaling bark Pearl of New London was burned at Lohd Pah Harbor 6°48′37″N 158°18′58″E, Pohnpei Island in Micronesia.
11, 12. On April 4, the whaling ships Hector of New Bedford and Edward Carey, of San Francisco, were burned at Lohd Pah Harbor.
13. On April 10, the whaling bark Harvest nominally of Honolulu was also burned at Lohd Pah Harbor
On 4-13-1865, at 7:30 am, the Shenandoah departed Lohd Pah Harbor for the Bering Sea.

14. On May 28, the whaling bark Abigail of New Bedford was burned in the Sea of Okhotsk at57°7′N 153°1′E 1,000 km (620 mi) north of the Kurile Islands.
The rich whaling grounds in the Bering Sea between Siberia and Alaska were a safe haven for Yankee whalers during the American Civil War. This prosperous whaling ended in the spring and summer of 1865 when the Confederate raider Shenandoah arrived and captured twenty of the fifty eight yankee whalers working here. These whalers were destroyed more than a month after Jefferson Davis was imprisoned on May 19, 1865.

15-20. On June 22, the whaling ship Euphrates, of New Bedford, was burned in the Bering Strait near 62°23′N 179°46′E. The whaling bark Jirah Swift, of New Bedford, was burned in the Bering Sea. The whaling ship Milo was bonded for $46,000. The whaling ship William Thompson, of New Bedford, was burned northeast of Cape Narrows in the Bering Sea. The whaling bark Sophia Thornton of New Bedford was burned in the Bering Sea at 62°40′N 178°50′W and the Brigantine Susan & Abigail of San Francisco was burned in the Bering Sea at 62°48′N 179°4′W.

21. On June 25, the ship General Williams of New London, Connecticut was burned near St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait at 63°50′N 172°58′W.

22-27. On June 26, the whaling barks Catherine and Isabella of New Bedford were burned in the Bering Sea at 64°21′N 172°20′W. The whaling ship Gipsey was burned in the Bering Strait, the whaling ship William C. Nye of New Bedford was burned in the Bering Sea and the whaling ship Nimrod of New Bedford was burned near St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea and finally, the the whaling bark General Pike of New Bedford, was bonded for $30,000. in the Bering Sea, loaded with 252 prisoners and sent off to San Francisco.

28-38. On June 28, the whaler Brunswick was burned near Bering Straits Narrows, the whaling bark Congress of New Bedford was burned near Bering Strait, the whaling bark Covington of Warren, Rhode Island was burned in East Cape Bay near Bering Strait Narrows, the whaling ships Favorite of New Haven, Connecticut, Hillman, Isaac Howland, Martha and Nassau of New Bedford were burned in East Cape Bay in the Bering Sea. The whaling bark Waverly of New Bedford was burned in the Bering Sea, near the Diomede Islands. The whaling ship James Maury of New Bedford was bonded for $37,600. in East Cape Bay and retained for transporting prisoners to United States and finally, on this last and busiest day of captures, the whaling bark Nile of New Bedford was bonded for $41,000. in Bering Strait, loaded with 222 prisoners and sent off to San Francisco.

The Shenandoah had a plan to attack San Francisco, but on August 2, 1865, before they reached California, Shenandoah learned from the Barracouta that the Civil War had fully ended.

Surrender of CSS Shenandoah

File:Rip Van Waddell.jpg

Editorial cartoon satirizing James Waddell still engaging in combat after the American Civil War was regarded over.

Regardless of Davis's proclamation and knowing the unreliability of newspapers at the time, Captain Waddell and the crew knew returning to a US port would mean facing a Union court with a Northern perspective of the war. They correctly predicted the risk of being tried in a US court and hanged as pirates. This later showed to be accurate. Commerce Raiders were not included in the reconciliation and amnesty that Confederate soldiers were given. Captain Raphael Semmes of CSS Alabama escaped charges of piracy by surrendering May 1, 1865 as a Ground General under General Johnston. Semme's former sailors surrendered as artillerymen.

After the surrender of Shenandoah to the British, the British had to decide what to do with the Confederate crew, knowing the consequences of piracy charges.

Shenandoah Officer list

Lieutenant Commander James I. Waddell, of North Carolina

First Lieutenant and Executive Officer, W. C. Whittle* of Virginia

Lieutenant John Grimball of South Carolina

Lieutenant S. S. Lee* Jr. of Virginia

Lieutenant F. L. Chew of Missouri

Lieutenant Dabney M. Scales of Mississippi

Sailing Master Irvine S. Bulloch of Georgia

Passed Midshipman Orris A. Brown* of Virginia

Passed Midshipman John T. Mason* of Virginia

Surgeon C. E. Lining of South Carolina

Assistant Surgeon F. J. McNulty of District of Columbia

Paymaster W. Breedlove Smith of Louisiana

Chief Engineer M. O`Brien of Louisiana

Assistant Engineer Codd of Maryland

Master`s mate John Minor of Virginia

Master`s Mate Cotton of Maryland

Master`s Mate Hunt of Virginia

Boatswain George Harwood of England

Gunner Guy of England

Carpenter O`Shea of Ireland

Sailmaker Henry Alcott of England

(*)After a full investigation by law officers of the crown, it was decided that the officers and crew had done nothing against the rules of war or the laws of nations to justify being held as prisoners, so they were unconditionally released. But the authorities of the United States considered them pirates and in their hatred of that time would have treated them as such if they had fallen into their hands.

S. S. Lee, Orris M. Brown, John T. Mason and W. C. Whittle sometime in December 1865 sailed from Liverpool for Buenos Ayres, via Bahia, Rio De Janeiro and Montivideo. After prospecting for a while, they went to Rosario, on Rio Parana, and near there bought a small place and began farming.

As the animosity of the United States Government began to soften towards them, Brown and Mason returned home, Lee and Whittle returned sometime later.

On returning home, Mason took a law course at the University of Virginia, graduated, and was brilliantly successful at his profession. He settled in Baltimore, and married Miss Helen Jackson, of New York, daughter of the late Lieutenant Alonzo Jackson of the U. S. navy.

Barracouta had come from San Francisco; Waddell was heading to the city to attack it, believing it weakly defended. Immediately Shenandoah underwent physical alteration. She was dismantled as a man-of-war; her battery was dismounted and struck below, and her hull repainted to resemble an ordinary merchant vessel. The Captain of HMS Donegal took the last surrender of the American Civil War on November 6, 1865 when CSS Shenandoah under Captain Waddell surrendered after travelling 9,000 miles (14,500 km) to Liverpool to do so.

She was then turned over to the United States government. Shenandoah had been in the Pacific Ocean when news reached her of the end of the Civil War, necessitating such a long voyage.

Extracts from the United States Naval War Records published by the United States Printing Office The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion of 1894 says, "November 5 - Arrived in the Mersey, off Liverpool, and on Monday, the 6th, surrendered the Shenandoah to the British nation, by letter to Lord John Russell, premier of Great Britain. (signed) JAMES I WADDELL."

Conclusions

File:CSS Shenandoah-art.jpg

Nineteenth Century artwork, depicting Shenandoah under sail

Shenandoah remained at sea for 12 months and 17 days, traversed 58,000 miles (carrying the Confederate flag around the globe for the only time) and sunk or captured 38 ships, mostly whalers. Waddell took close to one thousand prisoners, without a single war casualty among his crew: two men died of diseases. The reason the vessel did not have any war casualties was because it was never involved in a battle against any Union Naval vessel, as was the CSS Alabama, but instead took United States merchant vessels.

In 1866 the US, having taken possession of Shenandoah, sold her to the first Sultan of Zanzibar, who renamed her after himself (El Majidi). On April 15, 1872 a hurricane hit Zanzibar. Shenandoah (El Majidi) was one of 6 ships owned by Seyed Burgash which were blown on shore and seriously damaged.

Repercussions

During her year-long service as a commerce raider, Shenandoah caused disorder and devastation across the globe for Union merchant shipping. The Confederate cruiser claimed more than 20 prizes valued at nearly $1,400,000 ($16,500,000 in 2007 dollars). In an important development in international law, the U.S. Government pursued claims (collectively called the Alabama Claims) against the British Government, and following a court of arbitration, won heavy damages.

Battle ensign

File:Confederate States Naval Ensign after May 26 1863.svg

The Second Confederate Navy Ensign, 1863–1865 (photo:#0985.03.0193)

The battle ensign of CSS Shenandoah is unique amongst all of the flags of the Confederate States of America as it was the only Confederate flag to circumnavigate the Earth during the Confederacy, and it was the last Confederate flag to be lowered by a combatant unit in the Civil War (Liverpool, UK on November 6, 1865).

The Shenandoah's battle ensign has been in the Museum of the Confederacy’s collection since 1907 and is currently on display (recent photo). Lieutenant Dabney Scales CSN, gave the flag to a cousin, Eliza Hull Maury, for safekeeping. Eliza Hull Maury was a daughter of and Richard Launcelot Maury was the eldest son of Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury. Colonel Richard Launcelot Maury CSA, Eliza’s brother, brought the flag from England in 1873, and donated it to the Museum in 1907. The flag itself measures 88” x 136.”

See also

• Conclusion of the American Civil War

References

Bibliography

• Baldwin, John, Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship, Crown Publishers, 2007, ISBN 5-5577608-5-7, Random House, Incorporated, 2007, ISBN 0-7393271-8-6
• Chaffin, Tom, Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah, Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. ISBN 0-8090-9511-4
• Schooler, Lynn, The Last Shot: The Incredible Story of the CSS Shenandoah and the True Conclusion of the Civil War, HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 0-06-052333-6
• United States Government Printing Office, Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, United States Naval War Records Office, United States Office of Naval Records and Library, 1894

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[[Commons: Category:CSS Shenandoah

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• Official records of the Union and Confederate navies in the war of the rebellion By United States. Navy Dept, Washington : U.S. G.P.O., 1894-1922.
• Marauders of the Sea, Confederate Merchant Raiders During the American Civil War CSS Shenandoah. 1864–1865. Captain James I. Waddell
• History on navy.mil
• Correspondance Respecting the Shenandoah Presented to both houses of Parliament, London, 1866 pp. 67–181