Review: Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship

Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship by John Baldwin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

You get a good idea of the story here by reading the blurb on the cover – Confederate ship harassing Federal maritime industry doesn’t know the war has ended. That is a good, short description. The book adds a lot to this story, but also misses some opportunities. The main source for the book is the diary/ship logs of Executive Officer Conway Whittle, who comes across as a true Southerner in manner and temperament, charming the occasional woman while pining for his true love, and planning a duel for honor near the end of the book. After learning of Whittle’s work with the Confederacy, we learn about the ship procured for the Confederacy and of the efforts to sneak away from Britain. We then follow Whittle and his ship the Shenandoah on a year long voyage with stops in Australia and Pacific islands, and capturing US whaling ships in the Arctic Ocean. And then, we follow them back to Britain, their choice of venue to lower the odds of being hung as pirates. Their tour was a mix of terror from weather issues, visits to ports where the crew is treated quite well, capturing and firing whaling and other merchant vessels, and typical boredom from many long and continuous days at sea. You learn a lot about sailing and cruising during the war years, and you understand how difficult the work could be. Missing from the story was additional context that would have analyzed the place of the Shenandoah in the strategy of the Confederacy, summarized the impact of the ship on the war, and positioned the story of the warriors fighting beyond the end of their war with other examples from history.

One story, from near the end of the book, was an example of how the author approached this material. Sailors on the boat were held captive by the British government after they surrendered their ship at the completion of their voyage. The British decided to free the sailors, unless they were British citizens who had, in effect, joined a foreign Navy. Those sailors would be put to death. The crew, many of whom were British, according to the author had no time to collaborate, yet all answered under interrogation that they were Southerners. The author expresses surprise that this has happened, and stretches this section out to draw out some drama. Yet it seems to me that the best explanation is that all these British sailors knew this was the case, and had talked about this during the long trip back to Britain. No surprise. But it was a kind of obvious attempt at drama by the author that wasn’t necessary.

Overall, I enjoyed learning about the voyage of the Shenandoah, and getting to know and to understand some of the sailors and officers. It is quite a story, and the Executive Officer’s diary was a great source to mine.


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