CSS Shenandoah - History and Mission

History and Mission

She was designed as a British commercial transport vessel for the East Asia tea trade and troop transport, built on the River Clyde in Scotland. The Confederate Government purchased her in September 1864 for use as an armed cruiser to capture and destroy Union merchant ships.

On October 8, she sailed from London ostensibly for Bombay, India, on a trading voyage. She rendezvoused at Funchal, Madeira, with the steamer Laurel, bearing officers and the nucleus of a crew for Sea King, together with naval guns, ammunition, and stores. Commanding officer Lieutenant James Iredell Waddell supervised her conversion to a ship-of-war in nearby waters. Waddell was barely able, however, to bring his crew to half strength even with additional volunteers from Sea King and Laurel.

The new cruiser was commissioned on October 19 and her name changed to Shenandoah. The ship, commanded by Captain Waddell, then sailed around the Cape of Good Hope of Africa to Australia. While at Melbourne, Victoria, in January 1865, Waddell obtained additional men and supplies.

In accord with operation concepts originated in the Confederate Navy Department and developed by its agents in Europe, Shenandoah was assigned to "seek out and utterly destroy" commerce in areas as yet undisturbed (i.e., attack Union ships), and thereafter her course lay in pursuit of merchantmen on the Cape of Good Hope–Australia route and of the Pacific whaling fleet.

En route to the Cape she picked up six prizes. Five of these were put to the torch or scuttled, after Captain Waddell had safely rescued crew and passengers; the other was bonded and employed for transport of prisoners to Bahia, Brazil.