James Cunningham Blacker is not listed by many as having joined the CSS Shenandoah crew from Melbourne, Australia due to the fact that he was aboard a ship called the Saxonia that was docked in Melbourne at the time. Its average passage time from Liverpool, England to Queenstown and then on to Boston was said to be about nine days. Blacker was in fact a Captain in the English merchant service and was said to have abandoned his ship in Melbourne to join the crew of the Shenandoah.

He was not actually from Australia, but was berthed aboard a ship docked in Melbourne at the time and was appointed directly, as an officer of the Shenandoah as the Captain’s clerk, when he choose to join the crew. He did, however, join the Shenandoah crew ‘from’ Melbourne, Australia. He was also listed among those designated as Confederate Marines aboard ship.

Alabama Claims, “Correspondence Concerning Claims Against Great Britain transmitted to the Senate of the United States in answer to the Resolutions of     December 4, and 10, 1867, and of May 27, 1868”, Washington; 1869

Alabama Claims : The case of Great Britain as laid before the Tribunal of arbitration Convened at Geneva under

   the provisions of the treaty between the United States of America and Her Majesty the queen of Great Britain,

   concluded at Washington, May 8, 1871 (1872), University of Michigan Library

La Trobe Collections

University of Michigan Library