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Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship
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About Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey Of The Last
Product Description As the Confederacy felt itself slipping beneath the Union juggernaut in late 1864, the South launched a desperate counteroffensive to shatter the U.S. economy and force a standoff. Its secret weapon? A state-of-the-art raiding ship whose mission was to prowl the world’s oceans and sink the U.S. merchant fleet. The raider’s name was Shenandoah, and her executive officer was Conway Whittle, a twenty-four-year-old warrior who might have stepped from the pages of Arthurian legend. Whittle would share command with a dark and brooding veteran of the seas, Capt. James Waddell, and together with a crew of strays, misfits, and strangers, they would spend nearly a year sailing two-thirds of the way around the globe, destroying dozens of Union ships and taking more than a thousand prisoners, all while continually dodging the enemy. Then, in August of 1865, a British ship revealed the shocking truth to the men of Shenandoah: The war had been over for months, and they were now being hunted as pirates. What ensued was an incredible 15,000-mile journey to the one place the crew hoped to find sanctuary, only to discover that their fate would depend on how they answered a single question. Wondrously evocative and filled with drama and poignancy, Last Flag Down is a riveting story of courage, nobility, and rare comradeship forged in the quest to achieve the impossible. From Publishers Weekly Thriller writer Baldwin ( The Eleventh Plague et al.) joins forces with the prolific Powers (coauthor of Flags of Our Fathers et al.) to come up with a fast-reading Civil War true adventure saga centered a on young CSA navy lieutenant. The 24-year-old Conway Whittle, an ancestor of Baldwin's, was assigned as first lieutenant and executive officer on the Confederate raider Shenandoah late in the war. The ship sailed from London disguised as a merchant vessel and underwent a memorable cruise round the globe, attacking and destroying Yankee merchant ships and whalers. Whittle and company kept up their daring sea raids until August of 1865, when they learned that the war had ended five months earlier. The ship returned to England, having flown the last Confederate flag at sea in defiance of the U.S. Baldwin and Powers recount their tale in a lively, evocative style and may be forgiven for being overly fond of their hero. Whittle, they say, "was as good a man as history seems able to produce: a warrior of courage inconceivable to most people; a naval officer of surpassing calm and intelligence; a seeker after Christian redemption; a steadfast lover; a student of human nature; a gentle soul; a custodian of virtue." (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist By late 1864, it seemed clear that the Confederacy had only a short time to live. In the west, the Army of the Tennessee was a spent, shattered force. In the east, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was besieged at Petersburg, and the depredations of Sherman and Sheridan brought Southern soldiers to the brink of starvation. In the midst of this gloom, a Confederate ship, the Shenandoah, left Britain and launched a series of remarkably successful raids on Union shipping across vast expanses of open sea. However, cut off from communication with the Southern homeland, the crew was unaware of the surrender of Confederate armies in April 1865. Since the Shenandoah continued raiding, in strictly legal terms the sailors on board were now pirates. When the officers realized this, they began a heroic effort to find a refuge for themselves and their crew. Baldwin and Powers have written a stirring account of one of the more obscure episodes of the Civil War, filled with stunning examples of personal courage in the face of adversity. Jay Freeman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved About the Author John Baldwin, a relative of Conway Whittle, is a magazine writer, lecturer, and the author of two
