Original Sea King information provided by the Wellington Harbour Board, New Zealand. Written and researched by then Major Robert E Taylor and Corporal Ian Howat  (Confederate High Command N.Z.) (1974) recently updated by R. Taylor QSM fwwfn 2006.

 

The Confederate warship CSS Shenandoah was a steam cruiser named after the loved rivers and valleys that proved so valuable a food source for the Confederacy during the War Between the States.  Later this part of the country was turned to strategic advantage by General “Stonewall” Jackson who earned his steadfast nickname because of a determined and successful stand in the first major campaign of the war at the First Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run.

 

While sailing under the name CSS Shenandoah, the ship was never to see the country for which she was so valiantly fighting. Instead she steamed and sailed the oceans in search of Union vessels to either sink or claim for the Confederacy. She earned the unusual distinction of being the only Confederate Navy ship to circumnavigate the globe and spend much of her time in Arctic waters seeking out Yankee whalers.

 

Sceptics, who claim she would have been better fighting off Union blockades of Southern ports underrate the power and influence of the campaign this sturdy and gallant little ship was conducting. Considering the size of the blockading fleet, spread as it was over the vast coastline of the South from Baltimore to New Orleans, tackling the heavily gunned U.S. warships would have been an impossible task for a lone vessel that couldn’t have expected a long existence. However the effect of this ship on other freight carrying craft was devastating to the northern states. Afraid to lose ships and cargo their owners preferred to leave vessels waterlogging, tied by rotting ropes to numerous ports all over the world and as it turned out the Shenandoah outlived the war.

 

Natural disasters, Chinese pirates, who flourished at the time and other seaborne catastrophes, were often blamed on CSS Shenandoah to good effect. This further fanned the flames of fear and helped confuse many Union war ships desperately trying to catch up with her and put an end to the perpetual thorn in their side. To their dismay, she successfully evaded them throughout the war.

 

The ship was destined to be the pride of the China trade when built by A. Stephen and Son in Glasgow for Robertson and Co. of

London. An all iron, teak planked, steam and sail vessel, she was chosen instead by the British government to send urgently needed troops and artillery to fight in the second Maori “Land” Wars in New Zealand these wars raged at the same time as The War Between the States.

 

Sailing from Woolwich on November 1862 as the Sea King she was commanded by Captain Pinel. On board were four 55cwt 8 inch shell guns and two 32 pounder Whitworth rifles, she also carried Colonel Williams, his officers, along with 185 non-commissioned officers and men of the 1st battery, 4th Brigade, Royal Artillery. Also Sea King had 23 women, 43 children and several soldiers who were to join Brigades already stationed in New Zealand. Among the list of non-military passengers was the name J.I. Waddell. Unknown to his fellow passengers, for he kept a quiet profile and wouldn’t mix in shipboard activities, this man was secretly and on special orders, sounding-out the new vessel for greater deeds to come.

 

The Sea King took 72 days to reach Auckland, New Zealand, where she discharged her cargo of artillery pieces, shot, powder and men. However when she sailed from the calm waters of Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour, on January 27th 1863 for the princely sum of 30 thousand pounds on paper at least she was undergoing a significant change of owners and purpose, although few, not even the crew on board knew it. A Confederate purchasing agent, James D Bulloch, had bought her for conversion to an armed raider on approval. It seems that approval came from then First Lieutenant James Iredell Waddell, Confederate States Navy. In a communication from James D Bulloch to the Confederate secretary of the Navy the Hon S.R. Mallory he wrote, “I have now the satisfaction to inform you of the purchase of a fine composite ship, just returned from her first voyage. She is 1,160 tons (builders measurement) plenty of accommodation for officers of all grades and ‘tween decks 7 feet 6 inches high with large air ports, having been fitted out for the transport of troops.”  Bulloch instructed his agent, “Give your name as Mr. W C Brown and be in the coffee room at 11 o’clock precisely, sit in a prominent position with a white pocket handkerchief rove through a buttonhole of your coat and a newspaper in your hand.”  With a predetermined course set for London Sea King returned.
     

Under secret orders she was to sneak out of port to avoid two Yankee ships and make for Madeira. Bulloch again describes the event, “In spite of every precaution the Federal spies discovered something was in progress but they failed to identify our ship.

 

However a few days after departure of Sea King they captured a peaceful, unsuspecting Spanish steamer.” Under the command of Captain Corbett Sea King eventually met up with CSS Laurel commanded by Lieutenant Commanding J.F. Ramsay carrying Lieutenant Waddell, her crew, Naval officers and heavy guns. With new gun ports cut in her sides for additional cannon, she was refitted entirely at sea and renamed CSS Shenandoah.

 

After Liverpool, gone was the Royal ensign from her aft flagpole, in its place flew a Confederate ensign.

 

It’s not clear whether Waddell sailed with her to London but more likely sailed to join her refitting ship in Liverpool and give his report there to Bulloch. Such was the intrigue surrounding the purchase of the vessel that it reads like a classic spy novel. 

Commander J.I. Waddell. (Image courtesy www.history.navy.mil/index.html)

 

Under steam she could only make 8 knots but under sail logged 17 knots, a considerable speed for the day.

 

After sinking several Federal vessels in the South Atlantic, Shenandoah headed for the now familiar waters of Melbourne and repairs.

 

Efforts to enlist a crew in Melbourne occasioned a paper war between Victorian authorities and Commander Waddell. At one stage the ship was surrounded in her dry dock by an artillery company and she in turn had her guns trained on the city,

however repairs completed, Shanendoah set sail for the Caroline Islands with a full compliment comprising, as Waddell humorously noted in his log, “stowaways.” The incident almost drew Australia into the War Between the States.

CSS Shenandoah in Melbourne Dry Dock Feb 1865 (Image courtesy www.csnavy. org)
 

Waddell’s signature is the last entry in the ship’s logbook.

(Image courtesy wwwcsnavy.org)
 

The story of this gallant ship and its 58,000-mile voyage has been told and retold but we are still learning new things of her exploits. For two years the Shenandoah plundered the seas sinking 32 American merchant and whaling ships.

 

On August 2nd 1865 while off San Francisco, Commander Waddell encountered the British Barque, Barracouta and learned of the war’s conclusion.   Dismounting his guns, Waddell sailed to Liverpool and CSS Shenandoah finally surrendered, some six months after war’s end, back to the British from whence she came.

The captain and crew preferring this end rather than surrendering to a U.S. Federal government bent on hanging them all as pirates. Interestingly, amongst the crew, was a serving naval rating of African American descent, one of many who fought for the South and on this occasion shared the distinction with American Indians of becoming the last to surrender.

The British government, still sympathetic towards the South, seized the vessel,

released its crew and returned the ship to a US government that eventually sold Shenandoah to the Sultan of Zanzibar for only half its value. At last she served her intended role, importing tea and other cargo from China under a new name El Majida.

 

Shenandoah met her end, not under fire and not at the hands of so many frustrated Union naval commanders but in the stormy straits between Madagascar and the mainland, running onto rocks that ripped her hull apart and she sank.

 

Today, on those remote Mozambique Channel rocks, the eternal sea nibbles and eddies around the shattered, rusted remains of a grand old ship with an enormous reputation. Surely grey ghosts of those swashbuckling Confederates still patrol Shenandoah’s decks. Their involvement and commitment to duty helps prevent CSS Shenandoah’s gallant deeds receding, with the waves into the dark corners of history.