Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider… (edition 2007)

An interesting historical viewpoint into the cruise of the last confederate commerce raider and her round the world journey. Detailed enough for the historian without bogging down. A good read. ( )

I heard the author talk about his book at a lecture sponsored by the Georgia Center for the Book. I have read a number of books on ships and realize this adds to my collection. It is an exciting story and gives such a different perspective of the Civil War.

Weeks after the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House the last naval actions of the American Civil War unfolded in of all places the Bering Strait when the CSS Shenandoah, a converted auxiliary steamship took ten New England whaling vessels and burned most of them. This book is about that most unlikely of naval actions and the long voyage that say the Shenandoah and its motley crew from Liverpool to Australia, the Sea of Okhotsk and the Bering Strait, and eventually back to England - the only vessel to circumnavigate the world and last to lower its flag. Over the course of its journey the ship took more than thirty prizes worth more than a million dollars and with more than a thousand prisoners. Tom Chaffin gives an excellent overview of this massive journey, starting with the political and military motivation for outfitting a steamer to head to the whaling grounds then going through the journey itself to its eventual conclusion detailing the lives of the crews most prominent members after the conclusion of their voyage. A very fast, but not overly detailed account it does what it sets out to do and was very entertaining throughout. ( )