The Lost Fleet: A Yankee Whaler's Struggle Against the Confederate Navy and Arctic Disaster

By Marc Songini
Illustrated, bibliography, index, 432 pp., 2007. St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010, $25.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Blake A. Magner
Blake A. Magner is the Book Review Editor of Civil War News. He makes his living as an editor, writer, cartographer and photographer of Civil War history. He is author of At Peace With Honor: The Civil War Burials of Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Review:
The Lost Fleet is the story of the whaling industry during the mid-19th century and the trials it went through ranging from war to the Arctic Ocean.

The volume chronicles the career of Thomas William Williams, a whaling master from Wethersfield, Conn., who sailed from New Bedford, Mass. It provides the reader with a look at the beginning of the end of the whaling industry.

The first section describes the whaling industry through the eyes of the participants - from ship owners to the hands on deck. This part of the book is an excellent primer for those interested in what made up a whaler, what kind of man served on her and the process of taking and reducing a whale into a barrel of oil.

Much of this chapter revolves around Williams who, as a few masters did, took his wife and children along with him on whaling voyages some of which could last for years.

When the Civil War broke out whalers had numerous problems, not the least of which were Raphael Semmes and James Waddell. Toward the beginning of the war a hare-brained plan was attempted using the Stone Fleet.

Old and decrepit whalers from the Northern states were filled with stone and then sailed to Charleston, S.C. The ships were sailed into the channel leading from the Atlantic to Charleston Harbor where they got stuck on the submerged sand shoals.

The ships were then sunk in an attempt to block the harbor from shipping coming in or going out. The plan ended up being a complete farce as the action of the tides cleared the obstructions within a matter of months.

In stark similarity with the War of 1812 when the whaling industry suffered from the actions of the British Navy, the Confederacy was able to send two vessels built in the British Isles to strike at the Northern whalers plying their trade on the world's seas.

The first to be commissioned was the CSS Alabama under the command of Semmes. Chasing whalers and other vessels, the Alabama compiled an impressive record of capture and burning of the Northern vessels, thus helping the Confederacy's cause.

A second ship was built and sent into the Indian and Pacific oceans, ultimately reaching almost to the Arctic Ocean. The CSS Shenandoah, under the command of Waddell, compiled a record almost as impressive as the Alabama's.

Unfortunately for Waddell the war ended before the destruction he wreaked did, causing many to call him and his crew little more than pirates.

The list of prizes taken by these two ships is impressive. The author does an excellent job of describing the Confederate hunt and capture of the ships as well as the treatment of the ships and their crews after they were taken. In an interesting sidelight the author also mentions that today we have species of whales that were being over-hunted and on the verge of extinction, but because of the actions of the Shenandoah the whale ships spent more time trying to save their own hides than hunting whales.

Following the Civil War the whaling industry tried to make a comeback, but a series of disasters in the Bering Strait and Arctic Ocean in the 1870s pretty much helped to bring the industry to an end.

Whalers had started going to this section of the North Pacific because of the scarcity of whales, which had been overhunted in the rest of the world. Over the course of several winters a few dozen whalers got stuck in the ice and many sunk or, through the northern movement of the ice flow into the Arctic Ocean, were never to be seen again. The discovery of oil in Pennsylvania and a reduction of the use of baleen pretty much brought the industry to its knees.

Songini also covers the whaling industry on its well-disputed march into the 21st century that still finds nations like Japan, Norway and Russia killing whales for no discernable reason.

The Lost Fleet is a fascinating and educational volume that would be of extreme use to those interested in the whaling industry and how the Civil War affected it. The author has done his research and provides a well-written volume filled with fascinating stories and facts. I highly recommend The Lost Fleet to readers of Civil War News.