The Last Shot
The Incredible Story of the C.S.S. Shenandoah and the True Conclusion of the American Civil War— written by Lynn Schooler
Comment and review by James Tate, Jr.

Lynn Schooler, the reclusive author of the moving personal story, The Blue Bear, has written an historic account of the last days of the Civil War and provided interesting insight into the effects of the conflict on many things: the last days of the great slaughter of whales, international maritime law, and the balance of power on the high seas. But is his first historic work up to the standards of an academic treatise, or is it just an entertaining narrative?

Early on in the conflict between America’s North and South, Confederate agents had taken the dispute onto the World stage. Southern sympathizers quickly contracted in England for thousands of three-band Enfields, the workhorse cap and ball muzzle-loading rifle used in the South until Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson took the Union rifle works from Harpers Ferry and moved them to Richmond. When Union agents arrived in England, they found the available production of Enfield rifles had largely been taken up by the South.

By the autumn of 1864, the Confederacy had experienced some success on the battlefields at home, and the fast and deadly Confederate raiders Alabama and Florida had disrupted American shipping and commerce throughout the Atlantic. Enter the Shenandoah, the subject of this tale, which was also obtained through the efforts of Confederate agents in England.

The Shenandoah was built as a trade vessel in England under the name Sea King. After she was launched, she met under cover of night with a smaller cargo ship outside of British waters where she was supplied with armaments and outfitted as a raider of American shipping and whaling.
The Shenandoah was under orders to "seek out and utterly destroy" the whaling fleets of New England as part of an effort to bleed the Union of its economic strength. At this task the Shenandoah was very effective, despite being poorly built, short crewed, under armed, and under provisioned. In a circumnavigation of the world, she captured more than a thousand prisoners, captured or sank thirty-eight ships and evaded the best the Union Navy had to offer.
The episode described in The Last Shot details the assault by the Shenandoah on the whaling fleet in Alaskan waters that culminated on June 22, 1865, the longest day of the year, and nearly three months after General Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Courthouse. Although other Confederate units continued to fight after Lee signed the papers in April, none continued the fight as long as this single ship in the Bering Sea.
The Shenandoah’s Captain, James Waddell, overcame great obstacles (including a improperly made bearing on his ship’s screw) to sail and steam from England through Melbourne, Australia to the Pacific whaling grounds and as far North as the edge of the sea ice in the Bering Sea. He was so successful that he even contemplated taking San Francisco for the Confederacy when he was devastated to learn that the war was over and that his recent actions would be viewed by many as nothing more than piracy on the high seas.
With a distressed and potentially rebellious crew, many of whom he had commissioned from his victims’ ships, he returned to Liverpool, and ultimate freedom, by navigating over twenty thousand miles in 122 days, never within sight of land.
The author, Lynn Schooler, lives and writes in a small cabin in Alaska, sometimes working as a commercial fisherman, shipwright, professional seaman, wildlife photographer, and guide. His knowledge of ships, the sea, and the harsh life at the edges of civilization comes from personal experience and contributes greatly to the feeling of authenticity of the story he tells in The Last Shot.
The Last Shot is a good rousing tale, likely to appeal to the multitude of Civil War enthusiasts in the United States as well as Australia, Germany, and England among the settings where this largely forgotten tale plays out. Sea Story fans of Patrick O’Brien and C. S. Forester will find Schooler’s tale authentic and engaging. It is based on a factual history researched from original sources.

But, to return to the question at the beginning of this review, when it comes time to draw conclusions from the historic accounts, the reader is left with a feeling of incompleteness. While it is evident the author used original journals and contemporary accounts for his sources, there is no literature cited, no index and no footnoting of source material. The footnoting that is present is casual, unsophisticated and not necessarily relevant to the historic context of the story.

All in all, this is a good book, an interesting read about an historic incident, but not up to academic standards as a history thesis.