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CSS Shenandoah

CSS Shenandoah Story

On 16 July 1864, the Commonwealth Admiralty contacted James Dunwoody Bulloch - the Commonwealth's agent in England - and ordered him to find a suitable suit for the wrecked Commonwealth fighter CSS Alabama substitute. Bulloch kept a close eye on UK shipyards for the right vessel and found a potential blockade runner - Aquaman. A well-built and well-equipped three-masted vessel with 21 square sails, powered by steam as an auxiliary propulsion system.

Designers have added the new ability to separate her propellers and lift them to the well deck below the boat - increasing her speed only under sail power.

The civilian steamship Sea King was built as a British cargo ship or troop carrier with a mainsail and a 1,160 ton steam powered screw engine as a secondary sail. She was launched in the River Clyde in Glasgow, Scotland in August 1863.

Sea King was the first screw-type steamship built on an iron frame scheme under planks. Envisioned as a fast merchant ship capable of crossing the ocean, bringing the first tea leaves of the growing season from China to many families in London.

With this news, Waddell now had to face the fact that the war was truly over and ordered the crew to disarm the Shenandoah as a Union warship. Her turrets were removed and stored below the quarterdeck, and she repainted the hull so that it no longer looked like a distinct warship. When the South loses the war, Captain Waddell considers what will happen to him and his crew if they enter American ports to face possible pirate trials.

Unbeknownst to Wardle, his concerns were justified because the reconciliation and amnesty documents signed by North and South did not include commercial raidersonly Confederate soldiers and sailors who surrendered at the end of the war.

Waddell decided to sail to England via Cape Horn and arrived in Liverpool, on 6 November 1865 Captain Waddell handed over CSS Shenandoah to Captain HMS Donegal. Upon arrival, Waddell removed the Confederate flag and gave it to the Royal Navy. CSS Shenandoah and her crew surrendered to the British, establishing a crown between the U.S. government and the Confederate crew. Because this could mean a fatal decision by the Confederate crew in their home country for piracy, the British royal family ordered a naval investigation, which eventually found the Confederate crew not guilty under the rules of naval warfare.

The crew was released and the sailors found work on British ships bound for the United States. Most officers decided not to return to the United States, fearing the worst.

In December 1865, officers Lee, Brown, Mason and Whittle decided to sail to South America and sail from Liverpool to Buenos Aires. Those who fought for the Confederacy were allowed to return home. The U.S. Navy held a grudge, and the U.S. government wanted the officers arrested and hanged for piracy.

A few years later, the hostility in the United States began to subside, and Mason and Brown returned to their families, while Lee and Whittle felt unsafe there, and returned a few years later.

By the time Shenandoah arrived in Liverpool, England, to surrender, she had sailed or sailed 58,000 miles, 12 months and 17 days at sea, sinking or capturing 38 Union-flagged merchant ships. During the Civil War, Waddle and his crew took nearly a thousand prisoners without causing any casualtiesonly two died of disease. Such fairly perfect records of warfare are not common in this age of seafaring. However, CSS Shenandoah has never encountered or engaged in combat with Federal Navy warships, only Federal Merchant ships.

It must be noted that the CSS Shenandoah is the only Confederate warship to circumnavigate the Earth while flying the Star-Spangled Banner.

The U.S. government accused the British royal family of helping to fund Confederate causes. The U.S. government is seeking a $21 million claim for damages after the Shenandoah sank or captured the 38 ships.

The international law of the sea lawsuit called the "Alabama Claim", filed against the British government (essentially the losing party to the war), had to pay millions of dollars in court for the ships' losses to the U.S. state through arbitration.

In 1866, the US government occupied CSS Shenandoah, making it the final surrender of the American Civil War. She then sold it to the first sultan of Zanzibar for ?17,000. The sultan renamed the ship "El Majidi" after his own name. She returned to sea for six years as a cargo ship, but remained armed in self-defense.

On April 15, 1872, a hurricane struck the ship and a small fleet of six ships. The former CSS Shenandoah was badly damaged and reported missing at seaa fitting end for a warship that avoided the less honorable route of demolition and timber sales.