Sea of Gray, by Tom Chaffin

Sea of Gray: Around the World Odysssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah, by Tom Chaffin
Hill and Wang, 2006
372 pages plus appendices, notes, bibliography, acknowledgments and index, plus 16 b&w photos


Description
The sleek black 222-foot auxiliary steamer Sea King left London on October 8, 1864, ostensibly bound for Bombay. The subterfuge was ended off the shores of Madeira, where the ship was rechristened and outfitted for war. With new gunports cut to accommodate additional cannons, the CSS Shenandoah commenced the last, most quixotic sea story of the Civil War: the 5,800 mile, around-the-world cruise of the Confederacy's third most successful commerce raider. Before her voyage was over, thirty-two Union merchant and whaling ships and their cargoes would be destroyed. But it was after ship and crew had rounded Africa's Cape of Good Hope, stopped long enough in Australia to cause a diplomatic crisis, and navigated the ice floes of Okhotsk, the Bering Sea, and the Arctic Ocean that their journey took its most fearful turn.

Four months after the Civil War was over, the Shenandoah's Captain, James Waddell, finally learned he was, and had been, fighting without cause or state. In the eyes of the Union, he had gone from being an enemy combatant to being a pirate-a hangable offense. Now fearing capture by Union and British men-of-war, with his polglot crew rife with hints of mutiny, and with his supplies dwindling, Waddell elected to camouflage the ship, circumnavigate the ship, and attempt to surrender on English soil.

Assembled from hundreds of original documents, including intimate shipboard journals kept by Shenandoah officers, Sea of Gray is a masterful narrative of men at sea.

Table of Contents
1. Of ice floes and Arctic fires
2. "A good, capital ship in every respect"
3. Black cruiser on a Thames night
4. Les Desertas
5. "A Bucket of sovereigns
6. Crossing the Royal yards
7. King Neptune's Court
8. Breezing up
9. A Decidedly Recherche Affair
10. "The old sea dogs chuckled"
11. "Doubtful shoals"
12. Ascension Island
13. Pacific Spring
14. Sea of Okhotsk
15. Bering Sea
16. The Hardest Blow against Yankee commerce
17. "A sort of choking sensation"
18. "Long gauntlet to run"
19. "A perfect hell afloat"
20. "The old ship became fainter and fainter"
Appendix A: The Shenandoah's Prizes
Appendix B: Scheduke of Deck Watches
Notes
Notes on sources
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index