Thursday, November 6, 2008

The Last Confederate


The last Confederates surrendered on November 6th 1865, the CSS Shenandoah which had circumnavigated to globe.

The CSS Shenandoah began life on the River Clyde in Scotland where she was designed as a British transport. The Government of the Confederacy bought her in 1864, and she sailed out of London on October 8th of that year. The ship and her crew went out to intercept ships on the West Coast, Latin America, and in the Far East. It wasn't until August 1865 that the crew of the Shenandoah learned from a British ship that the Civil War had ended four months earlier.

The HMS Donegal excepted what would be that last surrender of the Civil War from Captain James I Waddell of the CSS Shenandoah. She had been at sea for one year, and 17 days, and traveled 58,000 miles, having the honor of flying the Confederate flag for the first and only time around the globe.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

There were several large battles after Lee surrendered. Blakley in Alabama. The last battle of the civil war was won by the Confederates. So much history has become PC. Everyone interested in the conflict should read about the Corwin amendment and the percentage of the federal government that the southerners were paying.