A longtime Alaskan has given us this impressive history of the last Confederate commerce raider, which fired its last shot at a Yankee whaler north of the Aleutian Islands two and a half months after Appomattox. It begins with the ship leaving England under the name Sea King
, then meeting a chartered cargo ship at Madeira and loading guns and other warlike gear—without more than a fraction of the crew needed to use them. A gifted seaman if more than a little irascible, Capt. James Waddell recruited his crew as he sailed. After an eventful stop in Melbourne, Australia, the ship sailed north to the Arctic whaling grounds, ravaged the whaling fleet and was proceeding to attack the California gold ships when Waddell learned that the war was over—whereupon he set off to deliver his ship and crew to the British by sailing 23,000 storm-tossed miles back to Liverpool without sighting land. Researched heavily from primary sources, filled with vivid personality portraits and almost miraculously accessible to readers without a background in maritime history, this is an absolutely irresistible sea story. The seafaring audience is likely to be as strong as or stronger than the Civil War audience for this book, and the combination may really set it afloat. (June)
