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CSS “Shenandoah” |
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Robert Brown was born in England and migrated to the state of Victoria in Australia, establishing his residence in and around Melbourne, Victoria. It was during that time that Brown, like thousands of others, heard about the Confederate Cruiser, the CSS “Shenandoah” arriving in Port Phillip Bay, off Melbourne; on January 25, 1865. He too went for a look at the famous ‘Rebel Raider’ and while there made a decision to go aboard. Waiting until February 17, 1865, Brown made his way back to the docks and without being noticed, slipped aboard the CSS “Shenandoah” during the night. Fearing he would be physically removed if found, he made his way to a secluded section of the ship and with the assistance of crewmembers, hid himself away. Once the ship set sail and had made its way outside the legal limits of Australian waters, Brown came out of hiding and with forty-one others signed on as a member of the ships crew; on February 18, 1865, at a pay rate of $16.00. By making his mark beside his name, Brown was signed on as a landsman; since he had no prior experience as a seaman. His rating was later changed, however, from a landsman to that of a Private, assigned to the on-board Confederate Marine Corps. Brown was also one of the signatories who expressed confidence in the command of Lieutenant James I. Waddell in a petition dated September 1865. With the surrender of the CSS “Shenandoah” by Lieutenant Waddell to British Captain Paynter, commanding Her Majesty’s ship “Donegal at Liverpool, England on November 6, 1865, Brown went ashore with the rest of the crew and was said to have returned to Australia. |
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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 Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Library, Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia. Marauders of the Sea, Confederate Merchant Raiders During the American Civil War, Mackenzie J Gregory The Cruise of the Shenandoah, Captain William C. Whittle, CSN William A. Temple, affidavit |
