commissioned as warships—a practice not prevalent since the emergence of the big-gun warship centuries before. Now the advantages of fast sail were merged, in a single vessel of relatively low cost, with steam propulsion and minimum armament against a vast merchant fleet almost exclusively under sail and virtually unarmed—an overwhelming tactical superiority.
On 18 July 1864 Mallory wrote from Richmond to Bulloch: “The loss of Alabama was announced in the Federal papers with all the manifestations of universal joy which usually usher the news of great national victories, showing that the calculating enemy fully understood and appreciated the importance of her destruction. You must supply her place, if possible.” A month earlier, Lieutenant Whittle and Lieutenant Grimball had been in Cherbourg as Alabama prepared for battle. They offered their services but were turned down; it would have been a violation of French neutrality to take on new men. Along with thousands of others, the future Shenandoah officers watched from the bluffs as guns of the USS Kearsarge destroyed and sank Alabama.5
Secretary Mallory desired an iron ship of from 600 to 1,200 tons, with powerful engines and room for one or two guns. It should be fast under steam and sail but “unpretending to man-of-war airs and graces.” It might be built for commercial purposes such as the fruit or opium trade or as a yacht. The vessel must carry supplies—especially ordnance stores—for a global cruise. There would be no access to home ports; the ability to refit, resupply, and recruit in foreign harbors could be restricted by international law and politics. As Bulloch had noted, “[The] flag was tolerated only, not recognized.” Concluded Mallory, “You will regard it but as a suggestion and as evidence of my anxiety to get cruisers to sea, rather than as a direction. Perhaps you can do better. Do not wait for instructions, but do the best you can under the circumstances.”6
For once Bulloch had ample funds after being required by British authorities—motivated by vociferous Union threats of war—to sell the Laird rams to the Royal Navy rather than see them delivered to Confederate service. This was a grievous setback and one of his most severe disappointments; he was determined to put the proceeds to good use but had few options. The British Foreign Enlistment Act, prohibiting belligerents from acquiring war vessels within the realm for a conflict in which Great Britain was neutral, was being evermore strictly enforced. He no longer could have a warship built as he had Florida, Alabama, and the rams; the British would demand proof of ownership by a neutral state. A surreptitious warship purchase would require intermediaries and bribes and probably would deliver a cast-off product. “The necessities of our position greatly narrowed the field for selection, and it was only through a fortunate chance that a suitable vessel was found,” wrote Bulloch.7
Bulloch’s assistant, Lieutenant Robert Carter, was a scion of the Virginia clan from Shirley Plantation on the James River and an occasional courier between Liverpool and Richmond. He departed on a blockade runner, penetrated the Union cordon at Wilmington, and reported to Richmond where he described Sea King to the navy secretary as a potential cruiser. Carter then proposed a mission for her: penetration of the far Pacific where no Confederate had yet sailed and where strategic opportunity awaited. He knew this because he had been there.
The Navy played an expansive role in the nation’s burgeoning overseas commerce during the first half of the century. The U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838–42 to the Pacific and Antarctic had been a phenomenal scientific and surveying success. In 1852 Congress appropriated funds for additional surveying expeditions of the China Seas, North Pacific Ocean, and Bering Strait. The value of the Pacific whale fishery was their primary justification; under pressure from industry leaders, Congress wished to encourage the lucrative trade. Americans dominated the world market and the economic return was immense. Then U.S. Navy Lieutenant Carter served with the expeditions, as did his friend Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke. Beginning shortly after Commodore Perry pried open the reclusive Japanese nation in 1854 to March 1860, they collected a wealth of scientific, commercial, and nautical information, including several dozen charts. Brooke became a Confederate navy commander, scientist, engineer, and adviser to Mallory.8
Lieutenant Carter and Commander Brooke, reunited shipmates from the Pacific, teamed up to convince Mallory of the need for a cruise against the Union whaling fleet—the secretary required little prodding. Just the previous February, Bulloch had written, “there really seems nothing for our ships to do now upon the open sea.” In an Atlantic cruise of several months, the CSS Tuscaloosa encountered one American vessel that carried neutral cargo and was released on bond. Alabama had sighted few enemy ships in the West Indies, heretofore rich in Yankee traffic. A French captain observed no American ships at the Guano Islands off Peru in 1864, whereas in 1863 there had been seventy or eighty standing by for this profitable cargo. The American consul at Hong Kong told his Liverpool counterpart that the brief presence of Alabama in the area had made it virtually impossible for Northern vessels to find freight in Asian ports.9
Only one in a hundred Yankee vessels sailing in foreign trade actually was taken, but the major impact had been psychological—the real damage done by fear of capture. Marine insurance rates soared. Eight Confederate warships destroyed over 100,000 tons of Union shipping worth $17 million, but drove another 800,000 tons into foreign ownership with British and others eagerly buying them. Many that remained were too old or rotting to be of interest. This was called “the flight from the flag.” The war brought maritime New England’s golden age to a close, mostly to the benefit of the British who were delighted at this humbling of their only serious rival in ocean trade. It was a blow from which the U.S. merchant service never fully recovered.10
By March 1864 Bulloch no longer felt justified in commissioning cruisers, but Mallory had other ideas. The Yankee coasting trades, fisheries, and California routes had suffered little. He wanted to place raiders simultaneously on the New England coast and fishing banks, in the South Atlantic, in the East and West Indies, and in the Pacific. This ambitious scheme “would have a decided tendency to turn the trading mind of New England to thoughts of peace. I am exceedingly anxious to do this.” On 10 August, after conferring with Carter and Brooke, Mallory again wrote to Bulloch concerning the enemy’s vulnerability: “His commerce constitutes one of his reliable sources of national wealth no less than one of his best schools for seamen, and we must strike it, if possible. . . . A blow at the whalemen is a blow at New England exclusively, and by keeping in distant seas where steamers rarely go and coal is unattainable they might make a very successful cruise.”11
The North Pacific and Arctic represented the pinnacle of American whaling. From 1835 to 1860 there were seldom fewer than four hundred vessels in the Pacific annually; the number diminished steadily thereafter. Whale oil lost market to new and inexpensive kerosene in the nation’s lamps. Businessmen turned to the burgeoning industries of the Machine Age, while potential sailors turned their backs on the sea and looked westward to the opening frontier. Already feeling the pinch, wealthy New England whaling magnates, like their merchant marine counterparts, would be in no mood to lose more ships and cargo because some damned rebel was loose in the Pacific. Whale oil still was a critical lubricant in the cogs of the Union’s industrial war machine.12
In late summer 1864, Northerners were pessimistic about victory. Union desertions surged and the government was deep in debt. Bloodbaths at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor, and stalemate in the trenches around Petersburg brought a chorus of condemnation down on the president and General Grant. Pressure to negotiate peace was intense. Lincoln despaired of winning reelection in November against the antiwar candidacy of Democrat George McClellan. The previous strategy—cruisers proceeding randomly along regular trading routes and taking any Yankees found there—clearly was no longer productive or practical. The Confederate navy needed a rapid, decisive, and punishing blow against vulnerable but concentrated high-value targets.
As described by Carter, Mallory believed Sea King would make a splendid cruiser. She was an auxiliary steamer, a clipper ship with a steam engine to assist in calms and contrary winds. The engine could drive comfortably at nine knots with
