Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 32.djvu/336

 324 Southern Historical Society Papers.

go down to the lowest point, and without disappearing would rise again. In short, it was all day.

We went up as far as Gifinski and Tansk bays, but could not enter for ice, from fifteen to thirty feet thick. Frequent captures were made, and the smoke of the burning vessels made landmarks against the skies.

NEWS OF THE SURRENDER.

It was now in the middle of summer, and on June 23d Waddell captured two whalers which had left San Francisco in April, and had on board papers of April iyth, in which was found the corre- spondence between General Grant and General Lee, and a state- ment of the surrender at Appomattox, but the same papers also contained President Davis's proclamation from Danville, declaring that Lee's surrender would only cause the prosecution of the war with renewed vigor.

How harrowing must have been the news to these daring Confed- erates, then amid the floes of ice in the Polar ocean ! But they were men of nerve. Whittle says:

"We felt that the South had sustained great reverses; but at no time did we feel a more imperative duty to prosecute our work with vigor. Between June 226. and 28th we captured twenty-four whaling vessels, eleven being taken on the 28th.

Some of the prisoners expressed their opinion that the war was over, but notwithstanding that, eight of the prisoners taken that day enlisted on board the Shenandoah.

On June 2gth, the Confederate flag was flying in the Artie ocean, but on that day Waddell turned his prow away from the pole and passed southward through Behring straits.

On July 5th they passed the Aleutian Islands, one of which was a volcano and was in a state of eruption, smoke and fire issuing from its peak. That was the last land seen by the Shenandoah for many days.

Let us pause for a moment and consider the strange situation of this Confederate cruiser a war vessel representing the sovereignty of a nation that had expired amid the throes of disaster ! In mid- ocean, separated by thousands of miles from any friendly hand, subject to vicissitudes uncertain of the present, apprehensive of the future.

Brave hearts, true men, bold seamen. They feared not the fury of the waves, nor the storms of the ocean, but they knew well man's