CSS Shenandoah
On a slip at Williamstown, Colony of Victoria, in 1865
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| History | |
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 Confederate States
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| Name: | Sea King, Shenandoah, El Majidi |
| Port of registry: | Liverpool, Lloyds's A-1 |
| Builder: | |
| Yard number: | 42 |
| Launched: | August 17, 1863 |
| Acquired: | 1863 |
| Recommissioned: | October 19, 1864 |
| Decommissioned: | November 6, 1865 |
| Maiden voyage: | Transport troops to New Zealand and return, 10 months |
| Renamed: | CSS Shenandoah |
| Fate: |
As El Majidi beached during hurricane, Zanzibar, 1872 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Extreme clipper hull |
| Displacement: | 1160 tons |
| Length: | 230 ft (70 m) |
| Beam: | 32.5 ft (9.9 m) |
| Draft: | 20 ft 6 in (6.25 m) |
| Decks: | poop, main, berth |
| Deck clearance: | 7.5 ft (2.3 m) |
| Installed power: | 200 HP A. & J. Inglis steam engine |
| Propulsion: | 14 ft-diameter (4.3 m) bronze propeller |
| Sail plan: | Full rigged ship |
| Speed: |
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| Complement: | 109 officers and men |
| Armament: |
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As El Majidi beached during hurricane, Zanzibar, 1872
CSS Shenandoah, formerly Sea King, was an iron-framed, teak-planked, full-rigged ship, with auxiliary steam power, captained by Confederate States Navy Lieutenant Commander James Waddell, a North Carolinian with twenty years of prior service in the United States Navy.
The Shenandoah was launched as Sea King on August 17, 1863, and would become one of the most feared commerce raiders in the Confederate Navy. She surrendered on the River Mersey, Liverpool, England, on November 6, 1865. Her flag was the last sovereign Confederate flag to be officially furled.
During 12 1⁄2 months of 1864–1865 the ship undertook commerce raiding resulting in the capture and sinking or bonding of thirty-eight Union merchant vessels, mostly New Bedford whaleships. The Shenandoah fired the last shot of the American Civil War, across the bow of a whaler in waters off the Aleutian Islands.
The vessel had three names and many owners in her lifetime of nine years. She had been designed as an auxiliary composite passenger cargo vessel of 1,018 tons being built in 1863 by Alexander Stephen & Sons, Glasgow, Scotland, for Robertson & Co., Glasgow to be named Sea King. The vessel was intended for the East Asia tea trade and as a troop transport. On being fitted out at the builders the Northern Union assessed the ship for purchase. After change of owner and a number trips to the Far East carrying cargo and to New Zealand transporting troops to the Maori War, the Confederate Navy assessed and purchased her from Wallace Bros of Liverpool in secret with the signing on 18 October 1864, one day before being renamed CSS Shenandoah. The ship was to be converted into an armed cruiser with a mission to capture and destroy Union merchant ships.
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Wikipedia