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Chapter 3

“None but Fiends Could”

Soon after leaving Madeira, Lieutenant Whittle opened his personal cruise journal and started daily entries with Shenandoah’s position, progress, course, and weather, adding his thoughts and observations. “Thank God we have a fine set of men and officers, and although we have an immense deal to contend with, all are industrious and alive to the emergency.” On the other hand, “never I suppose did a ship go to sea so miserably prepared.” They were afloat in a vessel constructed for peaceful pursuits that was to be transformed in midocean into an active cruiser carrying a battery for which she was not constructed and with no hope of defense or friendly port for shelter.¹

Midshipman Mason found it difficult to maintain his journal or to read or study while everyone from the first lieutenant on down worked about the deck making sail, taking it in, stowing the hold, and doing everything else that was needed. Back in the spring of 1861, John Thomson Mason of Virginia had been planning to take up his appointment to the Naval Academy, but instead joined the 17th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment, fought at First Manassas, and then transferred to the new navy. (He was a distant nephew of founding father George Mason and cousin to James Murray Mason, Confederate commissioner in England and victim of the Trent Affair.)²

The midshipman intended to record every detail of the last few weeks, which he considered the most eventful of his young life, but he was at a loss where to commence with a description of “confusion worse confounded.” The junior officers’ quarters in the steerage were uncomfortable—full of rope, iron bread tanks and “all sorts of stuff that smelt bad.” But they strung their hammocks and made the most of it. The first task was to discover what they had and where it was. Cargo invoices from Laurel were worthless; many pieces of equipment were missing. To locate the smallest item required extensive searching, and before stowing anything in the hold men had to sort out and restow what already was there. The running gear, used to manage the yards and sails, was so worn it became necessary to rig all new lines. John O’Shea, the ship’s carpenter, hurt his foot badly and had no trained assistants. The bulwarks required reinforcement to absorb gun recoil and gun ports were to be cut. Several officer cabins had no berths while buckets were used as washbasins.

Officers worked aft while crewmen worked forward, shifting coal from the fore hold and berth deck to bunkers so men could sling hammocks and clearing the spar deck for mounting the battery. Clean mattresses were issued. The royal yards—the highest on each mast—were sent up and crossed, quite an undertaking as spars, sails, and rigging were scattered all over the ship. In the absence of a magazine, gun powder was stored under a tarp in the captain’s day cabin and then moved to the small space in the steerage underneath his cabin. It was like cutting down a mountain to put things in order, recalled Lieutenant Grimball, “but there was always so much good humor prevailing that not until after we finished our task could we fully appreciate what we had gone through.”

Despite heavy swells, the big guns were lifted from their crates, swayed up by the halyard winches and tackles from the masthead, and mounted in carriages: two Whitworth 32-pound rifles and four 8-inch, 68-pound smoothbores. Warrant Officer John L. Guy, ship’s gunner, attempted to assemble the gear; there was plenty of rope for the gun tackles, but no suitable blocks and without them the battery was useless. He cut gun ports anyway. “At a distance Shenandoah presented quite a warlike appearance with guns looking out on each side,” noted Lieutenant Francis Chew in his personal journal, but if a Yankee man-of-war should appear, they would have to “depend on their heels.”³

Furniture in the captain’s cabin consisted of one broken, plush velvet-bottomed armchair—no berth, no bureau, no clothing lockers, no washstand, pitcher, or basin. A half-worn carpet, which reeked of dogs or something worse, covered the deck. “It was the most cheerless and offensive spot I had ever occupied,” recalled Waddell. A problem with the engines was corrected in a few hours, but left the captain uneasy about their condition. “It would be too great a labor to enumerate the variety of work which was done . . . and those who have undertaken the work on a wide and friendless ocean can only appreciate the anxieties accompanying such an expedition.”

Waddell ran Shenandoah away from the rendezvous, seeking invisibility, lighter winds, and smoother seas. With only four men per watch, sail handling was difficult. No one knew the lead of the ropes, and whenever a brace or a sheet was to be hauled, crewmen wasted minutes just finding the right one. The few coal heavers quickly became exhausted in the stifling boiler room. The captain used the engine during daylight as work continued, then after darkness put the vessel under easy sail while most men rested. “The wind was free; my course was to southward, and as the breeze freshened after night the ship made nearly as much per hour under sail as she did during the day under steam.”

Waddell had promised to wait six weeks before capturing a Yankee, but after a few days, he worried that the heavy work and chaos would dishearten the crew and discourage potential recruits. Applying a common term for sailors, he noted: “Work is not congenial to Jack’s nature; he is essentially a loafer.” The captain decided to take the first enemy vessel encountered. Dr. Lining continued his journal: “I never saw any set of men work better or harder than ours, for the officers set them the example & were always foremost in all work. . . . I am sleeping my mattress right on the deck, not very comfortably.” They sighted ships from neutral nations, but did not speak to them. Whittle thought a great deal was being accomplished under the circumstances, and the men seemed—with one exception—in good spirits. He would trust in God’s aid for the future. “No indeed I never shall regret the advice I gave [to Waddell], which advice, I flatter myself, kept us at sea.” They sighted the first Yankee sail that afternoon but much to their disgust were unable to come up with her before sundown and lost her in the night.

The exception to the mood of cheerfulness was the captain. Waddell himself recalled being somber and withdrawn, weighed down with problems and possible emergencies: “I have no doubt I very often appeared to those with me an unsocial and peculiar man.” He appreciated encouraging remarks from the officers that were intended to lighten his mood, but they had no effect. Command was a new experience. The lieutenants were accountable for the ship only during a four-hour watch as officer of the deck, but the outcome of so vast an enterprise depended on his judgment alone. Success would be shared by everyone, but who would share failure? “The former has friends; what has the latter!” He was responsible to a nation struggling for its very existence.

The ship was not his only concern: “The novel character of my political position embarrassed me more than the feeble condition of my command, and that was fraught with painful apprehensions enough.” As a seaman Waddell had experience and a compass to guide him; he could manage a vessel in stormy weather, he knew from boyhood the dangers of the sea and was well prepared for fighting. But warship captains served as lonely ambassadors in faraway places with no communications to home. Promptly and without counsel, he would have to resolve complex questions of international law “over which lawyers quarreled with all their books.” Waddell brought with him the fundamental principles of law in Blackstone along with Sir Robert Phillimore’s Commentaries on International Law. “Most of my leisure hours were devoted to Phillimore, and I found him a good friend, but requiring [intense] study.”

International relations for the Confederacy were fraught with opportunity and danger, as were the complex and antiquated rules governing activities of a commerce-destroying cruiser. Early in the war, Confederate leaders had anticipated national recognition and support from prospective European allies, particularly Great Britain; however, this hope was essentially dead by 1864. But even then, any false diplomatic step could bring dire consequences for command and country. Waddell had been cautioned accordingly (as had his predecessors) and was determined to persevere. “My admirable instructions and the instincts of honor and patriotism that animated every Southern gentleman who bore arms in the South buoyed me up with hope,” he later wrote; but at the time it appeared that his anxiety predominated.

While the captain ruminated, the first lieutenant carried on managing daily operations and maintenance, supervising junior lieutenants and warrant officers in getting the ship in order. Interaction between the two Shenandoah senior officers was prickly from the beginning. Whittle’s journal leaves the impression of competence and dedication, combined with a somewhat self-absorbed and brittle sense of honor, typical of young men of his class and time. He seldom discusses Waddell except to disagree with him and pointedly assumes all burdens of ship management. Waddell, on the other hand, mentions the first lieutenant only once in his postwar notes, writing with faint praise that Whittle was “always active and intelligent in the discharge of his peculiar duties.”

The problem was not just the age spread (twenty-three to forty)—there was a professional generation gap. When Waddell was sent to the new Naval School at Annapolis in 1847—just the second year of its operation—he had already had six years of active service afloat. He and others like him found themselves among raw cadets in a staid academic environment being taught from books what they believed they already knew from experience. Nevertheless, Waddell demonstrated marked proficiency in mathematics and navigation in the examination for passed midshipman. He met and married Ann Sellman Inglehart, the daughter of an Annapolis businessman, and then went back to sea through the turbulent 1850s. It was a period of crisis in Navy leadership and discipline characterized by the abolition of flogging and a bungled attempt to reform the moribund officer seniority system. In the small, inbred service of the time, Waddell shared the mutual suspicion and distrust that were rife among fellow officers.

In his memoirs, Waddell declared that the place to teach the profession of the sea was at sea on ships, even though he made Annapolis his home with Ann and served two tours as instructor at the school. The second tour, during which his daughter Annie was born, was as assistant professor of navigation and assistant commandant. (With her father away in Confederate service in spring 1863, Annie would die of scarlet fever and diphtheria.) Waddell believed he had become an officer the hard way and the right way—a slow, tedious progression through the ranks, which gave enormous prestige to promotion. He doubted the practicality of classroom learning. Attitudes like these among hidebound careerists held back establishment of the Naval Academy until forty years after the founding of West Point. In Waddell’s mind, his Shenandoah officers did not represent the spectrum of age and experience he was accustomed to seeing in the U.S. Navy. He could not relax for a minute, which exacerbated a sense of isolation and the weight of his responsibilities.⁴

William Conway Whittle Jr., however, entered training at Annapolis in 1854 with no prior experience. In 1840 he had been born to a prominent Norfolk, Virginia, naval family that was, like Waddell’s, of Irish descent. Whittle’s father had a distinguished career in the U.S. Navy and would become one of the few ranked captains in the Confederate navy. By 1850 the Naval School had been reorganized and renamed the Naval Academy with standards nearly comparable to those of West Point, increasing the professionalism and respectability of a Navy career. Whittle was regarded as an outstanding student and most promising officer, graduating in 1858 with his friend and future shipmate, John Grimball (George Dewey of Spanish-American War fame was another classmate). He served two years at sea in the U.S. Navy before the war. These young men were the new navy; they took their schooling proudly, as would every class that followed; and not a few of them, like Whittle, brought that pride to the Confederate navy.

In 1861–62 Whittle served as acting lieutenant in the CSS Nashville, one of the first merchant ships refitted for commerce raiding. She set vital precedents in international law as the first Confederate ship of war to fly the flag in British waters and the first to make a capture in North Atlantic shipping lanes. Warmly received in Southampton, Nashville secured belligerent status for Confederate warships in the face of vociferous Union protests and proved the safety of British ports. Based on his experience in both navies, Whittle came to believe that he was just as qualified to command Shenandoah, a feeling reinforced by Waddell’s apparent hesitance. His commander seemed to represent the past, to underappreciate his subordinates, and to be ill equipped for challenges of present and future.⁵

In his journal, Charles Lining would contribute observations from the sidelines, many critical of the captain. In August 1858 Lining had sailed as assistant surgeon with the sloop of war USS Cyane around the tip of South America to the Pacific, returning in late 1860. The long cruise of the unhappy Cyane was a microcosm of stresses afflicting the officer corps at midcentury. The doctor witnessed close at hand a great deal of drunkenness, lack of discipline, and feuding among officers, which upon their return resulted in numerous courts of inquiry; nearly every officer was court-martialed, including the captain. Much of the dissension could be traced to dissatisfaction over prospects for promotion.⁶

That experience would color Lining’s perceptions during this voyage. His medical duties were not demanding; he had no direct role in the operations of the ship and he was often bored. At thirty years of age, Lining was between the lieutenants and the captain. Because of his professional and social status and his position outside the chain of command, young officers could turn to him to vent frustrations or ask advice. At least some of them—notably First Lieutenant Whittle—talked to him openly of their differences with the captain. The doctor participated actively in these discussions, took sides, and offered opinions that had nothing to do with medicine.

One issue concerned the capabilities of the four watchstanding lieutenants. In order of seniority, they were John Grimball of South Carolina; Sidney Smith Lee Jr., another Virginian; Francis Thornton Chew of Missouri; and Dabney Minor Scales from Mississippi—all under the age of twenty-five. Grimball and Lee had the experience to stand as officer of the deck, supervising the highly specialized and frequently dangerous business of sailing a large, deepwater ship. Grimball was the privileged son of a wealthy Charleston planter, state senator, and signer of the South Carolina secession proclamation. He graduated from the Naval Academy with Whittle in 1858 and served afloat in the U.S. Navy before the war.⁷

Sidney Smith Lee Jr. was the nephew of Robert E. Lee, brother of Confederate general and future Virginia governor Fitzhugh Lee, and great-grandson of George Mason, one of the founding fathers (and also cousin to Midshipman Mason). Like the senior Whittle, Lee’s father served the U.S. Navy for many years before becoming a ranked captain for the South. His son did not immediately choose a Navy career but went to sea and gained considerable experience in the prewar merchant service. These officers were supported by the experienced and capable sailing master Irvine Bulloch, warrant officer in charge of navigation (and younger half brother to Commander James Bulloch). Irvine Bulloch had served in Alabama and was credited with firing the last shot as she began to go under.

Francis Chew was an anomaly: a middle-class Midwesterner and a pharmacy clerk from Richmond, Missouri, who joined the U.S. Navy over the objections of his widowed mother after reading a novel about Matthew C. Perry’s expedition to Japan. “It was beautifully and profusely illustrated, my head was completely turned and I concluded that the Navy was just the place for me. Drugs lost all their charms; ships, sailors, officers in their showy uniforms, filled my mind with new thoughts and an earnest longing for the sea.” Through acquaintance with a judge, Chew secured appointment to the Naval Academy, entering in 1859; Dabney Scales, the son of a Mississippi planter, also entered the Naval Academy in 1859—in spring 1861 both resigned without graduating to join the Confederate navy.

All of these men had significant wartime experience on ironclads and shallow-water steam gunboats: In the fall of 1861, Chew and Scales served in the “mosquito fleet” at the loss of Port Royal Sound, South Carolina; Chew observed the fall of Fort Pulaski two months later; Waddell had been on one of the Confederacy’s doomed ironclads at the Battle of New Orleans in April 1862, while Whittle, Lee, and Chew were together on another; that same month on the Mississippi, Dr. Lining witnessed the fall of Island Number Ten and New Madrid, Missouri. A few weeks later, Waddell supervised the big guns at Drewry’s Bluff on the James River when they turned back the Union fleet threatening Richmond.

Grimball and Scales had close calls on the bloody gun deck of the ironclad CSS Arkansas in July 1862 when she charged guns blazing through Admiral Farragut’s fleet above Vicksburg. And in April 1863, Chew was on board the ironclad CSS Palmetto State as they stopped a Union waterborne attack on Charleston. Scales and Lee reported to the ironclad CSS Atlanta in Savannah, which in June 1863 ran aground after a short fight and was captured by Union monitors. By the summer of 1863, future Shenandoah lieutenants all had been dispatched to Europe awaiting orders as part of a Confederate fleet that never was. Chew and Scales, however, had never been to sea, which made Waddell particularly uncomfortable. Whittle, who felt perfectly capable of mentoring his junior colleagues, would become incensed when the captain’s nervousness on the subject impugned his competence.

Now in the isolated and confined embrace of a ship so far from home, these men were settling into a web of formal and informal relationships that would define the effectiveness of the command—its ability to meet the enemy and the weather and not only to survive but to prevail in the mission. Meanwhile, work continued apace: the sailmaker prepared and fitted canvas hoods for the hatches, while engineers distilled freshwater—one of the revolutionary advantages of steam on long voyages. They could produce five hundred gallons a day, but this required a significant expenditure of coal. The captain instructed that the name Sea King be erased from the stern. Lining observed the Island of Palmas in the Canaries from fifty miles off and saw flying fish for the first time, a sign that they were approaching the tropics. He had worked harder than ever in his life; it had been a difficult time, but not an unhappy one.

Another vessel appeared, clearly Yankee built, which, when stopped and questioned, proved to be under British registry and could not be detained. “Better luck next time,” wrote Whittle, who was subject to his own melancholy, in what would become a typical journal entry: “Notwithstanding my being so busy, I have time to feel blue, as I can’t get my usual letters from my own dear ones. Oh! how much would I give to know how they are. I leave them and all to God. We have so much to be thankful for.” With occasional heavy rain and violent squalls of wind, waves crashed against the sides; decks and hull seams leaked like sieves, admitting a fine spray into berth deck and cabin.

The captain was, however, impressed with his new command as they met and passed other ships. “Shenandoah was unquestionably a fast vessel, and I felt assured it would be a difficult matter to find her superior under canvas.” Three times the Confederates dipped their ensign in salute to passing English vessels, which responded in turn—a sign of respect and friendship between nations (now as then); coming from representatives of the most powerful nation on earth, it was particularly gratifying. Waddell noted, “Our prospects brightened as she worked her way toward the line [equator] through light and variable winds, sunshine, and rain.”

On 28 October 1864, due south of the Azores and west of Dakar in the afternoon, a vessel broke the horizon ahead. Experienced sailors could guess a ship’s nationality from the contours of sails, masts and spars, and lines of hull. U.S. vessels—widely recognized as among the best—generally carried taller and narrower rigs with cotton sails in place of the grayer flax canvas preferred by Europeans. Raphael Semmes described similar encounters, praising the “whitest of cotton sails, glistening in the . . . sun,” “well-turned, flaring bows,” “grace and beauty of hull,” and “long, tapering spars” on which American shipbuilders and masters prided themselves. For some lookouts, it was almost a matter of instinct and a glance of a minute or two: this vessel was a Yankee.⁸

Shenandoah gained rapidly on the ship, closing to seven miles as dusk fell. Waddell reduced sail and regained contact at dawn, but the quarry had worked its way to windward. He ordered boilers fired, had the propeller lowered, took in royals and topgallants, and approached under steam. About 1 p.m., he raised English colors. The stranger replied with the U.S. flag or “the old gridiron” as Lieutenant Chew called it: “Then joy could have been seen depicted on each face. We were all desirous of seeing a ship destroyed at sea and especially when that destruction touches a Yankee pocket.” The Confederate flag replaced the English; the bark of the signal gun echoed across the water and, as required by international law, the vessel hove to for inspection.

Waddell lowered a boat and armed the crew under the direction of sailing master Bulloch. They were received at the gangway by the captain in his shirt sleeves, an informality Midshipman Mason considered to be “true Yankee style.” She was the bark Alina of Searsport, Maine, on her maiden voyage to Buenos Aires from Newport, Wales, with a cargo of railroad iron. Bulloch examined the ship’s papers, sent Alina’s captain and first mate to Shenandoah, lowered the U.S. flag, and waited impatiently for orders.

Lining observed from across the water, “I never saw greater excitement than was on board our ship when the Yankee flag came down, which showed us we had the first prize to Shenandoah.” Whittle was delighted to see the “emblem of tyranny” thus humbled. In accordance with his understanding of international law, Waddell assembled a board of officers in the wardroom as prize court. He sat as judge at the head with First Lieutenant Whittle and Alina’s master, Captain Everett Staples, to his left. Paymaster and captain’s clerk Breedlove Smith was on Waddell’s right, other officers filling the table. Whittle put the prisoner under oath and interrogated him concerning the vessel’s ownership, tonnage, and cargo.

The cargo of railroad iron was owned by an English firm, as specified on the bill of lading. Although Alina was a U.S. registered vessel, she had been loaded at a neutral port in Wales and was bound for another neutral port, Buenos Aires, with a cargo presumably owned by citizens of a neutral nation. The prize should have been bonded and released; they could not destroy the enemy ship without sacrificing neutral cargo. (A bond was formal written assurance that, in lieu of capture or destruction, the vessel’s owners would pay ransom equal to the value of ship and cargo. It would have been legal international debt had the Confederacy achieved independence.)

Here again, Raphael Semmes blazed the way. (In addition to his naval career, Semmes was an experienced lawyer and student of international law who first held prize courts on board Sumter in 1861 and again on Alabama.) He claimed to have never condemned a ship or cargo “without the most careful, and thorough examination of her papers, and giving to the testimony the best efforts of my judgment.” However, to justify destruction of ship and cargo, Semmes was at least as punctilious in finding ambiguity or inconsistency in the paperwork—efforts for which his enemies vociferously branded him a pirate.⁹

Yankee masters, in turn, applied every stratagem to avoid loss by hiding behind nebulous provisions of the law and false documents. One favorite trick was to have an official in a local British consulate certify the cargo belonged to one of their citizens, whether true or not. Upon examination of these certificates, Semmes pronounced them fraudulent and burned the ship. “The New York merchant is a pretty sharp fellow, in the matter of shaving paper, getting up false invoices, and ‘doing’ the custom-house; but the laws of nations . . . rather muddled his brain.” Semmes preserved records of the “Confederate States Admiralty Court” on Alabama to justify these decisions.¹⁰

Unfortunately for Captain Staples of Alina (named for his daughter), Waddell followed Semmes’ example. In this case, the cargo owner had not sworn before a magistrate that the iron was his property and that he was an Englishman; there was no seal and notary signature to that effect. The lack of this legal detail sealed the fate of the vessel. Waddell officially condemned her as a prize of the Confederate States of America. Upon hearing this, recorded Lieutenant Chew, the Yankee’s lips trembled. He remained silent for a time, then said, “[Captain], if you burn my ship you will make me a beggar. I have been going to sea for twenty three years. All my profits of these years of toil and danger are invested in that vessel.” Waddell replied, “It is a sad duty, but it is one I owe my government and my people. Think of the property destroyed, the orphans and widows made by the Yankee army.” With this, the hearing ended; the captain rose from the table and all followed.

Alina crewmen gathered personal property and were rowed over to Shenandoah. Lining boarded the prize: “Such a scene of indiscriminate plundering commenced as I never saw before or expect to again.” Grimball noted that she was brand new, in good order, and of good quality, “the prettiest barque I ever saw.” Everything that possibly could be of use was seized and put into boats. Waddell admitted that there were no people who understood the equipment of vessels so well as Yankee shipwrights. They carried off a variety of blocks, including ones suitable for the gun tackles, along with line and cotton canvas for sailmaking. Cabin doors were taken down, drawers from under bunks taken out, and furniture removed. Officers fitted themselves out with basins, pitchers, mess crockery, knives, and forks. Waddell obtained a spring-bottomed mattress. Chronometers and sextants were seized. The doctor recovered a store of canned meats for the wardroom as well as flour, bread, and other items.

They had not been working long when another vessel was sighted, possibly a Union warship, coming down from windward, “in which case the joke would be turned against us,” wrote Chew, now in charge on board the prize. Or maybe it was another Yankee merchantman. The captain wished to be ready in either case—chase or run. Chew received instructions to send over only valuable articles and to sink Alina immediately. The carpenter knocked a hole below the waterline and bored holes in the bottom with an auger. Boats scuttled back and were hoisted on board. Shenandoah steamed off, all attention focused on the strange sail.

The newcomer turned out to be a neutral vessel, so they turned back and saw Alina settling in the water. Mason stood on the poop watching, an entirely new spectacle for him. She was a beautiful little thing, he wrote, as neat as a pin. Yards were square, all sails set and sheeted home including royals and flying jib. At every pitch the doomed vessel seemed not to rise as much as before. At about 5 p.m., the sea reached deck level and swept over the stern. She pitched heavily once more and then reared up like a warhorse; thrust her bowsprit to the heavens; and, accompanied by a crescendo of cracking and tearing of rigging and sails, snapping lines, crashing masts, and tumbling and rumbling cargo, slipped straight out of sight, swallowed in an instant by the sea. As the bow went under, an enormous jet of water erupted into the air followed for some time by loose gear—hatch covers, blocks, spars, and flotsam—bursting the surface to splash among a boiling mass of wreckage.

“It was a grand and peculiar sight,” recorded Chew. “I was saddened at the thought of being in duty bound to such work. I felt very sorry for them even after thinking of the hellish work of the Yankees at home, of the tears they have wrung from once happy, beaming eyes. No, none of us took pleasure in it. None but fiends could.” Whittle described it as grand and awful: “You might go to sea for many a day and would not see a vessel sink. . . . She was in this position [like] a man going down for the first time and struggling to prevent it.” Lining wrote, “It was a beautiful, yet to me a melancholy sight, to see her go down, even though she was an enemy’s property. It is our duty to do it, & stern necessity alone makes it right.”

Alina’s captain watched to the last. The doctor could not help feeling sorry for him although he regretted it later: “[Captain Staples] was a black hearted rascal & will do us all the injury in his power. He showed a mean spirit during all his stay on board, for he was a real down-east Yankee.”

A sailor learns to love a ship as something almost animate, recalled Master’s Mate Cornelius E. Hunt: “To see one deserted in mid-ocean by her guardians and slowly settling in the unfathomable waters is like standing beside a deathbed to watch a soul sinking into the ocean of eternity. But I was fated to have a large experience in this direction ere the Shenandoah and I finally parted company.”¹¹

The manner of destroying a vessel depended on her cargo, wrote Waddell; if it were heavily freighted like Alina, it would be better to scuttle. She would sink rapidly and disappear as a whole, leaving a few pieces of deck and bulkheads floating over the great abyss. More frequently it would be necessary to burn the ship, which was better than abandoning it disabled and a danger to navigation. But fire leaves a small portion of the keel and floor timbers afloat as a hazard; red glare in the sky could alarm Yankees within thirty miles; and a warship might be attracted or prospective prizes frightened off.

Under more favorable circumstances, captured ships could be sailed to a home or neutral port for adjudication by admiralty court. Each vessel would be formally condemned and sold with proceeds distributed to captain, officers, and crew. A ship could even be repurchased by original owners. However, Union blockaders restricted access to Southern harbors and neutral ones were closed to them. This was another of the Confederacy’s grievances with the British, who, concerned about appearing neutral, had prohibited both belligerents from bringing prizes to any port under their jurisdiction—a policy that in practice favored the North. When other nations followed suit, Confederates had no recourse but to sink or burn, concluding that Yankee howls about brutal rebel cruiser captains causing such maritime destruction should have been directed at the British government.

Chew evaluated the bill of lading and valued the ship and cargo at $95,000. The estimate was recorded in the ship’s log for the navy department to use in distributing prize money at the end of the war. “A long look ahead I must confess, yet we all hope to receive someday a reward for our present work.” For his part, Whittle considered it a good day’s effort notwithstanding the demoralizing nature of the work: “God grant that we may have many just such prizes.” He gave the order to splice the main brace, serving out an extra ration of grog.

Whittle did not care for Captain Staples either: “Oh how I do hate the whole [Yankee] race—and still, I can’t help from treating him kindly.” Without conscious irony and true to their heritage, these Southerners expected of their captives the same gentlemanly respect, courtesy, and calm resignation to the fortunes of war that they would expect of themselves. A few prisoners would earn respect for genteel behavior, but the Southerners’ scorn for most of them was hidden under a veil of hospitality, which probably helped them feel better about visiting destruction on helpless merchant vessels.¹²