The Civil War also had repercussions far beyond familiar domestic battlefields and was, in turn, significantly influenced by faraway people and events. Navies by their nature operate in, are regulated by, and act upon the international arena in both war and peace—largely unobserved by most citizens. International affairs governed by complex and antiquated maritime law played a potentially decisive role in the conflict. The neutrality, or lack thereof, by major European powers was a central concern to both sides. As the most powerful maritime and imperial power, Great Britain wrestled with conflicting political forces that pushed the causes of both North and South. The fight across the Atlantic seriously endangered British trade, economy, and domestic stability; it threatened a disastrous third war with former colonies. Shenandoah and her sisters were smack in the middle of this diplomatic maelstrom and contributed to it.
Many Confederate warships and blockade runners, including Alabama and Shenandoah, were born in British yards, largely manned with British sailors—products presumably of lawful international commerce. But they generated intense controversy and deep hostility between Washington and London and Richmond. Shenandoah’s Captain James Waddell struggled with the uncomfortable roles of isolated diplomat and untutored international lawyer to represent a country not yet recognized; to acquire indispensable manpower, stores, and repairs in foreign ports; and to avoid international incidents.
Shenandoah’s visit to the most remote and most British outpost of the empire throws these issues into relief, providing an outsider’s view of the war. The citizenry of Melbourne, Australia (including a sizeable American expatriate community), were fascinated by the conflict and by their first and only rebel visitor. At the end of long and tenuous sea-lanes of communication, Australians reflected the politics, prejudices, and misperceptions of their homeland and were intensely concerned with issues of trade and commerce warfare. The people split into contentious political camps; one supported their Confederate guests while the other took up the Yankee banner—the antipodal manifestation of the struggle, or the war down under. The Confederates were feted as heroes by the former faction and nearly lost their ship to the latter, while the royal governor and bureaucracy muddled and vacillated. The British colony of Victoria had much in common with both the Confederacy and the United States and manifested some of their same differences.
Leaving Melbourne, Shenandoah sailed into the vast Pacific and at the paradisiacal island of Pohnpei captured and destroyed four more ships; the burning Yankee vessels illuminated alien surroundings, while in the South, Richmond went up in flames. This uniquely American conflagration flared simultaneously at both ends of the earth. Southern gentlemen enjoyed a tropical holiday, mingling with an exotic warrior society that was more like them than they knew. The history and customs of this land presented both intriguing parallels and stark contrasts with the Confederacy. As lonely rebels slept under tropic stars, guns fell silent at Appomattox, and with morale restored by rest, recreation, and destruction, Shenandoah sailed once more, leaving an enduring legacy in this faraway place.
While the Civil War struggled to conclusion and the nation began to bind its wounds, Shenandoah invaded the north, the deep cold of the Bering Sea. She fired the last gun of the conflict, set the Land of the Midnight Sun aglow with flaming Yankee whalers, almost became trapped by ice, and then headed back south. Off the coast of California, a passing British vessel delivered news of the end of the war—former Confederates were now pariahs, men without a country, profession, fortune, or future, presumably subject to imprisonment or hanging as pirates. Their fears amplified by great distance, these Southerners could only imagine homes destroyed, families destitute and starving, menfolk imprisoned, dead, or executed.
On 6 November 1865, seven months after Lee’s surrender, Shenandoah limped into Liverpool. Captain Waddell lowered the last Confederate banner without defeat or surrender and abandoned his tired vessel to the British. He and his officers went ashore to reconstitute their lives. This volume is, as Admiral Semmes describes, a biography of a cruise and a microcosm of the Confederate-American experience.
The British steamship Laurel lay placidly under the stars at the island road-stead of Funchal, Madeira, in the North Atlantic, four hundred miles west of Casablanca. Orders were given that there would be no communication with the shore except as necessary with Portuguese officials and for purchase of fuel. The captain reported a cargo of merchandise for Bermuda and Matamoras, twenty-nine passengers who were noted as Poles volunteering in the Confederate army, and a crew of forty men. Laurel had been coaled and made ready for sea; her papers at the customhouse were cleared for imminent departure. But the crewmen were ignorant of their true mission. After days of enforced idleness in harbor, the passengers milled impatiently about the moonlit deck as a lookout stood at the masthead with instructions to report immediately all approaching vessels.
During the midnight to 4 a.m. watch on 18 October 1864, a ship-rigged vessel came in sight, steaming slowly and displaying recognition lights. Passing ships regularly identified themselves so that their safety and progress could be recorded by national consulates and by Lloyd’s of London representatives. Captain Frederick Marryat’s codebook listed the names and types of English and American merchant vessels, as well as lights and flags to signal the ports of departure and destination. But this particular visitor turned and cruised by the harbor mouth a second and then a third time. The shadows on deck stirred and, watching intently from the rail, one of them murmured, “That’s her!”1
As daylight came and the sun rose full of fire, the strange ship appeared once more with flags flying from her mastheads, displaying the identification number of Laurel, to which Laurel responded with the same. Boiler fires had been kindled and steam was up. The anchor chain was hove in to short stay. A cry arose from surrounding shore boats: “Otro Alabama!”—“Another Alabama!” One of Laurel’s passengers recalled the scene: “The vessel’s quiet swing to a single anchor only increased our restlessness to follow the black steamer, whose symmetrical outlines the bright light played fairly upon and made her appear to be the very object for which we had left Liverpool.” The writer was James Iredell Waddell, a North Carolinian lawyer’s son who, despite civilian attire, was a lieutenant in the Confederate States navy. He carried orders to assume command of a new rebel raider and to continue depredations on Union commerce so effectively advanced by the CSS Alabama, a vessel now resting silently on the bottom of the English Channel after her fiery clash the previous June with the USS Kearsarge.
At ten o’clock Laurel steamed out to rendezvous. The day was fine, the atmosphere clear and bright; a stiff southwest wind rolled the little ship like a tub in heavy seas. As they approached, Lieutenant Waddell could see three words in large white letters across the stern of the vessel: Sea King—London. Other passengers scanned the newcomer with spyglasses, rendered opinions, and seemed delighted with her looks. Some faults were found, but for a merchant ship, most thought she was remarkably well fitted for their purposes. “For my own part,” recorded Midshipman John Mason in his personal journal, “being no judge of such matters, I was like the little boy the cart ran over, I had not a word to say. . . . One thing however pleased me very much. She was a full rigged ship & as I looked at her three tall masts & her yards & rigging, I thought what a fine opportunity I would have of learning seamanship & I made up my mind to make the most of it.”2
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