Tales from the Quarterdeck

Category: Victoria

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

    CSS Shenandoah in Hobson’s Bay, Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

       On 25 January 1865, a large foreign warship unexpectedly sailed into Port Phillip Bay and dropped anchor off Melbourne. The arrival caused considerable consternation in Victoria’s Legislature, which long feared the colony was inadequately defended. The ship proved to be the 1160-ton, eight-gun auxiliary steamer CSS Shenandoah of the Confederate States of America. Her captain, James Wadell, reported to the port authorities that he had been forced to pull in to make urgent repairs.

       Five years earlier, America’s Southern states had seceded from the Union over the question of slavery, and the country had been embroiled in a brutal civil war ever since. The Shenandoah had been particularly busy in the three months before arriving in Australian waters. She had captured or sunk no less than 11 merchant ships belonging to the United States and was holding some of the sailors prisoner.

       Britain and, by extension, the colonies in Australia had declared neutrality in the hostilities between the North and the South. The arrival of an armed warship posed a delicate diplomatic problem for Victoria’s Governor, Sir Charles Darling.

    Some of the 12,000 visitors on the Shenandoah. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

         Captain Waddell sent an officer ashore seeking permission to remain in port until they could make repairs to the Shenandoah’s propeller, which had been damaged during a recent storm. He also hoped to replenish his depleted bunkers with coal, purchase fresh supplies, and land his prisoners.

       One thing he neglected to ask permission for was recruiting replacement sailors, although he intended to do so anyway.

       Governor Darling allowed Waddell to repair the Shenandoah’s propeller and take on supplies, thinking the ship would be on its way again in a couple of days’ time. However, after engineers examined the propeller and shaft more carefully, they discovered the damage was far worse than they had first thought. The ship would have to be slipped so the repairs could be carried out, and that would take time.

       Conscious of their obligations of neutrality, the colonial government decided to allow the ship to be dry-docked, but “no other work should be performed on the vessel than absolutely and necessarily required,” to enable the Shenandoah to safely return to sea.   

    While the government was careful to abide by the requirements of Britain’s proclaimed neutrality, the wider public was far less concerned. The arrival of the Confederate warship caused a sensation. During the first weekend the Shenandoah was in port, more than 12000 people went to take a close look at her. That amounted to 10 per cent of Melbourne’s total population. The visiting Americans were made as welcome as anyone possibly could be. A gala ball was held in their honour in the nearby goldfield town of Ballarat. And, Captain Waddell and his officers were also wined and dined by many of Melbourne’s leading citizens.

    Ballarat Ball for the officers of the Shenandoah. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

       Meanwhile, as the bunkers were being filled with coal, supplies were loaded onboard, and repairs progressing, Waddell’s officers began surreptitiously recruiting seamen from Melbourne’s docks. It was rumoured that the captain was offering anyone willing to join his ship an £8 sign-on bonus, plus a share of any prize money, on top of a £6 per month salary.

       When the authorities learned what was going on, they were compelled to put a stop to it. A warrant was issued to search the ship, and the police had orders to remove any British subjects they found illegally on board. By now, the repairs had been completed, but the Shenandoah was still high and dry on the slip.

       A standoff ensued with Captain Waddell refusing to allow the police to board his ship, and port authorities prevented the Shenandoah from being launched. Waddell wrote to the Governor denying that any British subjects had joined his ship. However, four men were later arrested by the police after they were seen leaving the vessel. Waddell feigned ignorance of their presence, claiming they must have been stowaways.

       The Shenandoah was allowed to leave on 19 February, and a diplomatic crisis was averted. Or so Governor Darling thought. Then, in a parting shot, Waddell wrote that he felt that he and the Confederate States of America had been ill-treated at the hands of Victorian officials and that he would be informing his government at his earliest opportunity. However, that was likely just bluster, for it seems that when the Shenandoah sailed out of Port Phillip Bay, there were 40 newly recruited sailors, despite Captain Waddell’s assurances to the contrary.

    Captain Waddell. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

       In the final months of the American Civil War, the Shenandoah ravaged the United States’ North Pacific whaling fleet. The predation only ceased after the surrender of the South.

       After the war, the United States Government proved that Britain had given assistance to Southern warships despite proclaiming neutrality. Britain would later pay millions of dollars (billions in today’s money) in compensation for losses to Union shipping caused by three Southern raiders, one of them being the Shenandoah.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2022.

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  • The Plague Ship Ticonderoga

    Example of an American Clipper similar to the 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 the mostly Scottish passengers.  

    Victoria was experiencing a labour shortage and had started offering assisted passage for workers to come and settle in the colony.   Most of the passengers comprised of farmhands and their young families.  But, not surprisingly, there was an incentive to get the most people out at the lowest cost to the Government.

    When the Ticonderoga left Liverpool she was overcrowded, even by the standards of Victorian England.    Not long into the voyage passengers, many of them young children, started developing a red rash, high fever and sore throat.   At the time the disease was sometimes called scarlet fever or Scarlatina, but it is generally thought today that it was Typhus that wreaked so much havoc on the passengers.    Easily treated with antibiotics today, it had a devastating effect on those trapped onboard the ship.

    The Embarkation, Waterloo Docks. Illustrated London News, 6 July 1850.

    It was impossible to separate the sick from the healthy passengers in the overcrowded, poorly ventilated and unsanitary passenger accommodation spread across two decks.    Consequently, the disease spread unchecked.  

    Passengers died in such numbers that as many as ten would be bundled together into a sheet of canvas for burial at sea.   By the time they reached the port city of Melbourne more than 100 people had lost their lives.   Another 150 were sick and in desperate need of medical attention, for they had long run out of medical comforts and the ship’s surgeon had been felled by the disease while attending to his patients. Many of those, 82 to be precise, died in the days and weeks that followed.

    Port Phillip Bay. Source: Google Maps.

    The passengers and crew were quarantined at Point Nepean just inside the Port Phillip Bay heads for the newly formed Victorian Government had already earmarked a parcel of land there to build a quarantine station.   Tents were hastily erected using spars and ship’s sails and two nearby houses owned by lime burners were used as makeshift hospitals and staffed with medical men brought out from Melbourne.   A ship was also dispatched to the Quarantine Station to serve as a hospital for the more serious cases.   

    The quick response contained the highly infectious disease and kept it from spreading to the general population.   By January 1853 the epidemic had run its course.   The surviving passengers were taken to Melbourne and the Ticonderoga was released to go on its way but not before being thoroughly fumigated. 

    Empire, 15 Nov 1852 Page 2.

    The Emigration Commissioners who had chartered the ship in the first place were roundly condemned for allowing so many migrants, especially families with young children, to be sent out in such unhealthy conditions.    The Ticonderoga was just the last and worst of several recent migrant ships coming to Australia to suffer such an appalling loss of life.    

    Between the Bourneuf, the Wanota, Marco Polo, and Ticonderoga, 279 passengers had died at sea as a result of infectious diseases on the passage out to Melbourne.    The lesson was learned and future migrant ships were reduced to carrying no more than 350 passengers.

    © Copyright C.J. Ison / Tales from the Quarterdeck, 2022.

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