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

by Tom Chaffin

Book Overview

Assembled from hundreds of original documents, including intimate shipboard journals kept by Shenandoah officers, Sea of Gray is a masterful narrative of men at sea The sleek, 222-foot, black... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809095114
• ISBN13: 9780809095117
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Hill & Wang
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.9" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Historical & a thriller - hard to put it down until the last page!

This book will make a great movie; it has it all, real history made exciting, character studies, naval battles, survival, enchanted islands and alluring women, little known Civil War information, international intrigue, lessons in leadership, raging storms, nautical commerce,and all this is true stuff; it seems like pure fiction but all the sources and documentation are in the back. I look forward to seeing this on the silver screen and the sooner the better.

Evocative, true tale of the sea

Tom Chaffin's "Sea of Gray" puts you right on deck, smelling the sea, hearing the wash of the bow wave, tasting the salt spray. Having grown up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, this book brought me a beautiful evocation and reminder of life on the water. Mr. Chaffin relates wonderful details of an incredible chapter of the American Civil War: intrigue around the world, hidden coves, tactics and strategy, treasure and bounty, gallantry toward the foe, even lost civilizations. It's a testament to real-life's ability to match any imagined fantasy. Tom Chaffin's command of language and the facts, details and nuances of historical events brings this real-life experience vividly to life. A fine, quality volume with maps of the voyage, pictures and engravings make this a truly satisfying read and a complete experience. The end plates - schematics of the Shenadoah's hull and decks and its sail plan - are especially wonderful, satisfying extras. This is a great book about a true adventure, evocatively written, a finely told tale.

Don't miss this.

I have always liked tales of the sea. I really liked Sea of Gray. It is a great story (see editorial reviews above). Tom Chaffin's exhaustive research enabled him to bring it to life--to make a great story a great read. In Sea of Gray, through his extensive use of logs and diaries from the cruise, the reader is in on both the conversations in the Ward Room and also the scuttlebutt. What a movie it would make.

what a tale!

What a tale, painstakingly researched and wonderfully told. Thrilling to the very end.

Ironic Victories in a Doomed Effort

"Just as war will have its heroes and its tragedies, so, inevitably, will it have its ironies," writes Tom Chaffin in _Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah_ (Hill and Wang). The story of the _Shenandoah_ is full of ironies. From October 1864 to November 1865, she had what could look like an extraordinary successful voyage. She was the only Confederate ship to circumnavigate the globe, logging 58,000 miles. She destroyed 32 vessels belonging to Yankees, ransomed six others, took over a thousand prisoners, and gained over a million dollars in prizes. She safely got back to port at the end of her conquests. Of course the cause for the Confederacy was doomed, but the _Shenandoah_'s story is especially ironic; her greatest conquests happened after Lee had surrendered to Grant, so that the cause dear to her sailors' hearts simply did not exist as they fought for it. It is a unique story and a sad one, and while the irony is thick, Chaffin has not forgotten to tell a rousing tale of the sea, full of battles, heroism, confusion, storms, and starvation. The Confederacy's sea strategy was to destroy Union merchant ships by privateers, private vessels that would prey on the commercial fleet, cost the Union in ships and cargoes lost, and cause Union military ships to be drawn from other theaters of war to protect the endangered merchantmen. The _Shenandoah_ was converted from a collier to a gunship, secretly at sea. The captain, James Waddell, a graduate of the relatively new Naval Academy at Annapolis, was given the vaguest of orders. His men were to harass Union merchantmen, to take prisoners and prizes, and to sink or burn the evacuated vessels. Captives were left at the next port of call, and some were persuaded to join the _Shenandoah_'s crew. The persuasion might have been as mild as oratory from the captain, but it might be confinement in leg irons or worse. Waddell was not an exemplary leader, and morale was bad, but it got worse as the crew heard from its captives that the war was going badly for the Confederacy. There was no better way of communication than oral reports from captives, and perhaps newspapers that the captured ships carried. In the Bering Sea in June of 1865, they heard from a captive that the war was over (indeed it was, Lee having surrendered at Appomattox in April), but Waddell asked for documentary evidence and there was none. He may have deliberately been trying to deny that the war was lost. Finally in August the _Shenandoah_ overtook the bark _Barracouta_, but the crew were disappointed to find her papers were in order and that she was a British vessel. They were further disappointed by newspapers she carried, giving documentary evidence that the Confederacy was no more. Waddell and his crew had finally to accept that their nation had been defeated, which was bad enough, but also that for the four months previous, their raids could be looked upon as nothing more t