A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS "Shenandoah"

"Shenandoah"'s mission-commerce raiding ("guerre de course")-was a central component of U.S. naval and maritime heritage, a profitable business, and a watery form of guerrilla warfare. These Americans stood in defense of their country as they understood it, pursuing a difficult and dangerous mission in which they succeeded spectacularly after it no longer mattered. This is a biography of a ship and a cruise, and a microcosm of the Confederate-American experience.