CSS Shenandoah Informations

CSS Shenandoah, formerly Sea King, was an iron-framed, teak-planked, full-rigged sailing ship with auxiliary steam power chiefly known for her actions under Lieutenant Commander James Waddell as part of the Confederate navy during the American Civil War.

Shenandoah was originally a UK merchant vessel launched as Sea King on August 17, 1863, but was later re-purposed as one of the most feared commerce raiders in the Confederate navy. During a period of ​12 1⁄2 months from 1864 to 1865, the ship undertook commerce raiding around the world in an effort to disrupt the US economy, resulting in the capture and sinking or bonding of thirty-eight merchant vessels, mostly New Bedford whaleships. She finally surrendered on the River Mersey, Liverpool, UK, on November 6, 1865, six months after the war had ended. Her flag was the last sovereign Confederate flag to be officially furled. Shenandoah is also known for having fired the last shot of the Civil War, across the bow of a whaler in waters off the Aleutian Islands.

The vessel had three names and many owners in her lifetime of nine years. She was designed as an auxiliary composite passenger cargo vessel of 1,018 tons and built in 1863 by Alexander Stephen and Sons, Glasgow, Scotland, for Robertson and Co., Glasgow, to be named Sea King. The vessel was intended for the East Asia tea trade and as a troop transport. While she was being fitted out at the builders, US representatives assessed the ship for purchase. After change of owner and a number of trips to the Far East carrying cargo and to New Zealand transporting troops to the New Zealand Wars, the Confederate Navy assessed and purchased her from Wallace Bros of Liverpool. The purchase was made in secret; it was completed on 18 October 1864, and the next day the ship was renamed CSS Shenandoah. The ship was to be converted into an armed cruiser with a mission to capture and destroy Union merchant ships. Liverpool was the unofficial home port of the Confederate overseas fleet, and Confederate Commander James Dunwoody Bulloch was based in the city. The city provided ships, crews, munitions, and provisions of war.

Sea King had sailed from London on 8 October 1864, ostensibly for Bombay, on a trading voyage. The supply steamer Laurel sailed from Liverpool the same day. The two ships rendezvoused at Funchal, Madeira, with Laurel carrying the officers and the nucleus of Shenandoahs crew, together with naval guns, ammunition, and ships stores. Shenandoahs commander, Lieutenant James Iredell Waddell, supervised her conversion to a man-of-war in nearby waters. However, Waddell was barely able to bring his crew to even half strength, despite additional volunteers from the merchant sailors on Sea King and from Laurel.

The new Confederate cruiser was commissioned on 19 October 1864, lowering the Union Jack and raising the "Stainless Banner", and was renamed CSS Shenandoah.

As developed in the Confederate Navy Department and by its agents in Europe, Shenandoah was tasked to strike at the Unions economy and "seek out and utterly destroy" commerce in areas yet undisturbed. Captain Waddell began seeking enemy merchant ships on the Indian Ocean route between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, and in the Pacific whaling fleet. En route to the Cape, the Confederates captured six prizes. Five were burned or scuttled, after the crew and passengers had been removed. The sixth was bonded and used to transport the prisoners to Bahia, Brazil, where they were released.

Still short-handed, Shenandoah arrived at Melbourne, Colony of Victoria, on January 25, 1865, where she filled her complement and her storerooms. She also signed on 40 crew members who had been stowaways from Melbourne. They were not enlisted until the ship was outside the Colony of Victorias territorial waters. The Shipping Articles show all 40 crew members had enlisted on the day of her departure from Melbourne, February 18, 1865. However, nineteen of Waddells crew deserted at Melbourne, some giving statements of their service to the United States Consul.

Shenandoah took only one prize in the Indian Ocean, but hunting became more profitable after refitting in Melbourne. En route to the North Pacific whaling grounds, on April 3–4, Waddell burned four whalers in the Caroline Islands. After a three-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.

The rich whaling grounds in the Bering Sea between Siberia and Alaska had been a safe haven for Yankee whalers for most of the American Civil War. This prosperous whaling ended in the spring and summer of 1865 when Shenandoah arrived and captured twenty of the fifty-eight Yankee whalers working here. These whalers were destroyed more than a month after CSA President Jefferson Davis was captured on May 10, 1865.

On June 27, 1865, Waddell learned from a prize, Susan and Abigail, that General Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia almost three months earlier at Appomattox Court House. Susan and Abigails captain produced a San Francisco newspaper reporting the flight from Richmond of the Confederate government 10 weeks previously. However, the newspaper also contained President Davis proclamation that the "war would be carried on with re-newed vigor." Waddell then captured 10 more whalers in the space of seven hours just below the Arctic Circle.

On August 3, 1865, Waddell learned of the wars definite end when Shenandoah encountered the Liverpool barque Barracouta, which was bound for San Francisco. Waddell was heading to the city to attack it, believing it weakly defended He learned of the surrender of Johnstons army on April 26, and Kirby Smiths army on May 26, and most crucially of the capture of President Davis. Captain Waddell then knew the war was over.

Captain Waddell lowered the Confederate flag, and Shenandoah underwent physical alteration. Her guns were dismounted and stored below deck, and her hull was painted to look like an ordinary merchant vessel.

Regardless of Daviss proclamation and knowing the unreliability of newspapers at the time, Captain Waddell and his crew knew returning to a U.S. port would mean facing a court sympathetic to the Union. News of President Lincolns assassination only served to further diminish any expectation for leniency. The crew predicted that surrendering to federal authorities would run the risk of being tried in a U.S. court and hanged as pirates.[discuss] Commerce raiders were not included in the reconciliation and amnesty that Confederate soldiers were given. Perhaps more importantly, Waddell would have been aware that the U.S. government no longer had to consider the threat of Confederate retaliation against Union prisoners while determining his crews fate. Likely not known to Waddell was that Captain Raphael Semmes of CSS Alabama had managed to escape charges of piracy by surrendering on May 1, 1865, as an army general under Joseph E. Johnston. Semmes former sailors surrendered as artillerymen.

Captain Waddell eventually decided to surrender his ship at the port of Liverpool, where Confederate Commander Bulloch was stationed.

CSS Shenandoah sailed from off the west coast of Mexico via Cape Horn to Liverpool, a voyage of three months and over 9,000 nautical miles (10,000 mi; 17,000 km), all the while being pursued by Union vessels. She anchored at the Mersey Bar at the mouth of the estuary awaiting a pilot to board to guide the ship up the river and into the enclosed docks. Not flying any flag, the pilot refused to take the ship into Liverpool unless they flew a flag; the crew raised the Confederate flag. CSS Shenandoah sailed up the River Mersey with the flag fully flying to crowds on the riverbanks.

The Liverpool Mercury reported the event on Tuesday, 7 November 1865:

HMS Donegal happened to be anchored in mid-river between Toxteth in Liverpool and Tranmere in Birkenhead. Captain Waddell maneuvered his ship near to the British man-of-war, dropping anchor. The CSS Shenandoah was surrendered by Captain Waddell to Captain Paynter of HMS Donegal on 6 November 1865. The Confederate flag was lowered again for the very last time, under the watch of a Royal Navy detachment and the crew.

CSS Shenandoah had struck her colors twice. This marked the last surrender of the American Civil War and the last official lowering of the Confederate flag. The very last act of the Civil War was Captain Waddell walking up the steps of Liverpool Town Hall with a letter to present to the mayor surrendering his vessel to the British government. In so doing, Shenandoah became the only Confederate warship to circumnavigate the globe.

The United States Naval War Records published in 1894:

After the surrender, the CSS Shenandoah was berthed in the partially constructed Herculaneum Dock awaiting her fate. Once the international legalities were settled, she was turned over to the United States government.

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