November | 2015 | Shenandoah Down Under

Shenandoah Down Under Episode 52

Posted on November 25, 2015 in css Shenandoah

In this, the 52nd and final episode in the ‘regular season’ of the Shenandoah Down Under podcast, Rob and MOB discuss the fate of the officers of the Shenandoah after the American Civil War (we’ll go on to discuss the ruinously expensive Alabama Claims in our forthcoming “Christmas Special”)

Branded as “pirates” and unable to return the US, heading south of the border proved to be a popular option. Fortunately for Mr Whittle and his fellow sailors, their comically unsuccessful attempts at farming in Argentina only had to last until lobbying in the halls of Washington DC finally got them all reprieves.

Which officers later became lawyers with rather more success? And which Captain was later recruited by the Maryland State Fisheries, finding glory at last in the so-called “Maryland Oyster War”? Did the oyster pirates flee in terror from the grizzled Confederate veteran as he attacked their boats with a bow-mounted howitzer?

Find out in this end-of-season episode of Shenandoah Down Under, the one where Captain Waddell says for the final time “burn them, burn them all!”

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Shenandoah Down Under Episode 51

Posted on November 19, 2015 in css Shenandoah

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At last, after its 13 month circumnavigation of the globe, the CSS Shenandoah returns to Liverpool! The Confederate flag is lowered for the final time and the ship is taken into the charge of the British Customs Office. With the American Civil War back home now over for many months, its reappearance is something of an embarrassment for everyone.

While the British government tries to figure out what to do with the ship and its crew, what do the Shenandoah’s Officers do to their Customs Officer captors? If your answer is get them so drunk that they go to sleep in the lee scuppers, then you have been paying attention!

And so the voyage of the Shenandoah ends, with one last act of farce, as an English Naval captain comes on board and asks all of the obviously ethnically diverse crew if they are Southerners, for if they are they’ll be allowed to go free. All to a man answer (attempting as best they can in Good ‘ol Boy southern accents) “Yes”, and so are allowed to leave, whistling Dixie…

…and in next week’s episode, we’ll recount the multifarious fates of the Confederate pirates, most of whom do not return to American for many a year; the ignominious end of the CSS Shenandoah itself; and why the Shenandoah’s “treaty offensive and defensive with the whales” meant we still have whales to protect today.

Shenandoah Down Under Episode 50

Posted on November 15, 2015 in css Shenandoah

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All things come to an end, and the 50th episode of Shenandoah Down Under sees the end drawing very close… months after the war has ended, the last Confederate cruiser slips quietly into into English territorial waters, and is therefore unlikely to be taken by a US gunboat.

This means the ship’s company can be paid off. But instead of the “buckets of gold” promised by Captain Waddell at the beginning of the adventure, each man receives the princely sum of one dollar for every seven owed. Executive Officer Whittle’s journal receives its last forlorn entry on this news, but Surgeon Lining remains an ever-reliable source of both gossip and medical details. And what of Sergeant Canning, the mysteriously ailing Englishman and putative survivor of Shiloh? Will he breath his last, just as they are returning to his homeland? Find out in this significant episode of Shenandoah Down Under.

Shenandoah Down Under Episode 49

Posted on November 5, 2015 in css Shenandoah

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Illness and death haunt the CSS Shenandoah in this week’s episode, as William Bill the Hawaiian and Sergeant Canning the mysterious Englishman lie on their deathbeds. The very skies seem to bear witness to the despair of the crew as a total eclipse of the sun blocks out even the light of day.

Poor William Bill is suffering from final stages of venereal disease, while Mr Canning is slowly succumbing an unhealed bullet wound which he claims he suffered at Shiloh. Will Canning ever see his English wife again? Did he care, given she wasn’t with him when he joined the ship in Australia and he never talks about her? Will the Confederate flag be lowered for the second-last time to mark the death of a shipmate? Find out in this week’s episode of Shenandoah Down Under, where the moon eats the sun and a Hawaiian dies far from home under a strange and defeated flag.