Captain James Waddell of CSS Shenandoah: “Having Done My Duty”

Dawn, November 6, 1865: The CSS Shenandoah steamed up the Mersey River through heavy haze with the Confederate flag (second national pattern) flying at the peak and dropped anchor near Liverpool guard ship HMS Donegal. A lieutenant from Donegal visited, providing what Capt. James Waddell recorded as “official intelligence” of the conclusion of the American Civil War. “He was very polite toward me, and left me to believe he felt a sympathy for us in our situation.” The last Rebel banner was hauled down without ceremony about 10 a.m.[1]

Waddell dispatched a communication to Her Britannic Majesty’s minister for foreign affairs announcing his arrival: “The singular position in which I find myself placed and the absence of all precedents on the subject will, I trust, induce your lordship to pardon a hasty reference to a few facts.” He had cruised against enemy commerce around the globe and in the most remote locations. “I was engaged in the Arctic Ocean in acts of war as late as the 28th day of June, in ignorance of the serious reverses sustained by our arms in the field and the obliteration of the Government under whose authority I have been acting.”

Waddell first learned these facts, he said, from a British merchantman off the California coast on August 2, but lacked official confirmation and legal guidance. The captain had no further authority to command the ship and no right to destroy her, so he desisted from belligerent acts and shaped course around Cape Horn for Liverpool. “History is, I believe, without a parallel.”

“I therefore sought this port as a suitable one wherein to ‘learn the news,’ and, if I am without a Government, to surrender the ship with her battery, small arms, machinery, stores, tackle, and apparel, complete, to her Majesty’s Government for such disposition as in its wisdom should be deemed proper.” The captain did not mention that he and his fellow officers had no desire to submit their persons to United States jurisdiction; for all they knew, a pirate’s noose awaited.[2]

The Admiralty ordered Capt. Paynter of Donegal to prevent Shenandoah from coaling or leaving the port. The coast guard was notified, and artillery batteries at the river entrance were put on alert. Custom authorities took possession of the ship. Paynter instructed that no one, officers or crew, was to go ashore until further instructions were received from London. He ordered the steam gunboat Goshawk to be lashed alongside Shenandoah.

Waddell relieved officers and crew of all further responsibility and allowed them to do as they pleased. “The day hung heavily on our hands,” wrote Lt. Francis Chew, a Missourian, in his journal, “everything ready to go on shore and not to make a move.” After eight months at sea, he gazed longingly at a city obscured by fog and industry, but as night came on and fog lifted, “chimneys ceased to send forth their dark streams of smoke and thousands of lights peeped out, giving animation to the scene. A promenade on deck was then more pleasant.”

With fresh provisions from shore, everyone relaxed. Good spirits prevailed as they lounged through the next day watching steamboat loads of people cruising by to gawk “as if we were wild beasts…. [We] banished all thoughts of our condition from our minds. I thought, let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we shall be given up to the U.S.?” But time began to pass wearily; boredom and restlessness took over. [3]

Shenandoah’s shocking arrival in the Mersey rekindled Yankee anger over British support of Confederate commerce raiders, particularly the CSS Alabama. Correspondence flew around the government up to and including cabinet ministers. Who owned the vessel and what should they do with it? What was the status of officers and crew? Had they violated international or domestic laws?

Government, press, and public were chagrined at this reminder of the recent unpleasantness, complicating severely strained relations. With fervent hopes for quick and quiet resolution, the foreign minister turned to Crown law officers. How to placate an angry United States government?

U.S. Minister Charles Francis Adams respectfully requested that Her Majesty’s government take possession of said vessel with a view to delivering it into the hands of his government, “in order that it may be properly secured against any renewal of the audacious and lawless proceedings which have hitherto distinguished its career.”

Adams maintained that Shenandoah had continued her destruction of American whalers in the Bering Strait (twenty-four of which she had captured in one June week) even after learning from them of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender. The ship therefore ceased to be a legitimate belligerent in international law; she was a pirate. In addition, he noted, Her Majesty’s subjects had been recruited as crewmembers in violation of the British Foreign Enlistment Act. He hoped the government would mark his countrymen’s “high sense of the flagrant nature of their offenses.”[4]

The third morning saw no news from London and no more fresh provisions either. “The thing is being pushed too far now,” complained South Carolinian Doctor Charles Lining, the ship’s surgeon. Lt. Chew: “I began to think seriously that we would have to stand a trial in an English court.” Around dusk, guards were doubled and orders issued that no boats would come alongside, although a number of crewmen had already escaped. Their only exit now was across the deck of Goshawk with armed sentries posted.[5]

Finally, law officers advised that ship and appurtenances should be surrendered to the United States. Based on facts as stated by Waddell and without contravening evidence, there were no grounds for prosecution on charges of piracy. If evidence indicated that crewmembers were British subjects, then proceedings against them should be initiated for breach of the Foreign Enlistment Act. However, in the absence of warrants for criminal arrest under British law, there were no grounds for preventing Shenandoah personnel from “going on shore without restraint and disposing of themselves as they thought fit.”[6]

Captain Paynter boarded that evening and asked Waddell on his honor whether he was aware of British subjects among the crew. The former captain assured Paynter that he was not, and that he had no evidence to prove nationality. They were “a desperate and motley set of men” who had been recruited on the high seas and who ran the risk for high wages and prize money. Paynter proceeded to the wardroom and inquired if any of the officers were British subjects. They were not, nor did they think any of the crew were.[7]

Paynter requested that the crew be mustered. (One sailor later testified that their former captain sent marines among them saying that they all were to be Southerners when their name was called. Waddell denied it.) Each man passed before the British captain. Most stated—many in English, Scottish, or Irish accents—that they came from one or other of the Southern states. Some were Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islanders, a few Portuguese, with a smattering of other nationalities. None acknowledged being British, and they professed to be angry at having been held on board without reason or authority. Paynter then read out orders from London that all were to be released who were not British subjects. “With what joy it was received!! The men cheered heartily,” wrote Chew.[8]

Captain Paynter was required to justify these proceedings following pointed allegations of prevarication from Minister Adams. He responded sharply: It was nearly impossible to ascertain with certainty the nationality of such seamen. The enormous shipping trade with America and the facility with which naturalization papers could be obtained obscured the issue, while the dress, style, and habits of these mongrel crews—including “Yankee drawls and swaggering gaits”—were complete disguises.

As a Queen’s officer, Paynter was accustomed to the uniform and clean appearance of their men-of-war’s men. “I trust I may be pardoned . . . if I could not pronounce on my own responsibility whether some of the dirty, drawling, ill-looking, grey-coated, big-bearded men, who passed before me as the crew of Shenandoah, were British subjects or American citizens.” Furthermore, it might be presumed that British subjects already had made their escape and would have had every assistance from those on board in doing so.[9]

Thomas Dudley, U.S. Consul in Liverpool, later compiled a list of Shenandoah personnel with places of origin. Of 137 men named, 75 (55 percent) were English (46), Irish (14), Scot (10), Canadian (3), or Welsh (2). These crew members, including most warrant and petty officers, had in fact been surreptitiously recruited in London, Liverpool, and Melbourne, and others from captured ships. Only the commissioned officers and a few others were Southerners. Quite a few subjects of the Crown walked off. It also would have been highly inconvenient for the British government to witness public prosecutions of its subjects in the heat of ongoing controversy.[10]

Minister Adams, supported by a scathing (and inaccurate) letter from Secretary of State William Seward, rehashed their vociferous complaints of British complicity. Foreign Minister the Earl of Clarendon voluminously countered these allegations as having no basis in international or domestic law. No American minds were changed, however, as they prepared litigation that would lead to subsequent award for the United States in the so-called Alabama Claims. Shenandoah was second only to Alabama in determining British liability.[11]

By about nine o’clock on the evening of November 8, 1865, customs officials had examined all baggage; everything had been loaded onto the ferry Bee, and they all steamed away from Shenandoah.

Francis Chew: “I grew sadder & sadder as the outlines of the old ship became fainter & fainter in the increasing distance. Farewell dear old ship, farewell! I have seen you for the last time. I shall never again tread your deck! You now go to the U.S., but with no dishonor to yourself; you roamed the seas in spite of cruisers, some of which are now searching for you in the North Pacific and you quietly anchored off Liverpool, twenty thousand miles away.”[12]

“We bid a final adieu to the old Shenandoah which had carried us safely over so many hundred miles of water,” wrote Charles Lining in his last journal entry. “It is all over & I thank God for it. We were the last thing that flew the Confederate flag & that is something to be proud of.” Lieutenant William Whittle of Virginia recalled: “Thus ended our memorable cruise—grand in its conception. Grand in its execution, and unprecedentedly, awfully grand in its sad finale. To the four winds the gallant crew scattered, most them never to meet again until called to the Bar of that Highest of all Tribunals.”[13]

James Waddell took up lodging ashore where within two weeks he would suffer lung hemorrhages and, coughing up large amounts of blood, be near death for several months. In his final report, Waddell summarized:

Shenandoah cruised for thirteen months, over 58,000 miles, the only vessel to carry the Confederate flag around the world, visiting every ocean except the Antarctic and flying it six months after Appomattox. She captured 38 enemy vessels—over four per month on average—releasing six on bond and destroying 32. The last gun in defense of the South was fired from her deck on June 28, 1865, in the Arctic Ocean. Shenandoah never lost a chase and was second only to the celebrated Alabama. “I claim for her officers and men a triumph over their enemies and over every obstacle, and for myself I claim having done my duty.”[14]

Extracted from Dwight Hughes, A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah (Naval Institute Press, 2015).

[1] James I. Waddell, “Extracts from notes on the C.S.S. Shenandoah by her commander, James Iredell Waddell, C.S. Navy,” in The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896), Series 1, Vol. 3, 835. Hereafter cited as ORN.

[2] Waddell to Russell, ORN 1, 3, 783–84.

[3] Francis Thornton Chew, “Reminiscences and Journal of Francis Thornton Chew, Lieutenant, C.S.N.,” Chew Papers #148, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library (not paginated), 6 November 1865.

[4] Adams to Clarendon, The Case of Great Britain as Laid Before the Tribunal of Arbitration Convened at Geneva, 3 vols. (Government Printing Office, 1872), 1, 937–38. Hereafter cited as Case of Great Britain.

[5] Charles E. Lining, Journal, Eleanor S. Brokenbrough Library, Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, VA. (not paginated), 8 November 1865; Chew, “Reminiscences and Journal,” 8 November 1865.

[6] Law-officers to Clarendon, Case of Great Britain, 1, 938–40.

[7] Paynter to the Admiralty, Case of Great Britain, 1, 953–54.

[8] Temple, Case of Great Britain, 1, 974; Chew, “Reminiscences and Journal,” 8 November 1865.

[9] Paynter to the Admiralty, Case of Great Britain, 1, 953–54; Paynter to Admiralty, Case of Great Britain, 1, 988.

[10] “List of the officers and men of the Shenandoah,” Case of Great Britain, 1, 974–77.

[11] Letters, Case of Great Britain, 1, 963–98.

[12] Chew, “Reminiscences and Journal,” 8 November 1865.

[13] Lining, Journal, 8 November 1865; William C. Whittle, Jr., “The Cruise of the Shenandoah,” Southern Historical Society Papers 35 (1907), 258.

[14] Waddell, “Extracts,” ORN, 1, 3:836.