for God’s sake save the preserved meats and vegetables.” They assured him the stores would receive due attention, asking only where they were stowed. Gillman was rowed back to his doomed ship and fetched his wife, widowed sister-in-law, Mrs. Gage, and her four-year-old son, Frank, along with personal effects.
Despite the inconvenience, the presence of females brought forth the captors’ Southern gentility, perhaps enhanced by the knowledge they were about to destroy the family’s property and means of livelihood. So every courtesy was extended, with Waddell providing the first example. When Gillman was asked, under oath, if he possessed private or public funds, he admitted having about $200. Whittle advised his captain not to take the money, reminding him that it might be all Gillman had. Nevertheless, Waddell ordered the prisoner to give over his cash and then turned and ostentatiously presented it to Mrs. Gillman on behalf of the Confederacy with the stipulation that she not give any of it to her husband, to which she readily agreed.
It was mere pretense, recalled Waddell, driven by compassion for ladies who would be landed he knew not where. “The thought of inflicting unnecessary severity on a female made my heart shrink within.” The captain symbolically discommoded the (male) enemy without making war on a woman; his honor was intact on both counts. The Gillmans were thunderstruck and grateful. Whittle relegated one of his lieutenants to the steerage and assigned the ladies to the starboard aft wardroom cabin, where, he believed, they would be much more comfortable than they had been in the tiny schooner. According to Waddell, Gillman later acknowledged the kindness in a New York newspaper; if so, it would have been a singular instance in the North of positive press for rebel raiders.
Chew had not expected to capture ladies—a novel experience—but he was pleased at the development, hoping their presence would lend charm to a roving life. He was, however, disappointed; the women were not at all attractive, although the boy was bright eyed and interesting and he seemed delighted at the change from a dirty little schooner to a large, fine ship. Chew wrote, “Innocent child, he knew but the kisses and caresses of a mother!” Mason was not impressed either: “These women certainly were the most stupid I ever saw.” They could not converse and came to meals in the most remarkable gowns. Lining noted that Mrs. Gilman was a plain woman of about thirty, while her sister was a buxom widow with perfectly auburn hair, a rare thing in his mind. And the women made themselves quite at home.
Shenandoah lay near the prize while everything possible was removed. To Lining’s regret, they never found the preserved fruits but did retrieve vegetables, including two thousand pounds of canned tomatoes, and six hundred pounds of canned lobster. Mason thought the lobster was excellent and the furniture, though difficult to transfer, was welcome—chairs, tables, bureaus, and sofas. He would like to have fitted out his Confederate friends with some nice pieces that were ultimately thrown overboard or burned along with farm implements such as ploughs and harrows. The edibles were divided among the messes fore and aft. The tomatoes lasted six months.
Charter Oak would not sink as Alina had with her cargo of iron, so the new victim was prepared for burning. Combustibles such as tar, pitch, and turpentine were scattered throughout. Bulkheads were torn down and piled up in cabins and forecastle, hatches opened, yards counterbraced and halyards let go so sails hung loosely. Fire taken from galley and cooking stove was deposited in the hold and about the deck. The captors waited nearby in the boat and watched as flames spread quickly, enveloping the vessel. It took a long time to burn. By the end of the war, thought Whittle, they would all know how to make good fires, but how horrible it would be if anyone were still on board. “It is to me a pitiful sight to see a fine vessel wantonly destroyed but I hope to witness an immense number of painful sights of the same kind, and I trust that Shenandoah may be able to continue her present work until our foolish and inhuman foes sue for peace.”
The ladies settled into their quarters and were accepted into the wardroom mess along with Captain Gillman. Mrs. Gage was the widow of a federal army sergeant killed at Harpers Ferry; Whittle was surprised that she did not seem to hate her captors. The captain and two mates were paroled while Charter Oak crewmen were confined in single irons in the forecastle. The first lieutenant asserted his gallantry further by personally assisting the master-at-arms making and arranging beds in the starboard cabin. The prisoners seemed pleased, especially the ladies. “I am astonished at myself,” wrote Whittle, “when I consider how stud[i]edly cruel [the Yankees] are to our dear women.” After hoisting boats and propeller, they made all plain sail as the burning wreck fell astern. Whittle saw both masts topple and watched the glow hanging in the sky long past midnight.
On Sunday morning according to timeless routine, the crew mustered and the captain read the Articles of War. “Today at dinner,” Whittle wrote, “I did a thing which has rendered me very unhappy in as much as it is very dangerous.” While eating a slice of rhubarb pie he swallowed a piece of the glass bottle in which the fruit had been preserved. The cook had broken the neck off the bottle instead of drawing the cork. Dr. Lining worried that the glass could cause internal bleeding and be life threatening, so he prescribed three strong emetics to induce vomiting. Although anxious, Whittle put his life in God’s hands.
The four mates of Alina and Charter Oak refused to clean out the forecastle where they slept and so were clapped in irons with paroles withdrawn. The first lieutenant had his first disciplinary cases among the crew and was determined to make an example of him: Fireman George Sylvester had been insubordinate, refusing to take a turn at cooking for his mess. He was put in irons, and triced up (suspended from the rigging by the wrists with his toes barely touching the deck). When Sylvester complained, he was gagged and after an hour, begged to be let down. Whittle told him he should be ashamed of himself.
Discipline was absolutely necessary to the happiness of the men and to survival of all on board, recorded the first lieutenant; this was not tyranny but a “thorough governing.” Whittle would examine closely all reports and give the accused the advantage of doubt, but judging him guilty would respond promptly and decisively. “I hate to punish men but it must be done. You must either rule them or they will rule you. . . . When the men once see you determined and firm they will be better, happier and better conducted.”
An English seaman named Thomas Hall gave particular grief. When a quarrel with a French sailor came to blows, the first lieutenant put them both in irons embracing each other around an iron stanchion, hands secured to a beam over their heads. Their first impulse was to laugh, but they quickly concluded the joke was on them and politely asked to be let down. Whittle considered Hall to be smart and energetic with the makings of a good sailor, but the seaman continued to get into fights and was punished several times. “I was determined to conquer him, and I kept him up eight hours more and I found him as subdued as a lamb. He gave me his word that I would never have any more trouble with him.” Seaman Hall did not keep his word.
Methods of disciplinary punishment were more a matter of tradition and captain’s prerogative than formal regulation. Whittle thought that tricing had “a most wonderful effect,” although a Melbourne newspaper would later characterize it as “cruel and barbarous” and “a species of crucifixion.” If problems stemmed from abuse of alcohol, as they often did, Whittle would stop the grog ration. Imprisonment in irons was not helpful since it just gave the crewman a break from work and burdened the other men. One option Whittle did not have was flogging; the ancient practice had been abolished in the U.S. Navy in 1850 after much resistance from officers and veteran sailors and was never adopted in the Confederate navy.3
The first lieutenant also had to manage prisoners. Security in a confined environment required restraint and isolation with occasional punishments for bad behavior. Prisoners could not be housed on the berth deck with the crew, many of whom were former captives themselves. So the forecastle was the only space available—a cramped environment and particularly uncomfortable in high seas, which also housed sheep, chickens, and pigs. But Shenandoah would be chronically undermanned; the first priority was to recruit them. “When they first came off,” wrote Lieutenant Grimball, “they generally refused to
