SEA OF GRAY

A saga of secessionists on the high seas, causing mayhem wherever they wandered.

The Shenandoah began life as a Scottish commercial vessel called the Sea King, but, as Chaffin (Pathfinder, 2002) notes, became one of the finest ships in the Confederate navy. Acquired in October 1864—instrumental in the acquisition was Theodore Roosevelt’s uncle, a Georgian named James Bulloch, who later “played a major role in convincing the future U.S. president of the priority of attaining global naval superiority for America”—the Shenandoah was technologically advanced, with a screw propeller as well as tall sails. Commanded by James Waddell, it was also, technically, a privateer, a pirate ship with a letter of marque. Privateering was by then out of favor among the European powers, but the U.S. government had refused to sign a treaty banning it (think Kyoto Protocol), a decision that would haunt Yankee sailors when the Shenandoah circumnavigated the globe, sank 34 Union vessels and seized cargoes worth more than $1.4 million. The captain’s loyalties remained so strong, Chaffin writes, that the ship went on attacking Union vessels even after Lee surrendered at Appomattox, when it dawned on Waddell, then off the Siberian coast, that he’d better get ship and crew back to the more or less friendly waters of England before the Yankees caught up. Chaffin does a good job of charting the Shenandoah’s path and fortunes, and though the narrative could have stood a little trimming here and there, he makes it clear that there were plenty of worse places to be in the war than on the ship’s decks; the officers had time to read the many books they liberated from enemy vessels, while the crew, for all its rebel orthodoxy, merrily disported themselves among the dark women of Ascension, unrepentant pirates to the last.

Good reading for Civil War buffs, taking the naval aspect of the conflict well beyond the usual Monitor and Merrimac fare.