 Well, thank you very much. It's truly an honor to be here Refial Sims the former captain of the CS the infamous CSS Alabama introduced his memoirs with the following The cruise of ship is a biography the ship becomes a personification She not only walks the waters like a thing of life But she speaks in moving accents to those capable of interpreting her a Ship can be therefore a central character in a life story through which we view the past more clearly Following in the wake of her sisters the CSS Shenandoah was the last of the rebel raiders Her mission to continue destruction of union commerce so effectively advanced by the Alabama Now resting silently on the bottom of the English Channel after her fiery clash with the USS Kiersarge in June 1864 Shenandoah cruise has many fascinating storylines. I will cover a few but for the rest I encourage you to buy the book Well, some will summarize the cruise of the Shenandoah. We'll talk about the officers about the strategy of Confederate commerce rating about the technology and about the legality and international law of Confederate commerce rating and Finally the impact from October 1864 to November 1865 Shenandoah carried the conflict around the globe to the ends of the earth through every extreme of sea and storm She was purchased from British owners armed and commissioned near the island of Madeira At almost the same moment in an ocean away as autumn blazed the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia Phil shared and routed Jubal early's rebels at the Battle of Cedar Creek A bloody ending to the second Valley campaign The very day that lost one Shenandoah to the Confederacy saw the birth of another Shenandoah destroyed eight Yankee vessels on her way around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Indian Ocean In Melbourne she caused a sensation The people split into contentious political camps one welcomed and celebrated their guests The other demanded her immediate departure while the royal governor and his bureaucracy muddled and vacillated This was the war down under The British colony of Victoria had much in common with both the Confederate and the United States and manifested some of the same differences Leaving Melbourne Shenandoah sailed into the vast Pacific at the island of Pone Pay. She captured four American whalers 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 present both intriguing parallels and start contrast with the Confederacy Burning Yankee whalers illuminated alien surroundings While Richmond went up in flames this uniquely American configuration flared simultaneously at both ends of the earth as Lonely rebels slept under tropic stars guns fell silent at Appomattox With morale restored by rest recreation and destruction Shenandoah sailed once more Leaving an enduring legacy in this faraway place While the 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 in the Civil War 10 weeks after Appomattox Set the land of the Midnight Sun aglow with flaming Yankee whalers And almost became trapped by ice Shenandoah captured 24 vessels in one week an unprecedented accomplishment that a few months before Would have been greeted with jubilation in the south and despair in the north Off the coast of California a passing British vessel delivered news at the end of the war Former Confederates became pariahs men without a country profession or future or fortune and 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 men folk in prison dead or executed on On 6 November 1865 Shenandoah limped into Liverpool Captain Waddell Lord 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 lines This is as Admiral Sims describes a biography of a cruise and a microcosm of the Confederate American experience. I claim for her officers and men of triumph over their enemies and over every obstacle and for myself I claim having done my duty recalled Captain James Waddell Shenandoah's officers represented a cross-section of the Confederacy from old Dominion first families through the deep South Aristocracy to a middle-class Missourian They included a nephew of Robert E. Lee a grand nephew of founder George Mason a son-in-law to Raphael Sims grandsons of men who fought at George Washington's side and an uncle of Theodore Roosevelt All except the captain and the ship surgeon were under the age of the 25 The name Shenandoah honored the place wrote Lieutenant William Waddell Where the Bravestone while Jackson always so discomfited the enemy The burning there of homes over defenseless women and children made the selection of the name not inappropriate For a cruiser which was to lead a torturite procession around the world and into every or ocean The men of Shenandoah already had suffered three and a half years of bloody discouraging conflict aboard puny gunboats and Lumbering ironclads up and down the interior waters of their fledgling country Frequently on the same vessels and in the same battles a few were veterans of Alabama's two-year cruise These men considered themselves Americans Southerners rebels and warriors embarking on the voyage of their lives Defending their country as they understood it and pursuing a difficult and dangerous mission in which they succeeded spectacularly after it no longer mattered Having sacrificed careers in the Navy that nurtured them they struggled to reproduce its essence in their new Navy One with few ships Two of the five lieutenants had deep water had been deep water sailors in the United States Navy and one in the merchant service Four of them had attended the new Naval Academy in Annapolis and two midshipmen had been appointed to the Academy before secession changed their loyalties Two of the lieutenants followed distinguished naval fathers who had served in the in Pacific exploring expeditions in Anti-slavery patrols on the coast of Africa with Commodore Perry at the opening of Japan And during the Mexican War One had been able Academy Commandata midshipmen both fathers became senior officers in Confederate service Upon first sighting the ship midshipman John Mason recorded in his journal One thing however plays me very much She was a full rig ship and I looked at her three tall masks and her yards and rigging I thought what a fine opportunity I would have of learning seamanship and I made up my mind to make the most of it Watching an enemy vessel burn wrote Lieutenant Francis to was a grand and peculiar sight I was saddened at the thought of being in duty bound to such work I felt very sorry for them even after thinking of the hellish work of the Yankees at home Are the tears they have rung from once happy beaming eyes No, none of us took pleasure in it. None, but fiends could Ship surgeon dr. Charles lining remarked about the vast and empty Pacific Ocean Rain calms and baffling winds seem to baffle us Nothing in sight not even a bird. In fact the region seems to be the abomination of isolation Three heritage is draw of the man of Shenandoah as grandsons of revolutionaries. They believe profoundly in liberty and democracy They also shared They also shared the ancient social mores of the southern gentleman class Along with its timeless dedication to family country duty and personal integrity These characteristics were reinforced in their central identities as officers of the Confederate States Navy To which they applied the southern martial tradition just as energetically as did their army brothers and arms The observations of these Southerners looking back for the most remote and ailing surroundings Imagenable along with the viewpoints of the people they encountered Provide a truly unique perspective of the war with elements both common to and differing from land-bound compatriots Commerce warfare had been around since the 16th century When clean Elizabeth the first to step dispatched her gentlemen adventurers to pray on Spanish shipping European conflicts for the next two and a half centuries saw almost continuous commerce work destruction on all sides Americans vigorously warred upon the enemy trade in every contest leading up to 1861 President Lincoln was determined to interdict commerce with seceded states But the only effective mechanism in international law was a formal blockade Which he declared on 19 april 1861 one week after fort sumpter To avoid conflict over trade queen victoria officially proclaimed neutrality in may 1861 Formerly recognizing the Confederacy as a belligerent and extending the protections of neutral status to the two british vessels As long as they respected the blockade and did not carry contraband Belligerence had three superior rights in international law The right to halt and inspect suspect ships of all nations on the high seas The right to confiscate military supplies contraband Intended for the enemy and the right to blockade the enemy Confederates turned immediately to trade warfare as a as a primary pillar of their naval strategy The very able secretary of the navy wrote The enemy's commerce constitutes one of his reliable sources of national wealth No less than one of his best schools for semen and we must strike it if possible Captain Waddell Shenandoah would note The war was only to be stopped on the mercenary principle of showing that it would no longer pay to keep it up Mallory had no illusions about cutting off commerce to the north, but he did have two objectives One make the war so costly to power for northern shipping and whaling interests That they would campaign vigorously for peace even at the expense of southern independence and two Weakened the blockade by drawing off all union warships to chase down rebel raiders In today's terms, this was asymmetric warfare With no navy at all to begin with Southerners relied initially on tried and true privateering Private cupidity will always furnish the means for this description of warfare wrote Raphael Sims in early 1861 Even new england ships and new england capital would be at your service The system of privateering would be analogous to the militia system on land The new Confederate congress duly authorized letters of mark A few rebel raiders made it to sea in 1861 A few rebel privateers, but with short lived success European powers had declared an end to privateering in the Paris Convention of 1856 following the Crimean War Upon commencement of American hostilities They denied both contestants permission to bring captured vessels into neutral ports for adjudication and sale While the blockade restricted southern harbors For the first time in 300 years the business was not profitable The ever resourceful secretary Mallory determined to build or buy vessels configured solely for commerce destruction And fund them from the treasury A practice not prevalent since the development of the big gun warship centuries before The strategy was to dispatch as many state financed commissioned cruisers as possible Among regular trading routes taking any Yankees found there Shannon Daw was instructed to do the enemy's property the greatest injury in the shortest time Confederates took every advantage of their status and insisted on their rights The government could contract loans Purchase arms and ships in neutral nations And commissioned cruisers with the power of search and seizure on the high seas Ships flying the rebel flag were to be accorded the same status as those of any other nation And were to be treated fairly with regard to assistance supplies and repairs in neutral ports Wherever confederate cruisers appeared U.S. Embassy and consular authorities vehemently opposed any support whatever Insisting that they were simply rebels and pirates and should be treated as such despite official belligerent status Lacking clear direction from parent governments foreign officials struggled with the irreconcilable demands of the combatants Meanwhile, the strategy of union secretary the navy Gideon wells with respect to confederate raiders was primarily reactive He focused his resources on the blockade Reluctantly dispatching a few warships to pursue rebels where they were reported to be usually too little too late Before the late 19th century the term cruiser applied to smaller warships operating independently of a fleet Engaged primarily in scouting and commerce destruction Too light and lightly armed to stand in the line of battle Frigates and sluice of war served these functions in the sailing navies Cruisers were not an identifiable ship class and then steam arrived The css florida and csl abammer were prototypes of civil war cruisers Built from the keel up for the purpose and magnificently suited Small but sustainable for long cruises light fast and lightly armed But most of the others were civilian vessels converted armed and commissioned as raiders All but one of those merchant conversions were only marginally successful due to lack of speed sustainability capacity and or cruising range Shenandoah was the best of the converted merchantmen and ranks as one of the top commerce destroyers of all time She was a British extreme clipper building Glasgow for the china tea trade Very similar to the famous cutty sark the last of the type now preserved at Greenwich She carried a cloud of canvas having crossed jackroyal studying sails She carried a cloud of canvas having crossed jackroyal studying sails Gyptopsil and all the high flyers Shenandoah was the epitome of the ancient art of tall ship construction And a prime example of the new technology of the machine age She was the first composite clipper Combining the advantages of iron frames Plaint was six inches of east india teak. Sheath and copper Her lower mass and bowsprit were iron She had mechanical roller reefing topsels steel yards and wire standing rigging Shenandoah was also the first auxiliary screw steamer a clipper ship with a steam engine to assist in calms and contrary winds Driving her comfortably at nine knots The propeller could be lifted clear of the water and the telescoping smokestack could be collapsed to reduce drag under sail Clippers with engines were not commercially successful and only a few were built The marginal advantage and faster passage way passages Did not compensate it for the added expense and loss of cargo space for engine fuel and extra crewmen But for commerce rating the combination was perfect In a single vessel of relatively low cost The advantage is a fast sail merged with steam propulsion With minimum armament against a vast merchant fleet almost exclusively under sail and virtually unarmed An overwhelming tactical superiority under sail and or steam. Shenandoah could overtake almost any victim and outrun any enemy The success of confederate commerce raiders encouraged innovation in the u.s. Navy Conventional steam powered frigates and converted steam merchant men Had been relatively effective for blockade and coastal operations But with few exceptions like Shenandoah were not equal to the task of either defensive or offensive commerce warfare In 1863 the u.s. Secretly designed a new warship class specifically to hunt down rebels Or if necessary to go after british trade should they intervene for the south They were fast steam sloops in the terminology of the time Secretary wells described their role as ocean cruisers By 1868 the uss wampanoag was the fastest warship in the world able to steam across rough water at 17 knots The work of renowned marine engineer b. Fischerwood The sleek hull 355 feet long 45 feet wide Was designed around a huge and complex steam propulsion system crowned by four stacks With a light sailing rig and minimal armament as befitted the mission Wampanoag had been a logical extension of the strategy behind Alabama and Shenandoah now that privateering was dead But with the end of the civil war the threat of british meddling no longer existed She was decommissioned as too expensive to operate and maintain Wampanoag was however a precursor of the cruisers warship types developed later in the century And which would have been important component in which have been important components of all navy's since But not as commerce destroyers Shenandoah represented a truly novel breed Heroic warship to southerners feared privateer to citizens of neutral trading nations hated pirate to northerners The status of confederate commerce cruisers in the antiquated and complex body of international law Was ambiguous causing a great deal of rancor between london washington enrichment The most effective rebel raiders alabama florida and Shenandoah were british built armed equipped largely manned and sold to the confederacy Central to the controversy was the the legality of such vessels as legitimate articles of neutral trade Along with british obligations to accord them equal status with united states warships alabamas dramatic and destructive crews became a cause celeb An illustration of the pitfalls of neutrality And a source of extreme acrimony between the two nations Shenandoah's visit to melbourne throws these issues into relief The people were fascinated by if not entirely informed about their faraway cousin's conflict As word spread of her arrival hundreds of sightseers streamed along the shore Boats under steam sail and ore descended from every direction to view their first and only confederate visitor The Shenandoah is regarded as the alabama ridigoo or the phoenix-like product or the wreck of that world fame vessel noted the melbourne artists The ship was besieged by visitors Traveling as far as 300 miles evoking a carnival atmosphere an estimated 10,000 came aboard in one day If we can judge from outward signs, we're likely to find a good deal sympathy here among the people wrote lieutenant whittle The royal governor and his advisors were less enthusiastic Being sensitive to the convoluted diplomatic and legal issues surrounding the visit Her majesty's ministers demanded that colonial officials maintain both the fact and the appearance of neutrality in the american war A delicate balancing act that had proven extremely difficult Old and contentious issues concerning the rights and responsibilities of neutrals resurfaced And there was no middle ground William Blanchard us consul in melbourne fired off a letter to the governor I call upon your excellence late to cause the said Shenandoah to be seized for piratical acts She did not come within the queen's neutrality proclamation. He maintained Never having entered a port of the so-styled confederate states of america I therefore protest any aid or comfort being extended to said piratical vessel in any of the ports of this colony This was the initial salvo of a fierce diplomatic war a barrage of protests in avid a affidavits It must be evident Blanchard contended That all presumptions of fact and law were against the legal character of the vessel Which had no legitimacy as a commission worship of a recognized nation Shenandoah was a registered british merchant ship. She came from nowhere and destroyed without adjudication and without necessity The undersigned will not doubt that your excellently will give so much weight and no more to a bit of bunting and a shred of gold lace as they deserve The british never accepted the pirate thesis however incessantly and vociferously it was proclaimed The commissioning of warships came under national law not international law There was no requirement to have originated in or even visited the home country It had taken 300 difficult years for great bitten to establish a position of maritime supremacy Rules of neutrality must be impartially enforced as a matter of example On the other hand, they could not be so zealous as to establish precedents That would tie their hands in a future conflict where commerce raiders built in neutral ports could be turned against them Ironically the positions of the two governments were historically reversed As the world's most powerful maritime nation and largest trader The english had dealt harshly with neutrals trading with the enemy Most recently during the french wars of revolution and empire Americans on the other hand had fought four wars in which freedom of commerce was a paramount issue Two with great britain one with france and one with the north african pirates Now the tables were turned the union sought to impede trade with the confederacy While the british struggled to uphold neutral rights for unrestricted trade with belligerents of non contraband goods However upon the advice of his crown law officers the governor's responded the governor responded to consul blanchard There was no evidence of piratical acts and whatever the previous history of shenandoah The government was bound to treat her as a ship of war belonging to a belligerent power That did not however end the controversy in melbourne The people of melbourne like their english counterparts and many foreigners Did not comprehend the complexities of the war But in an age tinge with romantic notions of honor and valor They related to alabama She had been a tangible manifestation of the confederacy Her exploits brought the contest to them in the language of ocean commerce and ocean conflict which they understood very well Having no particular stake in the success of the union or understanding of its concepts Many looked on the men of alabama as valiant heroes fighting great odds Captain sims was an international celebrity at least as much as lincoln granton lee Despite vehement protests from the united states confederate cruisers have been welcomed warmly in colonial ports such as jamaica trinidad and gibalter The alabama caused a stir in cape town in august 1863 with parties and balls in her honor Later just the rumors of her appearance off hobson's bay Created a flurry of excitement in melbourne Much of this glamour transferred to shenandoah, which is precisely what the confederates intended But a significant number of influential people of melbourne were acutely worried about the visitors The melbourne age wrote Whatever may be the pretensions of the shenandoah. She is strictly speaking but a privateer The method may be strictly lawful But is exceedingly inglorious and they who engage in it are entitled to no honor The day may come when the unoffending people of this colony may be made to suffer for the quarrels of nations and other hemisphere There appeared to be a little public debate of the central issues union secession states rights slavery pro-union sentiment focused on repugnance for commerce rating dangers for the umbilical chords of trade with europe and america And local issues such as land reform and terrorists The civil war generated economic uncertainty even in australia with widely fluctuating prices and availability affecting huge quantities of imports Despite these concerns the preponderance of sympathy in melbourne was for the south Accuing perceptions and misperceptions of many in great britain in europe Conspicuous and gray uniforms shenandoah officers were approached in the streets showered with social invitations presented free open tickets by the railway company Voted members of the cricket club and the prestigious melbourne club and attended the theater gratis Council blanchard desperately applied every legal trip to have trip to have shenandoah seized He delivered another broadside defining her as an illegal and criminal rover of the sea It was illegal under british law to fit out equip and arm ships for combat in wars where great britain was neutral Blanchard cited as precedent the hotly contested case of the screw screw steamer alexandra In the spring of 1863 the american consulate liverpool learned from his spies that alexandra was being built as a confederate cruiser And convinced british officials to seize the ship But the crown lost the case following lengthy court proceedings and the ship was returned to her owners The british walked a fine line between proper discharge of international obligations and protections of lawful private enterprise Their firms were making great profits selling ordinance to both sides Dozens of blockade runners had been converted to bill Shipyards were inundated with profitable contracts and ships were legitimate products of industry and trade The alexandra case was lost maintained blanchard only because the government could not prove the owner's intent Which was to present the ship as a gift to the confederate government But alexandra and shenandoah were fitted out under similar circumstances for the same purposes And proof of intent was that was carried out post hoc ergo proctor hoc Shenandoah's hostile cruise and therefore the offense was still in progress Interrupted in melbourne only to make it more effective thereafter The vessel now lay in reach of british law and should be seized On the inconvenient technicality that fitting out arming and quimmick Equipping had not been accomplished in british territory as stated in the law Blanchard claimed that she was prepared in england as a transport or store ship For a cruiser and then became a cruiser Blanchard wanted to both ways if shenandoah was not a legitimate worship She was a pirate if she was legitimate then she violated british law But it was all to no avail As long as they ablaid neutrality rules governor darling had no incentive to act against the visitors Especially with many of his leading citizens in such vocal support of them Until that is blanchard received information that the confederates were actively recruiting new crewmen from among the citizenry Another clear violation of british domestic law The governor acted with uncharacteristic dispatch impounding the vessel while high and dry for repairs to the propeller shaft Intense excitement ensued in the city with few neutral observers and rampant rumors of actual or impending violence But upon further review royal law officers concluded That the government that the governor did not have a good case And could be liable if the vessel were damaged He was compelled to release shenandoah to the wide derision of many citizens and the press Repairs completed shenandoah once more attained her natural element Cheered by a crowd of spectators on adjacent warfs The colonial steamer of war victoria and a few other vessels dipped their flags in salute The last international recognition the confederate banner would receive The melbourne herald proclaimed peace is what southerners asked for Peace meaning recognition and a new empire The feds declared there shall be no peace without submission and their dictatorship The south was engaged in a war of independence The north had no more chance to conquer them than head cornwallis Australia need not trouble itself much either way concluded the editors But they wish to be clear on the subject Europe had acknowledged the confederate states as belligerents and ought to have declared the south an empire It is ironic that sympathy for the confederacy in great britain was concentrated in ruling elites of title and wealth identifying with aristocratic southerners And fearing yankee democracy the tyranny of the mob While many people of melbourne More in tune with radical politics and the expanding franchise Favored the south as a champion opposing tyrannical central government These melbourneians were on the wrong side of the war and the right side of history 19 february 1865 Confederate troops evacuated the cradle of confederacy Charleston, south carolina to the encircling host of general Sherman On that same day the css shanandoah sailed from melbourne Repaired resupplied and with 45 new illegal crewmen The people of melbourne returned to routine continuing in march to independence of their own And a close friendship with the united states of america that endures to this day Eight rebel commerce destroyers Destruct took destroyed over a hundred thousand tons of union shipping worth 17 million dollars But the major impact had been psychological the real damage done by fear of capture Marine insurance rates soared reaching as high as eight percent in 1863 Although one in a hundred any Yankee vessels actually was taken Another 800 000 tons about a thousand ships were sold into foreign ownership to sail under the protection of a neutral flag Primarily great britains. This was called the flight from the flag It was a blow from which the united states merchant service never recovered Despite these losses, however rebel cruisers put not a dent in the industrial war machine in the united states Or in the burgeoning trade that supported it Commerce just shifted to neutral bottoms and whaling was ebbing anyway while the blockade progressively throttled the south Fending off howls of protest from northern ship owners and shippers Union secretary of the navy gideon wells diverted only a few warships from the blockade to hunt confederate cruisers The uss kirsarch sank alabama only after she completed the most destructive cruise of the war and was too tired to continue The uss wachusa took the unsuspecting and unprepared florida in bahia harbour Only by an egregious violation of brazilian neutrality Shenandoah encircled the globe without being caught at all Most other confederate raiders repented neutral ports confiscated before they could get underway or decommissioned after unproductive cruisers But this was also deliberate economic and psychological warfare Not unlike the strategy of william tecumseh sherman torching his way through george and the carolinas In the fall of 1864 when shenandoah began her cruise Northerners were pessimistic about victory union desertion surged and the government was deep in debt Bloodbaths at the wilderness spots of vania and cold harbour and a stalemate in the trenches around petersburg Brought a chorus of condemnation down on president lincoln and general rand Pressure to negotiate peace was intense the president disparate of winning reelection in november In october 1864 when when shenandoah departed navy secretary navy secretary mallory wrote to commander james bullock His trusted chief purchasing agent in england and the man responsible for acquiring shenandoah I trust that has been in your power to carry out what i've long had so much at heart The success of shenandoah would be such an effective blow upon a vital interest as would be felt throughout new england Bullock or georgian is an unsung hero of the confederacy He thwarted persistent union espionage and intense diplomatic pressure to launch alabama florida and shenandoah Along with blockade runners crammed with hundreds of tons of arms and equipment The layered rams and the ironclad css stonewall He was justifiably proud of these accomplishments He had been slated to command alabama, but reluctantly retained his shore duties upon the request of secretary mallory And a letter to mallory Reporting shenandoah's successful departure Bullock remained convinced that quote a formidable naval expedition Could be fitted out by the next summer of 1865 What if shenandoah had cruised a year earlier? Achieving the same results on top of the destruction already wrought by her sisters How would news of another alabama loose in the pacific during the summer doldrums of 1864 Have contributed to northern malaise and to lincoln's reelection prospects The confederacy might have been as close to independence that summer as at any time during the war This was not an irrational strategy By the spring of 1865 however when shenandoah reached the Bering Strait there could be no such hope The css shenandoah combined the epitome of an ancient maritime heritage with the most advanced technology of the time She represented a new concept in an old strategy of naval warfare And was a good example of what a weaker naval power can accomplish In what we today call asymmetric warfare The cruise also illustrates the difficulties of emerging states or revolutionary movements In claiming what they perceive as their rights and achieving accommodation in the international arena The men of shenandoah heated the call of their leaders putting their lives fortunes and honor on the line They sought to serve in the best traditions of the u.s. Navy From which several came and which they took as their model Judging by their accomplishments they succeeded The peculiar tragedy or civil war is that the opponents had so much in common and believed they were fighting for the same ideals The confederacy was a profound disaster But the americans in the south who took up arms with courage dedication and sacrifice Were wrong not evil And their naval arm was a paradigm of innovation creating strategy and professionalism Under neat under nearly unmanageable circumstances The shenandoah and her men deserved to be remembered Along with their union counterparts. They have much to teach us It is a confederate biography and it's a great sea story Thank you So i'll be happy to answer any questions More about perhaps the crew i think you indicated a lot of them were recruited in great Britain even Yes, the majority a lot were recruited in great britain And the majority were recruited from ships captured They were virtually all of them foreigners foreign merchant seamen Who had to be recruited enticed with high pay gold coins and and promise of prize money, which of course they never received And the officers had had a task in front of them to To lead these men and convince them of the of the Right of the mission and But it turns out that that they they actually served them very well. There were a few troubles troublesome Men as there always are But these men actually served well and got back to Liverpool successfully and and Commander bullock and captain waddell actually managed to even we think Pay them their their pay They had enough funds left to do that and they made a special point of doing it So it's an interesting contrast although these sailors have much in common with union sailors And sailors in general are very distinct from from soldiers They came from different backgrounds primarily urban industrial backgrounds and Most of the time they they they were not inclined to ideological motivations But however, once it see they they came together as Sailors do and and did a good job Thank you Just kind of curious Something like this That certainly doesn't look to be heavily armed is it and we're just heading the hiding the gun ports in other words When they came up on these boats Are you using your you're hired? Confederates as it were to uh to do the fighting? Yeah. Well, they had actually had eight guns A couple and a couple I think nine inch rifle cannons and a couple and four 32 pound smoothbores Um, they actually pretty well on you can see the gun ports right here um The only Yankee ship who had any chance of catching catching them was the uss air quarry And she was a sister ship um of the Ship that sunk the alabama The cure sarge Yes And actually the two were not what were fairly evenly matched if they had ever met it would have would have been a fairly even match except Sort of like sims crew on the alabama these sailors Were again foreign merchant sailors. They were not trained at the guns Well, they had no intention of encountering a union warship if they could avoid it They worked very they worked hard to trade train the sailors and they did a lot of practice firing But they were never were confident and they never really wanted to put it to the test and as it happens They didn't they never had to Question about their operations did they like the germans would do in world wars Try and hide their identity Or were they very much a worship and see because that would have been a problem. Oh, yes Oh, yes, they did and that's one of the advantages of being a clippership. They they could hide their identity pretty well And and it was standard practice for for privateers and commerce raiders to to approach a possible Pray under under a foreign flag and they did that all the time that they they flew primarily the english flag occasionally They flew the american flag But international law said You could you could approach a target with a foreign flag But once you got a lot got up close to them and you fired your gun you had to put up your own flag Otherwise you were a pirate and they and they they tried very hard to do that and they did that, you know Approximately how many were in the crew? Well, um, he had a lot of trouble getting enough men and that was one of one of the more serious problems He started off When he first commissioned the ship he only had about 30 That were enticed to Ajoined um off the crew that came down from from london with them to madera And off the store ship that they that came down from liverpool to load their guns on That's why they loaded the guns and armed her up down in madera rather than england. They they would have been seized if they'd done that But and then he recruited crewmen from various prizes they took and as I said they got some in in melbourne and um I think he ended up You know about 100 120 something like that. I mean he that that was the crew. He wanted A a standard clipper ship would never have had that many men But he needed more men to man the guns and and presumably for prize crews and things like this Yes, sir, sir, could you discuss the sources that you used in Well, yes the sources are fascinating and that's one of the things that really got me into this there are four cruise journals and two memoirs Were my primary source so I went back to them And at the time I started this project, which was over 20 years ago Nothing much had really been written about the Shenandoah And I discovered a copy of the first lieutenants cruise journal at the virginia historical society It had never been it had never been quoted. It had never been published or anything. I thought wow great So I got started on it by the time I got close to finish it some other people published some books on it, but And then there were then there were three others the the ship's doctor one of the midshipmen and One of the other lieutenants And it was a matter it was just a fascinating matter kind of collating their views And that's what I tried to do is just to see it through their eyes and write it from their perspective And I quote them a lot of course, but even even a lot of the material that is not Direct quotes is condensed and and summarized using their words and their phraseology and describing it as they saw it So that was so much what was so much fun about it. Then of course, there's so much good material on the civil war that It You don't have to do A whole lot of background research Yes, sir with the number of international sailors was A problem with English language a bunch of a concern. Where did they all speak English? Well, it was with some The has turned out a lot of the senior warrant officers like the boson and the carpenter and and uh, and so on were English as a matter of fact the boson was a He was a A royal navy pensioner and a royal navy reservist So he was he was out of his up, but he was a great guy. He actually he actually served on the alabama also Some of the crew and they had trouble with Yeah, they got some of they had some germans and some portugese And some pacific islanders primarily hawaiians that they recruited off some of the whalers And one of the the midshipman complains about how much trouble he had Getting the konakas to understand their their roles at the guns, but they were trying he said so he just worked with them Thank you They handle the logistics at the So the last three months And after the period after the war was over Did they just use money to buy their way through as it was over there Well, they they took most of their supplies from from their from their prizes And as I said in for instance in the in the Bering Sea they captured 24 whalers whalers have tons of carry tons of supplies Because they're out for months at a time So it is one of the Interesting things that they actually they actually live pretty well and ate pretty well Because of all the good food and other supplies they got off their prizes That's one of the reasons the sailors did like the ship They got good food. They didn't have they didn't have to eat heart attack and water all time or heart attack and Grog although they love their grod too The confederate navy was it was still a wet navy the u.s. Navy had gone dry in 1862, but confederate navy was not I believe you said that she had steam propulsion Yes, and some of the pictures don't show a stack Ah the stack was collapsible All right, it's hard to see here, but it is right there But it's it's lowered when they're under sail to reduce drag It's just telescoping Well, it could yes, and that's one of the reasons when they when they approached a target They would lower it so they didn't look like they had steam Would they use that in battle or would they If they needed to yeah in the Bering Strait the wind died out and there were There were about a dozen whalers sitting there in a little fleet And they steamed right up and took them. Yeah, the the steam was was very much an advantage for them to when they had Contrary winds or low winds 850 I think something like that I'm not sure they said they said it could do about nine knots It it was a pretty good steam engine Although I couldn't find out as much about it as I was hoping to but there are minor records on it But that sort of brings up the question of the fuel the coal They didn't have a collar where did they go well that that was another Problem or difficulty they had to face They brought with them from london Um An extra I think 200 tons of coal which was stored on the On the what came the birth deck in the clippership would be the tween decks Would be the deck above the holes So they brought a bunch of coal with them much more than than they would normally have carried and then um That got them down to melbourne. They got more coal in melbourne and then They were all right after that Because they relied on their sails as much as possible and got back to They were running low by the time they got back to liverpool, but fortunately they got enough to keep them going What happened to the officers after this? A number of them went to south america and brazil and the ships doctor went to mexico and actually Served under max a million for a while, but that didn't last long of course And the captain uh, waddell stayed in stayed in england his wife came over and he stayed there for a long time But they all eventually made their way back and and And they started careers at home and and actually they had they all had pretty pretty productive careers couple of them became lawyers The one lieutenant who's who was a south carolinian and Whose father had had some big plantations. His father had actually been a signer of the secession Proclamation in in south carolina. He was so he was a member of the aristocracy He actually got some of his land back and and was was able to continue working it So um, they all they all did pretty well once they got back. It was a few years They they stayed away for a few years until things settled down But they had they they did not know that they that they that they would not be tried as pirates And and they they were concerned about that Once they found out they had been getting some newspapers Off their captured ships and they got some in when they were in the Bering Strait and they got some news when they were in melbourne but of course, um, they were weeks old and um A lot of what they didn't believe and a lot of the newspaper reporting is very contradictory and confusing anyway When they were in the Bering Straits, they did get news of Lee's surrender And then and then finally Lincoln's assassination Well, they they absolutely refused to believe the news of Lee's surrender. They just said it's all lies. We don't believe it And Lincoln's assassination they were just shocked by and their their immediate reaction was confederacy didn't do this And and and we hope that the confederacy doesn't suffer because of it um, so Did I answer question? Yes, sir. Did they carry a head of steam so that they could get underway incidentally? Oh, they did when they when they thought they needed to but Normally underway they would not well, um Depends on what the weather was doing and where they were um, they they would um They would clear what they were water to boilers And they would clear the fires and water out of the boilers occasionally to clean them and so on most of the time They they they they probably maintained some low banked fires if they thought they would need steam so that they could get up steam Pretty quickly. I think they they didn't very often let the boilers go cold Except when they were in Melbourne, of course and when they were at anchor in in Pompay Yes Now this was the period of the first iron clads, right? Yes Was this a fine cloud at all? No. No, it was it was billed as a clipper ship so It was what they called a composite clipper It had iron frames Iron frames and stanchions and Knees so that it had a lot more space inside than than a traditional clipper um and But it was plank with with teak six inches of teak And and then then sheath and copper So it actually was a better hole for those times than the iron holes It had better protection from marine organisms organisms and growth And uh, and it was more it lasted longer. It was more expensive to build But um, it was built right at the height of the of the uh, uh, Of the british teak clipper Building and and and for that reason is really a magnificent example of the type Uh, the only really unusual and then the unusual thing about it is that it had a steam engine But um, as I said, it's it's very similar to the cutty sark Um, and it's it's it was a little hard for me to get my head around that that a clipper ship was used as a warship But that's what happened I think there were a couple other clipper ships that were used as blockaders at one point, but of course they They were not terribly effective Completely unique this teak Uh, the planking on the hull, I don't think it's completely unique I think it was one of the one of the higher end configurations Uh for the uh for the glasco ship ship builders, but um I'm not sure. Of course it was a very very good thing to plank a haul with Um, but they were real concerned about going into ice The the the uh, whalers that the the arctic whalers were built much stronger There their their stems were reinforced and they had thicker planking Uh To to stand the ice and but they had some really scary Adventures up in the ice and were very leery of of uh of getting hulled By the ice or getting the rudder knocked off and they almost did on a couple occasions but still for for A clipper ship at the time it really was And you know the epitome of the technology and then the teak clippers are probably the most uh Beautiful machines ever built They're really something I You know, I think a lot about my days on the bridge and I had a fair number of them And I spent so much time on the quarter deck with these guys now You know my my mental images go go kind of get merged My my mental images are standing on the quarter deck of the Shenandoah Or almost as vivid as being on the bridge of the kitty kitty hark So what was our what was her final feat? well, um The british Turned her over to the union authorities in Liverpool at their request The uh the uh american ambassador there charles france and sadams Wanted them to turn over the officers too, but they And they didn't have any reason to to prosecute them and they didn't want to get involved in that anyway But it was turned over to the to the us the us hired a crew and captain to sailor back They got into some storms and the captain had trouble with the engines and he was a He was a wind sailor anyway He turned back and finally they sold her to the sultan of zanzibar as a yacht And and the other thing about these these these glasco clippers is they were very richly appointed inside And very, you know mahogany paneling in the whole bit And we don't have any pictures of the inside of the Shenandoah would be suspected. It was it was pretty nice Um, and um, so the sultan zanzibar had her as a yacht for a number of years She got caught in a hurricane off the coast of uh Of east africa and and was eventually sunk. So right now she's on the bottom of the indian ocean someone Okay