Colonial Despatches

At its launch in Scotland in 1863, the CSS Shenandoah, which originally bore the name Sea King, was intended to be a British transport vessel;1 however, a US Confederate agent, through furtive and duplicitous means, was able to purchase the Sea King for use in the Confederate Navy.2

After sailors hurriedly prepared the Sea King for war and renamed it the CSS Shenandoah, the vessel headed for the shipping lanes between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia to disrupt American trade. The Shenandoah next moved into the North Pacific, where, in the summer of 1865, it preyed on American whaling vessels.3

Unaware that the Civil War had ended in the aftermath of the Confederate surrender earlier that year, the Shenandoah's captain, Waddel, continued his mission into June of 1865.4 In August 1865, Vancouver Island governor, Kennedy, received a letter from the US consul, which was included in the documents enclosed with this despatch, that informed him of the Shenandoah's continued warlike activities despite the end of the war.

Also in August 1865, having now learned that the war had indeed ended, Waddel steered the Shenandoah on a route back to England, and surrendered the ship upon arrival.5 At the close of the Civil War, the Shenandoah was the only Confederate ship to circle the globe, and was the last vessel to surrender.6

• 1. Shenandoah, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
• 2. Kennedy Hickman, Military History,.
• 3. Shenandoah, Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
• 4. Ibid.
• 5. Ibid.
• 6. Kennedy Hickman, Military History,.