by Terry Smyth
Whittle describes Canning’s burial as ‘an affecting sight’,4 a charitable comment given Whittle’s apparent disgust at Canning’s abusive treatment of Edward Weeks, his black servant. To his last breath, Canning did nothing but curse and deride Weeks, who nonetheless continued to care for the dying man. Surgeon Lining, too, found the late unlamented sergeant a contemptible character who thought only of himself.
It might seem ironic that these Southerners – committed as they are to the preservation of slavery – should be repulsed by the ill-treatment of a man they consider a racial inferior. It is a hallmark of their code, however, that in dealings with persons of any class, creed or colour, propriety overrides all other considerations. In other words, they simply can’t abide bad manners.
If there is irony here, it is that Melbourne recruit George Botriune Canning, a man who mythologised himself, has unwitting made history by firing the last shot of the war, and as the last man to die in the service of the Confederacy.
There is an intriguing postscript to Canning’s story. Descendants have claimed that family research reveals he did not die aboard the Shenandoah but was allowed to secretly leave the ship, shortly before she arrived in Liverpool, so that could spend his last days with his family in France. It’s believed that despite his terminal illness he somehow found his way to a nephew’s home in Nanterre, where he lingered for several months, died and was buried there, or perhaps in Paris.
It’s assumed that the several accounts of his death and burial at sea were part of an organised cover-up. It is difficult to accept, though, that on humanitarian grounds, officers of the Shenandoah would conspire to fake the death of a man they despised.
Chapter 23
Liverpool and limbo
Under sail, 500 miles (805km) south-east of the Azores, the Shenandoah turned her head north, and, pushed along by a strong south-westerly, is now within 700 miles (1,125km) of Liverpool.
As the wind drops and the seas calm, 11 sails are sighted, and the Confederates count themselves lucky they’re not under steam.
Captain Waddell explains why. ‘The ship continued under sail during the daylight, because if we had gotten up steam it would have been observed, and as each sail was ignorant of the character of the other, it would have directed attention to the steamer, and one of them might have been a Federal cruiser.
‘As soon as night received us in her friendly folds, steam was applied and we were off for St. George’s Channel.’1
The closer they get to their destination, the stronger grows Lieutenant Whittle’s feeling of dread. ‘Somehow or other I look forward to our safe arrival in an English port with very little hope,’ he writes. ‘I feel some way or other as though some great calamity was hanging over me. Why, I can’t divine – or what I can’t imagine, as it really seems to me that our cup of grief is already full. I trust that I am only gloomy without cause, God grant it.’2
About 300 miles (480km) from Cape Clear Island, off the southernmost tip of Ireland, Paymaster Breedlove Smith begins the unenviable task of paying the officers and crew. The total amount required to pay each man his due is $30,000, but there is only a measly $4,000 in the kitty. Per man, that’s only about $1 for each $7 owed.
Later, Captain Waddell who, with Lieutenant Whittle, oversees the procedure, will offer one version of the settling of accounts. Master’s Mate Cornelius Hunt will offer a radically different version.
On the evening of Friday 3 November, the Confederates sight the Irish coast, their first landfall since the Aleutian Islands, 122 days and 23,000 miles (37,000km) ago.
Late at night on Guy Fawkes Day, Sunday 5 November 1865, the Shenandoah steams by the beacon in St George’s Channel, bound for the Mersey and the Liverpool docks. The beacon is a welcome light but a lonely one on this Guy Fawkes Day – there are no celebratory fireworks for the raider’s return.
Here is Fred McNulty’s melodramatic account of the raider’s return:
Up from the water rose the Welsh hills. Distance lending her charm to her purpling heather, smoothed down their rough exterior as they rose from the water, bright in the autumn sunlight. Now the clear headlands of the Anglesey, rising high out of St George’s Channel, stood more near, and a pilot swept alongside.
He asked us to show our flag. We say we have no flag. Then answers the servant of the nations, ‘I cannot go on board your ship.’ A hurried consultation – an anxious exchange of inquiring looks – what shall we do now – we have but one flag – shall we raise it? It was the flag to which we had sworn allegiance. Shall we lift it once more to the breeze, in defiance of the world – if needs be – and, defying all, be constant to that cause which we had sworn to maintain until we knew there was no Confederacy, and that ours, in truth, was a lost cause?
‘We will!’ say all hearts with one acclaim. ‘And let this pilot, or any other, refuse to recognise us if they will.’
Then, for the last time, was brought up from its treasured place below, the sacred banner of the fair South, to wave its last defiant wave, and flap its last ensanguined flap against the winds of fate, before going forever upon the page of history. Out upon the free day it flashed, and the far shores of England seemed to answer its brave appeal – that the banner that had led a million men to many victorious battles should now have one more and final recognition, should once more be recognised a flag among the flags of nations.
The grim old sea dog, tossing his boat at stern, beholds go up the outlawed banner! He sees it floating in the wild, free air, and anticipates his England’s decision that it shall be recognised for this one last time. He calls for a line, swings himself over the old warship’s side, and up the noble Mersey, 13 months after the departure from the Thames, and just six months, lacking four day, after the war ended, sailed the Confederate ship-of-war Shenandoah.3
In stark contrast, Waddell’s typically unembellished recollection of the event is that the pilot comes aboard at around midnight, and when told the vessel is the Shenandoah, exclaims, ‘I was reading a few days ago of your being in the Arctic Ocean!’4
Waddell asks the pilot for news from America, and the answer confirms what he was told on the Barracouta.
Come morning, the Shenandoah steams up the River Mersey in a heavy fog. The pilot’s orders are to anchor her beside the British warship Donegal, and, as soon as she drops anchor, a lieutenant from the Donegal comes aboard and officially informs the Captain and his officers that the war is over.
Shortly afterwards, Captain James Paynter of the Donegal comes aboard and tells Waddell he will telegraph the Foreign Secretary, Earl Russell, for instructions. Under Paynter’s orders, the gunboat Goshawk is lashed alongside, and her master, Lieutenant Alfred Cheek, along with customs officers and an escort of marines, take possession of the ship.
Lieutenant Cheek has been given orders that all on board are to remain on the vessel. When told that some men have already gone ashore, the commander is unfazed. He turns to Captain Waddell and says with a smile, ‘Oh, you won’t leave the vessel, I know, so it doesn’t matter about the lads going on a bit of a lark.’5
A waiting game begins. The crew, some of them again showing signs of scurvy, are anxious to get ashore after nine months at sea, and within a few days several have deserted and there are dark mutterings among the rest.
Should they sit around waiting to be arrested and hanged as pirates? Should they jump ship and take their chances? Or should they seize the ship, sail off and hoist the Jolly Roger? If pirates they’re called, then pirates they’ll be!
For 13 months after leaving England as the Sea King, the Shenandoah had evaded pursuit, captured 38 vessels valued at $4,172,233, destroyed 32 and bonded six, fired the last gun in the name of the Confederacy, and circumnavigated the globe, a distance of some 60,000 miles (96,500km), crossing every ocean except the Antarctic.
Captain Waddell would later boast, ‘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.’6
To the men of the Shenandoah, those are achievements to be proud of, and yet, here, rocking gently at anchor in the Mersey, about to surrender their ship to the British, it’s as if it had all been for nothing.
At 10am, 6 November 1865, the last Confederate flag is hauled down. Cornelius Hunt turns away. He cannot bear to watch. William Whittle, tears streaming down his face, does the same.
They would get no sympathy from Sydney’s Empire newspaper. Unaware that the Confederate cruiser’s raiding days are over, the edition of 7 November fulminates:
From California we learn what the Shenandoah steamer has been about since Captain Waddell was lionised in Melbourne, and a display of indignation was got up by sympathisers with the Slave Confederacy and admirers of flash ruffianism against the Executive of Victoria for venturing to hint to the pirates that British law and international rights must be respected in Port Phillip.
With the instinct of a cowardly robber, albeit to the dazzled eyes of his Australian admirers he presented the aspect of a hero, the commander of this steamer made for the whaling grounds of the Bering Straits where he might be sure he would meet plenty of valuable property and no armed vessel.
The infamy attached to the crimes of the Shenandoah is reflected on those in Britain and Australia who gave their countenance to the evil designs of her commander. And, as it is said, the harbourers of some of the bushrangers were greatly relieved when the fatal and just bullets laid the robbers low in death, those whom false sentiment or thoughtlessness has betrayed into sympathy with the criminal career of Captain Waddell and his associates, may well desire the tidings that will assure them of the destruction of the Shenandoah.7
Where once flew the Stainless Banner, up goes Old Glory. It is Saturday 11 November 1865, and Captain Thomas Freeman of the US Navy has come aboard to take possession of the Shenandoah. She is now proclaimed a United States man-of-war, and Freeman’s orders are to take her to New York.
Noting her neglected condition – a sure sign of low morale – Captain Freeman orders the vessel scrubbed throughout with chloride of lime before sailing.
An inspection of the ship provides a detailed inventory of the spoils of war. Besides the armaments, the list includes 51 chronometers, 23 sextants, three compasses, seven marine clocks, two barometers, about 70 books, a sabre, a double-barrelled shotgun, a rifle, a blunderbuss, navigational charts, a stuffed sofa, a divan, tables and chairs, three tons of powder, 1,500 pounds of tobacco, 250 pounds of tea, containers of sperm oil, six casts of spirits, stores of salt beef and pork, a large number of flags of different nations, and, in the safe, a bag containing $828.38 in gold and silver coins.
Across the Atlantic, on the evening of 15 November, the Nile docks in the port of San Francisco. Aboard are the officers and crew of 11 other ships that had fallen prey to the Shenandoah in the Arctic on 28 June.
The master of the Nile, Captain Fish, tells the waiting press that all the vessels were looted and burnt except for his ship and the James Murray, both of which were bonded and despatched to San Francisco and Honolulu. He reports seeing ships burning as the Nile left the scene, and that he last caught sight of the Shenandoah heading south-west towards St Lawrence Bay.
Under the headline, ‘The Shenandoah again’, The San Francisco Evening Bulletin captures the mood of the moment:
We have now had three arrivals of ‘bonded’ vessels from the Shenandoah, bringing us the news of her operations down to the 29th of June. She commenced her ravages among our whalers by capturing and burning the Edward Casey, the Harvest, the Pearl, and the Hester, at Ascension Island, on the 1st April. Since that time she has done a good stroke of business on behalf of her English backers, and has run up a nice little bill for them to settle at some future day.
The barques Milan and Vernon, lumber vessels belonging to Pope and Talbot, of this city, arrived here last evening from Puget Sound. The Milan left Puget Sound on the 23rd of July. She reports that at the mouth of the Straits of Fuca [Strait of Juan de Fuca, Canada] she saw a three-masted steamer, with her royal yards up. The Vernon left Puget Sound the day after the Milan, and she reports having seen, near the mouth of the Straits of Fuca, a three-masted steamer, with her royal yards all up, and that the steamer ran round her in a circle three times. The captains of the Milan and I both say the steamer was nothing like any of the British war steamers around Victoria [Canada]; and the description they gave of this strange vessel corresponds with that given of the British pirate Shenandoah, by the men of the whaling fleet.
We do not consider it probable, however, that the pirate has ventured to approach this coast, after sending three vessels to report her operations. After destroying the whale fleet in the Arctic, she has doubtless gone in the opposite direction from that to which her ‘bonded’ vessels were sent; and the next heard of her will probably be in Australia, hobnobbing with her English friends.8
Among the prisoners disembarking from the Nile are Captain Green and 21 men from the Nassau, Captain Wood and 24 men from the Congress, Captain Ludlow and 15 men from the Isaac Howard, Captain Macomber and seven men from the Hillman, Captain Holly and 12 men from the Waverly, 10 men from the Martha 2nd, six from the Brunswick, 11 from the Covington, and Captain Young of the Favorite, who has quite a tale to tell.
In England, reporting the latest on the raider’s return, The Illustrated London News, unlike Sydney’s Empire, does not editorialise:
The arrival of the late Confederate cruiser Shenandoah in the port of Liverpool, and her surrender by Captain Waddell to the commander of HMS Donegal, Captain Paynter, by whom, in obedience to the orders of our Government, she has since been given up to the consular agents of the United States Government, have been already made known to our readers.
Long after Lee’s surrender and Davis’ capture, Captain Waddell sunk, burned, and otherwise destroyed whole fleets of whalers in the Ochotak Sea and Behring’s Strait. Nothing more was heard of the Shenandoah until her arrival a fortnight since in the Mersey. She had no guns on deck, all her armament being stowed away below in boxes. The crew of the Shenandoah numbered 133 men; and as soon as she was surrendered, Captain Waddell and some of the officers separated.
Since setting out on her work of destruction, the Shenandoah had destroyed thirty-seven vessels, the majority of which were whalers, and these were destroyed after the cessation of hostilities. To show how the operations of the Shenandoah affected the sperm oil market, we may state that her depredations amongst the whaling fleets has caused sperm oil to run up from £70 to £120 per ton, and it is likely to advance still further, as, until the news of the surrender of the Shenandoah reaches the port whence whalers depart, the Arctic seas will certainly be bare of the customary amount of whaling vessels.9
Swooping in for the kill, US Ambassador to Britain Francis Adams writes to Britain’s Secretary of State Earl Clarendon, requesting that the Shenandoah and all the property on board be seized at once, and then handed over to the United States. Adams’ letter, along with a letter from Captain Waddell detailing the ship’s movements since leaving England, and other related documents, are referred to three eminent jurists for a legal opinion.
The jurists are Attorney-General Sir Roundel Palmer, Sir Robert Phillimore, the Advocate-General in Admiralty, and Solicitor General Sir Robert Collier, who in 1862 had advised the government to seize the Confederate ships being built at Liverpool. His advice, which would have prevented the Alabama going to sea, was ignored.
On the matter of the Shenandoah, their advice is as follows:
We think it will be proper for Her Majesty’s Government, in compliance with Mr Adams’ request, to deliver up to him, on behalf of the US, the ship in question, with her tackle, apparel etc, and all captured chronometers of other property capable of being identified as prize of war, which may be found on board of her.
With respect to the officers and crew, if the facts stated by Captain Waddell are true, there is clearly no case for any prosecution on the grou
nds of piracy in the courts of this country, and we presume that Her Majesty’s Government are not in possession of any evidence which could be produced before any court or magistrate for the purpose of contravening the statement or showing that the crime of piracy had in fact, been committed.
With respect to any of the persons on the Shenandoah who cannot be immediately proceeded against and detained under legal warrant upon any criminal charge, we are not aware of any ground upon which they can properly be prevented from going on shore and disposing of themselves as they think fit, and we cannot advise Her Majesty’s Government to assume or exercise the power of keeping them under any kind of restraint.10
Instructions are sent to Captain Paynter to release all officers and men who are not British subjects. So, in the early evening of Friday 19 November 1865, the steamer Bee pulls alongside the Shenandoah, and Captain Paynter steps aboard with good and bad news.
The good news is that he has been ordered to release the raider’s officers and crew without charge. The bad news is that only those who are not British subjects are to be released. In other words, the Australian recruits, other colonials and British nationals, will be prosecuted for breaching the foreign enlistment laws.
Captain Waddell summons his officers and crew to the quarter-deck, and calls for the roll books. As each name is called by First Lieutenant Whittle, the man answering to that name is asked by Captain Paynter, ‘What countryman are you?’
The men have anticipated a check of nationality, and have rehearsed the response. To a man, all claim to be true-born sons of Dixie. And even though some of those replies are spoken in accents closer to Richmond, Victoria, than to Richmond, Virginia, Captain Waddell duly affirms each claim as true and correct.
