In the waning days of the American Civil War, far from Gettysburg or Appomattox, a sleek Confederate raider named CSS Shenandoah was waging war not on soldiers—but on whales.
By 1864, the Union’s whale oil industry was a vital economic artery, powering lamps, lubricating machinery, and fueling the North’s industrial might. Recognising this, the Confederacy launched an audacious plan to strike at the heart of the Pacific whaling fleet. The Shenandoah, a British-built ship fitted with Confederate guns, was tasked with disrupting this lifeblood. And it succeeded.
Under the command of James Waddell, the Shenandoah sailed from Liverpool via Melbourne into the cold waters of the Bering Sea and the Pacific. There, it unleashed havoc. In a campaign stretching over months—even after General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox—the Shenandoah burned or captured over 20 Union whalers, accounting for nearly one-third of the remaining Yankee whaling fleet.
The most chilling irony? Most of these ships were unaware the war was over. Isolated in Arctic waters, their captains had received no news of peace. When word finally reached Waddell, he faced arrest and possible execution as a pirate. His decision? Sail 9,000 miles back to Liverpool, the city where the Shenandoah was born, and surrender not to Union forces, but to the British.
On November 6, 1865, the Shenandoah steamed up the River Mersey and struck her colors to the Royal Navy—the final official surrender of the American Civil War.
This astonishing global theatre of the war, stretching from the Atlantic to the Bering Sea and culminating in a quiet Liverpool dock, is a little-known story I bring to life in my historical novel The Americans of Abercromby Square. In its pages, Liverpool’s role as the covert engine room of Confederate espionage and shipbuilding is brought vividly to light.
From secret backroom meetings to transatlantic intrigue, the novel explores how ordinary lives were entangled with extraordinary events—like the voyage of the Shenandoah, the last ghost ship of the Confederacy.
Read more
About the CSS Shenandoah – American Battlefield Trust
History of the Confederate Navy – Civil War Navy Department
The Americans of Abercromby Square – Amazon
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