The first lieutenant had a portion of the large deckhouse knocked away, providing additional space for working the two 8-inch guns forward, although he hoped he would never have occasion to use them, considering Shenandoah’s mixed crew of merchant sailors untrained in such work. With his armament finally in position and most running rigging renewed, Whittle was anxious for action: “Nothing gives me more pleasure than to do as much harm as I can in a legitimate way to our inhuman foes. . . . But how often do I think of my dear home and country. Oh how they are all suffering. . . . Will we ever meet again? God grant that we may, and in the meantime I invoke the protection of god on [them].”
The next day, they encountered the Danish brig Anna Jane bound from New York to Rio de Janeiro. Waddell wished to relieve the crowding and so convinced the vessel’s captain to receive some of his prisoners. Captains, mates, and one seaman each from the late barks Alina and D. Godfrey were sent as passengers, along with a barrel of beef and a barrel of bread for their use and a captured chronometer for the captain’s trouble. The ladies of Charter Oak did not seem displeased that they were not included. Whittle opined that they were better treated and more content on Shenandoah than at any time in their lives. “It is a perfect farce to call them prisoners.” As Captain Staples and his mates departed, they demonstrated regular Yankee character, thought the first lieutenant, by not expressing gratitude for kindness received or even saying goodbye. “What a miserable set of villains our enemies are. I hate them more than ever the more I see of them.” Whittle had opposed the decision to release prisoners because it would spread word of Shenandoah’s location and activity. Lining also thought it important to keep her movements unknown so the enemy could not surmise their destination.
It was “another glorious day in our legitimate calling,” wrote Whittle on 10 November. He awakened early to the news that there was a brigantine close on the weather bow. She hoisted the “detestable Yankee rag” and after the second gun threw her head yards aback and hove to. Chew rowed across with an armed boat. She was Susan of New York, Captain Hansen, with coal from Cardiff, Wales, to Rio Grande de Sul, Brazil. Lining thought her the funniest looking craft he had ever seen: she leaked badly and sat low in the water with a paddle wheel something like a steamboat’s on the lee side, which connected to a pump and discharged water as she moved along.
Once again, despite alleged English ownership of the cargo, the vessel was condemned because the bill of lading had not been notarized. Lieutenant Chew brought her under the lee of Shenandoah for transfer of provisions, a set of cabin drawers, and a mess table for the steerage. They also brought across some dogs, one of which was made a pet for the men. With holes cut in the side below the waterline and others bored through the bottom, she went down by the head in about half an hour. The Yankee captain seemed rather glad to be rid of the old thing. Values were estimated at $5,000 for the vessel and $436 for the cargo. “Quite a small amount yet small favors are thankfully received,” concluded Chew. Whittle wished she had been a fine clipper.
Captain Hansen of Susan, a German, desired to sign on Shenandoah but felt honor-bound to return to New York and report the capture of his ship; the insurance company might refuse to recognize the owners’ claim on presumption that he had turned traitor and given up the vessel voluntarily. Three English crewmen signed on immediately, and Whittle expected that another would soon. That day, he tacked the ship three times and each time she went round beautifully. “I never saw a vessel work better.” The crew could complete the complex and critical evolution of tacking with efficiency and they could man the guns, but the first lieutenant still wanted sixty more men. He had them holystone the decks and reeve new topsail braces and topgallant gear. The remaining prisoners preferred standing duty to being in irons, so Whittle divided them into two watches. “I am always very tired at night but manage to sleep very well.”
Shenandoah cruised the Atlantic narrows between the bulges of Africa and Brazil—previous hunting grounds of Sumter, Florida, and Alabama—where prevailing winds funnel trade into busy shipping lanes to and from Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. They passed through the belt of calms and variable winds north of the equator—the Doldrums—and through a “gate” between 28° and 32° west longitude, which to most mariners provided the best of the light airs.
On a gray afternoon, they were buffeting about in heavy southerly winds and squalls when a large ship was spotted to windward. Whittle clewed up sails and steamed to intercept as they chased her into a dreary dusk. By midnight nearly all hands were on lookout, even the two female prisoners who hoped to see a big catch. Suddenly a towering shadow emerged from the gloom passing close aboard. Whittle barked an order and a blast of noise and flame erupted from the signal gun. “What ship?” hailed the first lieutenant. The response was shredded by the wind, but she hove to while an armed boat with Lieutenant Lee in charge wallowed across. She was Kate Prince, Captain Henry Libby of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and another Yankee carrying coal to Bahia, Brazil; but this time the papers were in order with a properly notarized oath naming Liverpool cargo owners.
Once again Whittle disagreed with his captain: the Cardiff coal was of little value compared to the vessel, he thought, whose loss would be felt dearly by the enemy—they should destroy ship and cargo and afterward compensate the owners for the coal. Nevertheless, Whittle was ordered to bond the prize, transfer all prisoners, and send them on their way. “[The captives] were all exceedingly grateful for our kindness particularly the women who I am quite certain, would have preferred to have stayed.” The little boy said he liked rebels and did not want to go. As soon as the ladies were informed, recorded Chew, “there was a great hurrying to & fro, looking after band boxes, bundling up hooped skirts, in a word collecting those thousand things which always accompany women.”
The first lieutenant was glad to be rid of the females and fervently desired never again to be thus burdened (a hope to be dashed in the Indian Ocean). He superintended the passenger transfer in torrential rain and by 5 a.m. was heartily tired. Captain Libby sent over two barrels of Irish potatoes for their use. Lining, like Whittle, believed that Waddell was making a mistake in releasing the vessel: “However, the deed is done, & there is no use of talking about it.” Kate Prince was bonded for $40,000.
That afternoon, they overhauled another vessel and fired a gun. She hoisted the flag of Buenos Aires but so closely resembled a Yankee that Waddell decided to investigate. The Baltimore-built clipper bark Adelaide, formerly Adelaide Pendergrast, was bound from New York to Rio with a cargo of flour. The papers were ambiguous, so Captain James P. Williams of Matthews County, Virginia, and his mate were brought over to testify. “And now took place the most curious concatenation of circumstances, making the greatest ‘mess’ I have ever known,” wrote Lining.
Who owned the cargo? Who owned the ship? And where was she legally registered? At first, Captain Williams swore Adelaide had been sold to parties in Buenos Aires and was therefore neutral, but he could produce no bill of sale. The first mate testified that the sale was a pretense to fool federal authorities; the vessel was still owned by Mr. Pendergrast of Baltimore, an earnest Southerner with two sons in the rebel army. Then Williams admitted the lie and begged Waddell not to burn the ship—he was a young man just married with all of his meager savings invested in her, and the owner would be heart-broken at the loss. Adelaide, named for Mrs. Pendergrast, was not insured for a single cent.
On paper, the cargo was shipped by Mr. Pendergrast but owned by a New York firm. “The case was very much mixed up and there was evidently foul play somewhere,” concluded Whittle. Waddell decided that any vessel shipping Yankee flour from New York warranted destruction even if the owner was a Southerner. Several hours were occupied transferring stores and removing crew and passengers with their baggage to Shenandoah. The doctor found good larder for the mess—hams and preserved fruits. Lieutenant