In the eyes of the world, he had gone from being an enemy combatant to being a pirate-a hangable offense. But it was only after ship and crew embarked on the last leg of their journey that the excursion took its most fearful turn.įour months after the Civil War was over, the Shenandoah's Captain Waddell finally learned he was, and had been, fighting without cause or state. Before its voyage was over, thirty-two Union merchant and whaling ships and their cargoes would be destroyed. The newly christened CSS Shenandoah then commenced the last, most quixotic sea story of the Civil War: the 58,000-mile, around-the-world cruise of the Confederacy's second most successful commerce raider.
The subterfuge was ended off the shores of Madeira, where the ship was outfitted for war. The sleek, 222-foot, black auxiliary steamer Sea King left London on October 8, 1864, ostensibly bound for Bombay. Assembled from hundreds of original documents, including intimate shipboard journals kept by Shenandoah officers, Sea of Gray is a masterful narrative of men at sea
0 kommentar(er)
