to them what side of the fence they are on, in preference to being in ‘limbo’ they joined Shenandoah. We have a splendid crew the majority being young men of all nations.” Whittle counted on crewmen employing “rough persuasion in the dark” to convince newcomers to join.
Shenandoah next captured the bark D. Godfrey, captained by Samuel Halleck, thirty days from Boston to Valparaiso. She was an old vessel with a valuable assorted cargo including tobacco and prime beef; however, most of it was underneath forty thousand feet of pine lumber and would have taken too long to move. A few hundred feet of rope and good plank, well suited for building a magazine in the hold, were confiscated.
Cabin and pantry bulkheads were knocked down by a few blows of the carpenter’s hatchet and thrown in a pile on the deck. A match was applied and in fifteen minutes flames burst through the skylights. “Darkness had settled around us when the rigging and sails took fire,” recalled Hunt, “but every rope could be seen as distinctly as upon a painted canvas, as the flames made their way from the deck, and writhed upward like fiery serpents. Soon the yards came thundering down by the run as the lifts and halyards yielded to the devouring element, the standing rigging parted like blazing flax, and the spars simultaneously went by the board and left the hulk wrapped from stem to stern in one fierce blaze, like a floating, fiery furnace.”4
Whittle was amused at the female prisoners who appeared to be quite in love with Shenandoah, enjoying a capture as much as he and his fellow Confederates; the little boy gave three cheers for Jeff Davis every day. The men of D. Godfrey did not seem sorry to see the old ship go—apparently Halleck had planned to sell her in Valparaiso anyway—and to the first lieutenant’s joy, five of the six sailors (three English, one Yankee, one from St. Johns, New Brunswick) along with a black steward signed the shipping papers. “They are all good, young men and the darkey is the very man I want for ship’s cook.” Whittle was proud of the crew; they had behaved well in this demoralizing work: “When in the world’s history was a parallel ever known[?]” A board of officers appointed to assess the prizes fixed the value of Charter Oak at $15,000 and D. Godfrey at $36,000.
The new black crewmember was John Williams, a freedman of Boston. He would desert in Melbourne and, in an affidavit for the U.S. consul, swear that Captain Waddell had urged him to join, saying that “colored people” were the cause of the war, and it would go better for him if he signed on or be hard on him if he did not. Waddell (according to Williams) said he wanted all colored persons he could get and offered a berth as a coal trimmer for six months with a month’s advance pay. Williams agreed to work but initially refused to join because he was a loyal citizen who had served the U.S. Navy. He claimed to have discharge papers from the USS Minnesota and also to have been on board the USS Congress when she was sunk by the CSS Virginia in Hampton Roads on the day before her battle with Monitor. Shenandoah’s shipping articles show that Williams signed on as a landsman at a salary of $15.58 per month, the position and pay offered to those with no seamanship experience. Along with his shipmates, Williams made his mark on the day D. Godfrey was captured, so whatever the degree of his resistance, it did not last long. The others signed on as seamen at $29.10 per month.5
The naval service was accustomed throughout its history to men of all shades, at sea in its own world—its authoritarian structures customized through centuries to the unique needs of that shipboard life and hardly less strict than slavery. The Union Navy, also desperate for men, had been far ahead of the U.S. Army in quietly enlisting hundreds of freedmen and “contrabands.” In both navies, to place one group into a separate category based on race would have disrupted efficiency and discipline. In general, and far more so than on land, men were accepted for their skills and performance regardless of color. It was a matter of teamwork and often of survival. Waddell would have enlisted blacks as seamen or even petty officers and paid them accordingly had they possessed the experience; he could not afford to do otherwise and would have seen no inconsistency in the notion. At least three of them would be enlisted from prizes as landsmen or ordinary seamen.
On 8 November, Lining noted the one-month anniversary of their boarding Laurel at Liverpool and that “a good many things have taken place since that!” He was delighted with the “Hindostanee” steward from Alina, William Bruce, who was quite dark but spoke English perfectly. The officers’ messes finally were set up as custom dictated with commissioned officers in the wardroom, midshipmen and warrants in the steerage, and petty officers in a designated portion of the berth deck. The warrant officers—not of the gentleman class and “some very disagreeable people” according to the doctor—had been dining in the wardroom until other spaces were cleared away.
The first lieutenant had a portion of the large deckhouse knocked away, providing additional space for working the two 8-inch guns forward, although he hoped he would never have occasion to use them, considering Shenandoah’s mixed crew of merchant sailors untrained in such work. With his armament finally in position and most running rigging renewed, Whittle was anxious for action: “Nothing gives me more pleasure than to do as much harm as I can in a legitimate way to our inhuman foes. . . . But how often do I think of my dear home and country. Oh how they are all suffering. . . . Will we ever meet again? God grant that we may, and in the meantime I invoke the protection of god on [them].”
The next day, they encountered the Danish brig Anna Jane bound from New York to Rio de Janeiro. Waddell wished to relieve the crowding and so convinced the vessel’s captain to receive some of his prisoners. Captains, mates, and one seaman each from the late barks Alina and D. Godfrey were sent as passengers, along with a barrel of beef and a barrel of bread for their use and a captured chronometer for the captain’s trouble. The ladies of Charter Oak did not seem displeased that they were not included. Whittle opined that they were better treated and more content on Shenandoah than at any time in their lives. “It is a perfect farce to call them prisoners.” As Captain Staples and his mates departed, they demonstrated regular Yankee character, thought the first lieutenant, by not expressing gratitude for kindness received or even saying goodbye. “What a miserable set of villains our enemies are. I hate them more than ever the more I see of them.” Whittle had opposed the decision to release prisoners because it would spread word of Shenandoah’s location and activity. Lining also thought it important to keep her movements unknown so the enemy could not surmise their destination.
It was “another glorious day in our legitimate calling,” wrote Whittle on 10 November. He awakened early to the news that there was a brigantine close on the weather bow. She hoisted the “detestable Yankee rag” and after the second gun threw her head yards aback and hove to. Chew rowed across with an armed boat. She was Susan of New York, Captain Hansen, with coal from Cardiff, Wales, to Rio Grande de Sul, Brazil. Lining thought her the funniest looking craft he had ever seen: she leaked badly and sat low in the water with a paddle wheel something like a steamboat’s on the lee side, which connected to a pump and discharged water as she moved along.
Once again, despite alleged English ownership of the cargo, the vessel was condemned because the bill of lading had not been notarized. Lieutenant Chew brought her under the lee of Shenandoah for transfer of provisions, a set of cabin drawers, and a mess table for the steerage. They also brought across some dogs, one of which was made a pet for the men. With holes cut in the side below the waterline and others bored through the bottom, she went down by the head in about half an hour. The Yankee captain seemed rather glad to be rid of the old thing. Values were estimated at $5,000 for the vessel and $436 for the cargo. “Quite a small amount yet small favors are thankfully received,” concluded Chew. Whittle wished she had been a fine clipper.
Captain Hansen of Susan, a German, desired to sign on Shenandoah but felt honor-bound to return to New York and report the capture of his ship; the insurance company might refuse to recognize the owners’ claim on presumption that he had turned traitor and given up the vessel voluntarily. Three English crewmen signed on immediately, and Whittle expected that another would soon. That day, he tacked
