CIVIL WAR, PETROLEUM, AND ARCTIC 291 



Atlantic, pounced upon the slow-sailing and unarmed Yankee 

 whaling vessels whenever an opportunity presented itself. 

 Once sighted, the sluggish, deep-laden whalers could not fail 

 to be overhauled and to fall an easy prey to this lithe, graceful 

 panther of the seas. The Shenandoah^ on the other hand, 

 struck but a single belated and deadly blow at the whalemen. 

 Appearing suddenly in Behring Straits in 1865, she sur- 

 prised and captured virtually the entire Arctic fleet, supposedly 

 safe because of its vast distance from the seat of hostilities. 

 Within three or four days twenty-five whalers were burned 

 and four others were converted into Confederate transports. 



Many Northern whalemen insisted that the enemy cruisers 

 set fire to their prizes in order to lure other craft into the 

 vicinity. Passing vessels, seeing the flames and leaving their 

 courses in an attempt to succor some other vessel naturally as- 

 sumed to be in distress, would also fall prey to the marauding 

 craft which still hovered in the vicinity of the first victim. As 

 a matter of fact, several captures were made in precisely this 

 manner by the Alabama. But it is probable that her com- 

 mander, instead of deliberately setting a bait for other whalers, 

 was only destroying prizes which at the time could neither be 

 manned nor taken into port. 



The sinking of the "Great Stone Fleet" in 1861 involved 

 another heavy sacrifice of whaling tonnage. Some forty of 

 the older whalers were purchased by the Federal Government, 

 laden with stones, and deliberately sunk off Charleston and 

 Savannah harbors in an effort to make the navigable channels 

 unsafe for blockade runners. The cargoes of stones were in- 

 tended to prevent the hulks from being raised or washed away 

 after settling into place in the channels. As an experiment in 

 blockading tactics the enterprise was dubious; but as a drain 

 upon the resources of the whaling industry it was eminently 

 successful. For although the vessels were purchased by the 

 Federal Government at a fair price, their destruction left a 

 gap in the ranks of the whaling fleet which, as it proved, was 

 never to be filled. 



Still other vessels were lost to whaling through sale, trans- 

 fer, or decay. Owners who were unwilling to run the heavy 

 risks of whaling in war time sold their craft to foreign capital- 



