Book Review: Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White

Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White. By Andrew Sillen. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024. 336 pp. $32.95.

Reviewed by Neil P. Chatelain

The Confederate commerce raider Alabama has stood out among other warships during the Civil War, both captivating people during the conflict and holding a distinct place in the war’s literature. Letters, diaries, memoirs, and biographies about the ship’s officers have been extensively published, and there are hosts of books serving as vessel biographies or studies comparing the travels of Alabama and USS Kearsarge, the steamer that sank the raider off the French coast in 1864. It would seem that everything there is to say about Alabama, its crew, and its famed voyage has been said. Andrew Sillen’s Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White not only adds new insights on Alabama’s narrative, but challenges virtually every single account of the ship regarding David Henry White, a Black sailor who spent a year-and-a-half on the raider.

Sillen’s book is primarily focused on the life of David Henry White, who was taken from the captured prize Tonawanda in early 1863, perceived to be an enslaved man from Delaware, and forcibly brought by Capt. Raphael Semmes to serve CSS Alabama’s officers. The other elements of the book are what one might expect, with it being part biography of Semmes and part biography of Alabama itself.

Sillen explains how Raphael Semmes, his officers, and the preponderance of secondary works about CSS Alabama label David Henry White as an enslaved man from Delaware taking passage on Tonawanda with his enslaver to Europe. Thus, Semmes (in his view) was justified in seizing White and forcing him to serve on the commerce raider. Included in this narrative is that White was paid by Semmes at the rating of ship’s boy, which adds credence to the thought that Black men served in the Confederacy’s armed forces. Sillen’s argument is that all these sources are wrong and that White was instead a freeman who was kidnapped from the merchant Tonawanda and enslaved by Semmes, forcing him to serve on CSS Alabama until the 1864 battle of Cherbourg, where the raider was sunk and White drowned.

The challenge to demonstrating such a claim is that White was illiterate and died in 1864; there are no firsthand documents from White himself to prove Sillen’s argument. This makes Sillen’s training as an anthropologist useful, as he looked beyond such firsthand accounts to find other evidence. There is not much, but several key pieces of evidence, such as Tonawanda’s logbook and shipping articles, prove White was a paid crew member on the merchant ship instead of an enslaved passenger. These, along with census records and employment documents from previous jobs, are shown to prove White’s legal status as a freeman. Accounts by Tonawanda’s civilian master also help demonstrate that White was a crewman who was kidnapped, not an enslaved man who was confiscated.

The end of the book contains two chapters summarizing data that was explained throughout the primary body of text. One looks at all the firsthand and secondary accounts by Semmes, his officers, and historians that denote White as an enslaved man. The second of these chapters deconstructs every argument and shows how they are all misinterpreting documents, evidence, or statements made regarding White’s legal status and how he ended up on Alabama. Sillen’s conclusion is that White was indeed a freeman from Delaware who joined Tonawanda as a paid crew member. Semmes kidnapped White, brought him to CSS Alabama and forced him to work as part of the crew (he was paid, but less than his pay on the civilian merchant), and Semmes and his officers systematically covered up the kidnapping through false claims that White was already enslaved. The preponderance of evidence shown was quite convincing that Sillen’s argument is correct.

The biggest shortcoming was the book’s notations. The author has considerable conversations in the book’s endnotes. Often, a statement made by Sillen in the body of the text will have an endnote that contains a significant and lengthy quotation. I often was left wondering why many of these quotes were not in the text itself and were relegated to the notes where many readers might miss them. There are also many notations following quotes from wartime actors (like Abraham Lincoln, Raphael Semmes, or USS Kearsarge captain John Winslow), but the corresponding endnote cites a secondary work instead of the original source. To be fair, these instances are done when telling Alabama’s overall story, not when discussing White or any of the claims about him.

Overall, Andrew Sillen’s argument is quite believable, and his inclusion of photographs of the logbooks and muster rolls he uses as evidence add great credence to said argument that White was a freeman. As someone who recently did a deep dive in reconstructing the Civil War activity of an illiterate freeman, the methods Sillen used mirrored my own. Ultimately, Sillen’s Kidnapped at Sea adds new evidence-based arguments that anyone researching CSS Alabama must explore, but more importantly it returns humanity and agency back to David Henry White, an illiterate teenage freeman who found himself impressed into Confederate service until his death under the Stainless Banner.