In 1864-1865, the Confederate Navys commerce raider C.S.S. SHENANDOAH, under command of Capt. James I. Waddell, C.S.Navy, sailed around the world several times, attacking and sinking whaling ships and commerce ships registered in the United States. In the Spring of 1865, in the Pacific Ocean following a refitting and resupplying in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in January, in the course of a few days, 24 U.S. vessels were captured – most burned, the rest loaded with prisoners and sent into San Francisco. The American whaling industry never recovered. Without a reliable supply of inexpensive whale oil as a smokeless lamp fuel and premium lubricant, there was now a vast new market for kerosene distilled from that nasty black stuff that oozed out of the ground in Pennsylvania: petroleum. 150 Years Ago This Week, 23-24 January 1865, the SHENANDOAH was in drydock at Williamstown, Melbourne. C.S.S. SHENANDOAHs crew learned on the 2nd August 1865 from a British ship in the Pacific that the War Between the States had ended in the Spring, when the Confederate military forces had all surrendered to the U.S. Capt. Waddell took his ship to Liverpool and surrendered to British authorities there on 6th November 1865. He and the crew were the last armed contingent of the Confederate States to surrender.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 23:47:16 +0000
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