The ship was not his only concern: “The novel character of my political position embarrassed me more than the feeble condition of my command, and that was fraught with painful apprehensions enough.” As a seaman Waddell had experience and a compass to guide him; he could manage a vessel in stormy weather, he knew from boyhood the dangers of the sea and was well prepared for fighting. But warship captains served as lonely ambassadors in faraway places with no communications to home. Promptly and without counsel, he would have to resolve complex questions of international law “over which lawyers quarreled with all their books.” Waddell brought with him the fundamental principles of law in Blackstone along with Sir Robert Phillimore’s Commentaries on International Law. “Most of my leisure hours were devoted to Phillimore, and I found him a good friend, but requiring [intense] study.”
International relations for the Confederacy were fraught with opportunity and danger, as were the complex and antiquated rules governing activities of a commerce-destroying cruiser. Early in the war, Confederate leaders had anticipated national recognition and support from prospective European allies, particularly Great Britain; however, this hope was essentially dead by 1864. But even then, any false diplomatic step could bring dire consequences for command and country. Waddell had been cautioned accordingly (as had his predecessors) and was determined to persevere. “My admirable instructions and the instincts of honor and patriotism that animated every Southern gentleman who bore arms in the South buoyed me up with hope,” he later wrote; but at the time it appeared that his anxiety predominated.
While the captain ruminated, the first lieutenant carried on managing daily operations and maintenance, supervising junior lieutenants and warrant officers in getting the ship in order. Interaction between the two Shenandoah senior officers was prickly from the beginning. Whittle’s journal leaves the impression of competence and dedication, combined with a somewhat self-absorbed and brittle sense of honor, typical of young men of his class and time. He seldom discusses Waddell except to disagree with him and pointedly assumes all burdens of ship management. Waddell, on the other hand, mentions the first lieutenant only once in his postwar notes, writing with faint praise that Whittle was “always active and intelligent in the discharge of his peculiar duties.”
The problem was not just the age spread (twenty-three to forty)—there was a professional generation gap. When Waddell was sent to the new Naval School at Annapolis in 1847—just the second year of its operation—he had already had six years of active service afloat. He and others like him found themselves among raw cadets in a staid academic environment being taught from books what they believed they already knew from experience. Nevertheless, Waddell demonstrated marked proficiency in mathematics and navigation in the examination for passed midshipman. He met and married Ann Sellman Inglehart, the daughter of an Annapolis businessman, and then went back to sea through the turbulent 1850s. It was a period of crisis in Navy leadership and discipline characterized by the abolition of flogging and a bungled attempt to reform the moribund officer seniority system. In the small, inbred service of the time, Waddell shared the mutual suspicion and distrust that were rife among fellow officers.
In his memoirs, Waddell declared that the place to teach the profession of the sea was at sea on ships, even though he made Annapolis his home with Ann and served two tours as instructor at the school. The second tour, during which his daughter Annie was born, was as assistant professor of navigation and assistant commandant. (With her father away in Confederate service in spring 1863, Annie would die of scarlet fever and diphtheria.) Waddell believed he had become an officer the hard way and the right way—a slow, tedious progression through the ranks, which gave enormous prestige to promotion. He doubted the practicality of classroom learning. Attitudes like these among hidebound careerists held back establishment of the Naval Academy until forty years after the founding of West Point. In Waddell’s mind, his Shenandoah officers did not represent the spectrum of age and experience he was accustomed to seeing in the U.S. Navy. He could not relax for a minute, which exacerbated a sense of isolation and the weight of his responsibilities.4
William Conway Whittle Jr., however, entered training at Annapolis in 1854 with no prior experience. In 1840 he had been born to a prominent Norfolk, Virginia, naval family that was, like Waddell’s, of Irish descent. Whittle’s father had a distinguished career in the U.S. Navy and would become one of the few ranked captains in the Confederate navy. By 1850 the Naval School had been reorganized and renamed the Naval Academy with standards nearly comparable to those of West Point, increasing the professionalism and respectability of a Navy career. Whittle was regarded as an outstanding student and most promising officer, graduating in 1858 with his friend and future shipmate, John Grimball (George Dewey of Spanish-American War fame was another classmate). He served two years at sea in the U.S. Navy before the war. These young men were the new navy; they took their schooling proudly, as would every class that followed; and not a few of them, like Whittle, brought that pride to the Confederate navy.
In 1861–62 Whittle served as acting lieutenant in the CSS Nashville, one of the first merchant ships refitted for commerce raiding. She set vital precedents in international law as the first Confederate ship of war to fly the flag in British waters and the first to make a capture in North Atlantic shipping lanes. Warmly received in Southampton, Nashville secured belligerent status for Confederate warships in the face of vociferous Union protests and proved the safety of British ports. Based on his experience in both navies, Whittle came to believe that he was just as qualified to command Shenandoah, a feeling reinforced by Waddell’s apparent hesitance. His commander seemed to represent the past, to underappreciate his subordinates, and to be ill equipped for challenges of present and future.5
In his journal, Charles Lining would contribute observations from the sidelines, many critical of the captain. In August 1858 Lining had sailed as assistant surgeon with the sloop of war USS Cyane around the tip of South America to the Pacific, returning in late 1860. The long cruise of the unhappy Cyane was a microcosm of stresses afflicting the officer corps at midcentury. The doctor witnessed close at hand a great deal of drunkenness, lack of discipline, and feuding among officers, which upon their return resulted in numerous courts of inquiry; nearly every officer was court-martialed, including the captain. Much of the dissension could be traced to dissatisfaction over prospects for promotion.6
That experience would color Lining’s perceptions during this voyage. His medical duties were not demanding; he had no direct role in the operations of the ship and he was often bored. At thirty years of age, Lining was between the lieutenants and the captain. Because of his professional and social status and his position outside the chain of command, young officers could turn to him to vent frustrations or ask advice. At least some of them—notably First Lieutenant Whittle—talked to him openly of their differences with the captain. The doctor participated actively in these discussions, took sides, and offered opinions that had nothing to do with medicine.
One issue concerned the capabilities of the four watchstanding lieutenants. In order of seniority, they were John Grimball of South Carolina; Sidney Smith Lee Jr., another Virginian; Francis Thornton Chew of Missouri; and Dabney Minor Scales from Mississippi—all under the age of twenty-five. Grimball and Lee had the experience to stand as officer of the deck, supervising the highly specialized and frequently dangerous business of sailing a large, deepwater ship. Grimball was the privileged son of a wealthy Charleston planter, state senator, and signer of the South Carolina secession proclamation. He graduated from the Naval Academy with Whittle in 1858 and served afloat in the U.S. Navy before the war.7
Sidney Smith Lee Jr. was the nephew of Robert E. Lee, brother of Confederate general and future Virginia governor Fitzhugh Lee, and great-grandson of George Mason, one of the founding fathers (and also cousin to Midshipman Mason). Like the senior Whittle, Lee’s father served the U.S. Navy for many years before becoming a ranked captain for the South. His son did not immediately choose a Navy career but went to sea and gained considerable experience in the prewar merchant service. These officers were supported by the experienced and capable sailing master Irvine Bulloch, warrant officer in charge of navigation (and younger half brother to Commander James Bulloch). Irvine Bulloch had served in Alabama and was credited with firing the last shot as she began to go under.
Francis