- Joined
- Mar 31, 2012
- Location
- Central Ohio
On November 6, 1865, a somewhat used-looking but still handsome steamer made her way into the port of Liverpool, England, with the banner of a no-longer-existing country snapping at her peak.
The CSS Shenandoah, which had left England over a year before to cruise in the North Pacific whaling grounds (at which she was quite successful), had made it back to England after an epic voyage of over three months and nine thousand miles around Cape Horn, carefully avoiding all other ships and sight of land, a navigational feat of truly herculean proportions. Her captain, James Iredell Waddell (from Pittsboro, NC) had feared (with some justification) that if she had been caught by a U.S. vessel that the ship's officers at least could have been charged with piracy-- given that they had continued to operate as a cruiser after hostilities had ceased elsewhere. (In retrospect, a solid legal defense could have been mounted that would likely have acquitted them of actual piracy, but the concern was still very real to the men on the decks of the Shenandoah.)
At the entrance to the Mersey, a pilot boat met the erstwhile cruiser, but the pilot refused to bring in a ship that was not flying a flag. So, in a last act of defiance, the Shenandoah's crew raised the Confederate flag (in this case, the "Stainless Banner") to the peak for one last time. (This flag is now on display in the Confederate Museum in Richmond.)
The ship was surrendered to the British warship HMS Donegal later that day.
The CSS Shenandoah, which had left England over a year before to cruise in the North Pacific whaling grounds (at which she was quite successful), had made it back to England after an epic voyage of over three months and nine thousand miles around Cape Horn, carefully avoiding all other ships and sight of land, a navigational feat of truly herculean proportions. Her captain, James Iredell Waddell (from Pittsboro, NC) had feared (with some justification) that if she had been caught by a U.S. vessel that the ship's officers at least could have been charged with piracy-- given that they had continued to operate as a cruiser after hostilities had ceased elsewhere. (In retrospect, a solid legal defense could have been mounted that would likely have acquitted them of actual piracy, but the concern was still very real to the men on the decks of the Shenandoah.)
At the entrance to the Mersey, a pilot boat met the erstwhile cruiser, but the pilot refused to bring in a ship that was not flying a flag. So, in a last act of defiance, the Shenandoah's crew raised the Confederate flag (in this case, the "Stainless Banner") to the peak for one last time. (This flag is now on display in the Confederate Museum in Richmond.)
The ship was surrendered to the British warship HMS Donegal later that day.