CSS Shenandoah - Surrender of CSS Shenandoah

Surrender of CSS Shenandoah

Regardless of Davis's proclamation and knowing the unreliability of newspapers at the time, Captain Waddell and the crew knew returning to a US port would mean facing a Union court with a Northern perspective of the war. They correctly predicted the risk of being tried in a US court and hanged as pirates. This later showed to be accurate. Commerce raiders were not included in the reconciliation and amnesty that Confederate soldiers were given. Captain Raphael Semmes of CSS Alabama escaped charges of piracy by surrendering May 1, 1865 as a Ground General under Joseph E. Johnston. Semmes's former sailors surrendered as artillerymen.

The CSS Shenandoah was therefore surrendered by Captain Waddell to the Captain of HMS Donegal on November 6, 1865, after traveling 9,000 miles (14,500 km) to Liverpool to do so. This marked the last surrender of the American Civil War. She was then turned over to the United States government. The United States Naval War Records published in 1894 as The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of Rebellion state: "November 5 - Arrived in the Mersey, off Liverpool, and on Monday, the 6th, surrendered the Shenandoah to the British nation, by letter to Lord John Russell, premier of Great Britain. (signed) JAMES I WADDELL."

After the surrender of Shenandoah to the British, the British had to decide what to do with the Confederate crew, knowing the consequences of piracy charges.

Lieutenant Commander James I. Waddell, of North Carolina

First Lieutenant and Executive Officer, W. C. Whittle* of Virginia

Lieutenant John Grimball of South Carolina

Lieutenant Sidney Smith Lee* Jr. of Virginia

Lieutenant Francis Thornton Chew of Missouri

Lieutenant Dabney Minor Scales of Mississippi

Sailing Master Irvine S. Bulloch of Georgia

Passed Midshipman Orris Applewaith Browne* of Virginia

Passed Midshipman John Thompson Mason* of Virginia

Surgeon Charles E. Lining of South Carolina

Assistant Surgeon F. J. McNulty of District of Columbia

Paymaster William Breedlove Smith of Louisiana

Chief Engineer M. O`Brien of Louisiana

Assistant Engineer Codd of Maryland

Master`s mate John Minor of Virginia

Master's Mate Lodge Colton of Maryland

Master's Mate Cornelius E. Hunt of Virginia

Boatswain George Harwood of England

Gunner Guy of England

Carpenter O`Shea of Ireland

Sailmaker Henry Alcott of England

After a full investigation by law officers of the crown, it was decided that the officers and crew had done nothing against the rules of war or the laws of nations to justify being held as prisoners, so they were unconditionally released. But the authorities of the United States considered them pirates and would have treated them as such if they had fallen into their hands.

S. S. Lee, Orris M. Brown, John T. Mason and W. C. Whittle sometime in December 1865 sailed from Liverpool to Buenos Aires, via Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. After prospecting for a while, they went to Rosario, upon Paraná River, and near there bought a small place and began farming.

As the animosity of the United States Government began to soften towards them, Brown and Mason returned home, Lee and Whittle returned sometime later.

On returning home, Mason took a law course at the University of Virginia, graduated, and was successful at his profession. He settled in Baltimore, and married Miss Helen Jackson, of New York, daughter of the late Lieutenant Alonzo Jackson of the U. S. Navy.