CSS Shenandoah

William Green was born in born England and migrated to Melbourne, Australia. There he made his home in the community of Williamstown in Melbourne, and was living there when the Confederate Cruiser, the “CSS Shenandoah” arrived in Port Phillip Bay, off Melbourne on January 25, 1865 to take on new supplies. Learning that the “Shenandoah” had arrived in Melbourne and that she was interested in acquiring new crewmembers, Green sold all his personal property and went aboard the “CSS Shenandoah” on the night of Friday, February 17, 1865. He stayed in seclusion and out of sight until the ship made for the open sea and out of Australian waters, then he came out, placed his mark beside his name on the ships log on February 18th, 1865, for the pay of $26.30 and joined the “Shenandoah” crew as a coal trimmer; shoveling coal to the ships engine. Temple, however, only records Green as being an able bodied seaman. 

Green remained with the “Shenandoah” until the end of the war, when she surrendered on November 6, 1865 to British Captain Paynter, commanding her Majesty’s ship “Donegal,, in Liverpool, England.

Alabama Claims Vol. 1, “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.

The Confederate soldier in the Civil War, 1861-1865,  1897

William A. Temple, crewmember, affidavit

History of The Confederate States Navy, J.T. Scarf, 1996

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