Sea of Gray

The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah

Tom Chaffin

Hill and Wang

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The sleek, 222-foot, black auxiliary steamer Sea King left London on October 8, 1864, ostensibly bound for Bombay.  The subterfuge was ended off the shores of Madeira, where the ship was outfitted for war. The newly christened CSS Shenandoah then commenced the last, most quixotic sea story of the Civil War: the 58,000-mile, around-the-world cruise of the Confederacy’s second most successful commerce raider. Before its voyage was over, thirty-two Union merchant and whaling ships and their cargoes would be destroyed. But it was only after ship and crew embarked on the last leg of their journey that the excursion took its most fearful turn.
 
Four months after the Civil War was over, the Shenandoah’s Captain Waddell finally learned he was, and had been, fighting without cause or state. In the eyes of the world, he had gone from being an enemy combatant to being a pirate—a hangable offense. Now fearing capture and mutiny, with supplies quickly dwindling, Waddell elected to camouflage the ship, circumnavigate the globe, and attempt to surrender on English soil.

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Book Excerpts

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Chapter One

Of Ice Floes and Arctic Fires

It was just past 1:00 a.m., June 28, 1865, a few tilting spins of the earth beyond the year’s longest day. And in the Bering Strait the hazy summer dawn breaking over the blue-white ice floes crowding its waters revealed a curious tableau: framed by the dark, distant, snow-crowned headlands to the east and west and, at a lower elevation, the two flat- and sheer-sided Diomede Islands tucked between those mainland heights, rose a forest of masts, sails, and rigging. Closer inspection revealed a listing three-masted whaleship.

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Reviews

Praise for Sea of Gray

“An intriguing Civil War story and a bracing nautical yarn.”  —Michael Kenney, The Boston Globe
 
“Chaffin delivers a crackerjack story. He writes with authority and a clear passion for the colorful, fated characters of this truelife bluewater saga.” —Philip Gerard, The News and Observer

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About the Author

Tom Chaffin

Tom Chaffin is the author of Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire (H&W, 2002). His work has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Time, and other publications. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Sea of Gray
The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah
Tom Chaffin

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Hill and Wang
May 2007
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780809085040
ISBN10: 0809085046
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 448 pages, Includes 16 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations, 2 Maps, Notes, a Note on Sources, and an Index
$15.95
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e-Book Agency
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Hill and Wang
April 2007
e-Book Agency
ISBN: 9780374707002
ISBN10: 0374707006
448 pages, Includes 16 Pages of Black-and-White Illustrations, 2 Maps, Notes, a Note on Sources, and an Index
$9.99
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