THE CIVIL WAR 237 



sent her away with a large number of prisoners from the burned 

 whalers on board. 



That night Captain Ebenezer Nye of the lost Abigail called 

 for volunteers to man two boats. Lowering the boats at dawn, 

 they pulled north along the edge of the ice-field a hundred and 

 eighty miles and spread far and wide among the fleet the news 

 that the Shenandoah was coming. Ebenezer Nye and his volun- 

 teers and their deep-sea race in open boats saved the whaling 

 merchants of New Bedford thousands upon thousands of dollars. 



On June 27th, a trading vessel out of San Francisco, having 

 on board newspapers of as late as April 19th, which told of 

 Lee's surrender, Jefferson Davis's flight, and Johnson's request 

 of April 14th, that hostilities cease, fell into Waddell's hands; 

 but there was no formal announcement that the war was over, 

 and Waddell burned the trader and sailed on. 



That day he took the barque Favorite of Fairhaven, with 30 

 barrels of sperm oil and 200 barrels of whale oil on board, and 

 thereby also hangs a tale of which two versions are told. It 

 happened long ago, and much seems to have been said on both 

 sides. Curiously enough, the two versions of the story are 

 given by two men, each of whom served on board the cruiser. 

 Both agree that Captain Young of the Favorite offered battle 

 to the Shenandoah, but Acting Master Hunt, in his nan-ative 

 of the voyage, credits the old man with pluck and cussedness 

 enough for a whole navy, as he stood by his bomb gun and 

 trained it on the Shenandoah's boat. 



''Haul down your flag!" a Confederate officer yelled. 



"Haul it down yourself, you, if you think it will 



be good for your constitution!" the old man replied. 



''If you don't haul it down, we'll blow you out of water in 

 five minutes." 



"Blow away, my buck, but may I be eternally blasted if I 

 haul down that flag for any cursed Confederate pirate that 

 ever floated." 



As the Confederates boarded the whaler the old man did his 

 best to fire on them, but some more discreet spirit had ab- 

 stracted the percussion caps from the nipple. 



