Category Archives: Victoria

The CSS Shenandoah: Victoria’s link to the American Civil War.

On 25 January 1865 a large foreign warship unexpectedly dropped anchor in Hobson’s Bay off Melbourne causing considerable consternation in the colonial government.    The ship proved to be the 1160-ton, eight-gun auxiliary steamer CSS Shenandoah of the Confederate States of America and had pulled in to make urgent repairs.   Five years earlier the Southern statesContinue reading “The CSS Shenandoah: Victoria’s link to the American Civil War.”

The Plague Ship Ticonderoga

In November 1852 a migrant ship dropped anchor in Port Phillip Bay with some 700 passengers, many of them gravely ill.   The 1,200-ton American Clipper Ticonderoga had been chartered to bring immigrants out to start a new life in Australia, but the three-month journey to their new home proved a nightmare for many of theContinue reading “The Plague Ship Ticonderoga”