CSS Shenandoah, The Last Ship Engaged in Raids During the Civil War 1864-1865
Bark
Delphine:
Capt. and Mrs. William Greene Nichols (Lillias
Pendleton Nichols)
boarded the Delphine, a merchant ship built by Eliah Wight Metcalf.
Lillias is the daughter of my 3rd Great Grand Uncle, Capt. Phineas
Pendleton, Jr., and she and I come from a long line of Searsport sea
captains traveling the world on Maine-built merchant ships. Capt. and
Mrs. Nichols boarded the ship Delphine in Bangor Maine, along with
their 6 year old son, Phineas Pendleton Nichols, and their maid.
Their long voyage took them to the Indian Ocean. < Capt. William Green Nichols
CSS
Shenandoah: The Confederates used ruses to secretly purchase, refit, and take
command of the Scottish-built civilian steamer the Sea King, a
1160-tone screw steam cruiser, a very fast iron-sided ship with teak
plank flooring, which Commander
James Iredell Waddell renamed
as the Shenandoah. Waddell, though an experienced mariner of 20 years
helped in the refitting of the Sea King for war, he tended to not
gain the confidence of the Shenandoah's crew who kept wanting to
second-guess his commands on this ship, the first he commanded
himself. His ship needed a crew of 150, but had just 42 men despite
recruitment efforts in October of 1864. Slowly he would gain a full
crew by taking volunteers from the many Yankee ships that he and his
crew would halt, seize and burn as he maneuvered through the Atlantic
and into the Indian Ocean. He and his ship were always at war despite
many monotonous long days at sea. The role of Confederate raider was
to reek havoc with any encountered Yankee merchant trade ships upon
the high seas.
On
December 29, 1864 a
leg of their voyages took both the Delphine and the Shenandoah within
proximity near Java Head, Cape Indonesia in the Sunda Strait. The
Shenandoah believed the bark to be French and deceptively raised a
flag identifying their ship as English. The Delphine was used to
meeting other ships at sea and approached to exchange news, etc.
Naive, the Delphine raised its flag, the Yankee flag. Waddell fired a
blank shot and prepared forward guns. Capt. Nichols of the Delphine hoved to! Waddell informed Nichols that the Delphine would be sunk.
Capt.
Nichols tried his own subterfuge, but failed. He claimed that his
wife Lillias Nichols was too delicate and in failing health to board
the Shenandoah and pleaded for the Delphine to be spared. Waddell almost let the Delphine go but at the last moment decided to send the
ship's surgeon, Dr. Lining, to examine Ms. Nichols. The truth was
out; Lillias was a force to be reckoned with, a beautiful woman, in
robust health, but sharp tongued which she used to tongue-lash the
Confederates for firing upon the Delphine.
Out
came the boson's chair which was rigged between the ships and and
Lillias in all her verbal glory no doubt managed the perilous
transfer to the Shenandoah along with her son Phineas and the maid.
She coerced the sailors to transport her canary bird in its cage
also. Later her books were salvaged, but she was not allowed to keep
her copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The raiders also kept the Delphine's
chronometer, against the lashings of Lillias' tart tongue.
She
and her husband, Capt. Nichols watched as the Delphine was set afire
and adrift. Nichols took the ship's loss very badly. Lt. Chew of the
Shenandoah actually tried his best to comfort the Delphine's captain
saying "Captain, just think that if at daylight this morning you
had changed your course a quarter of a point, you would have passed
out of our reach and sight." To which Nichols replied: "That
shows how darn little you know about it. This morning at daylight I
just did change my course a quarter of a point and that's what
fetched me here."
The handsomely
dashing and aloof six
foot tall North Carolinian Capt. Waddell, perhaps merely courteous
with a fellow captain, or perhaps quite curious about the his wife's
manner, invited the Capt. and Mrs. Nichols, their son and their maid
to his cabin. Capt Waddell wrote in his journal later that "Mrs.
Nichols asked in a stentorian voice if I was captain, what I intended
to do with them, and where would they be landed." Waddell told
her St. Paul, joking. St.
Paul is
a volcanic rock island in the Indian Ocean. Lillias replied "Oh,
no, never. I would rather remain with you." Waddell also jotted
in his journal, "I was surprised to see in the sick lady, a
tall, finely proportioned woman of twenty-six years, in robust
health, evidently possessing a will and a voice of her own." In
fact, they would head to Hobson's Bay in Melbourne, Australia as
prisoners; and the Shenandoah for repairs.>The lovely Lillias Pendleton Nichols
Interestingly
enough, Lillias and Waddell did form a confidante relationship
sufficient for some personal exchanges such as his yearning to see
his wife again in Maryland, East London, England. According to the
book Sea of Gray, "In time, she and her entire family became a
welcome fixture aboard the raider. Officers and crew took particular
pleasure in watching the boy Phineas, by now 'Phinizy' to the
Confederates, running back and forth across the raider's deck as he
played with two goats taken from the Delphine."
The
Shenandoah put ashore in Australia and in the morn of January 26,
1865, the U.S. consul William Blanchard found an office full
of Yankees who
told him they had each signed parole papers requiring confidentiality
about any doings of the Confederacy. Blanchard was not pleased that
the Shenandoah had landed as he considered them to be nothing but
lowly pirates. He contacted officials to capture the steamer and he
began deposing the passengers immediately.
Lillias
felt no need for confidentiality though her husband tried to remain
so. She shared facts on how the Shenandoah came about, how their
mission was to destroy everything "flying
the federal flag"
and how she was not a prisoner though required to sign parole papers
before landing in Australia, which papers she stubbornly contested.
Despite
his country's neutral policy, Blanchard disliked the people on the
Shenandoah. The colonists of Australia accepted them, almost as
celebrities. They were wildly interested in the American happenings.
They admired the fine looking Captain Waddell "with thick black
hair and a weather-beaten face, the colour of deep mahogany. He limps
slightly from a dueling wound which he never discusses. A gentleman
of most prepossessing appearance and bears about him the frank
expression of a sailor." (Illustrated Melbourne Post)
The
Shenandoah dropped anchor off Sandridge Pier (now Port Melbourne) and
became surrounded by a small boat flotilla. Waddell was granted the
right to repairs and provisions by the Governor. So popular was the
Shenandoah and its crew that the railroad put in extra train
schedules to accommodate the thousands of sightseers. The ship's
officers attended a ball in their honor and similarly a dinner
attended by citizens including politicians, judges and law
enforcement. The crew by the way was composed of motley volunteers
from near and far, but not necessarily from America.
The
longer the ship stayed at port, the more controversial she became
being seen more and more as respectable pirates. Eventually the
Governor issued their departure papers, so to speak; they set off to
sea with stowaways to be new crew members.
1)
To the best of my research, the builder was never reimbursed for his
burned ship despite 20 years of efforts to do so.
2)
The world-famous Shenandoah captured 38 Union
merchant vessels, most being New Bedford whalers. All the while,
Union ships tried but failed in their hunt for the Shenandoah.
3)
Ultimately the Confederacy lost, but news was slow, especially upon
the sea. The Shenandoah's raiding lasted past the official end of the
Civil War. Upon learning of this end months afterwards while headed
for San Francisco, the Shenandoah was turned and headed for England
where Waddell turned it over to the Royal Navy.
4)
The Shenandoah was the only Confederate ship to sail the world and
the last ship in the Civil War action.
Sources:
The
Last Shot: The Incredible Story of the CSS Shenandoah and the True
Conclusion of the American Civil War by Lynn Schooler, HarperCollins
Sea
of Gray; The around-the-world odyssey of the Confederate raider
Shenandoah by Tom Chaffin
Papers
Relating to Foreign Affairs Part I: US Dept of State (Google books)
