Atlantic Warfare Yesterday : 387 



The Shenandoah specialized in disrupting the Northern whaHng 

 industry of which she captured and burned thirty-four ships. The gen- 

 eral destructive effect of the commerce raiders can be judged from the 

 fact that after the war the United States filed claims against Great 

 Britain on the grounds that the vessels built and purchased in Eng- 

 land rendered the British liable for the value of the ships destroyed 

 by the raiders. The claims stated that 258 vessels had been captured 

 and that their value was nearly $18,000,000. The Geneva Tribunal 

 adjudicated the claim directing England to pay the United States 

 $15,000,000. 



The preceding paragraphs give some idea of what happened to the 

 Northern shipping industry during the period of the Civil War. At 

 the same time the losses of the Southern states ran to over 1,500 ves- 

 sels including almost 300 steamers. The Northern states, during the 

 war, had built up a navy of 671 ships, 9,000 officers and over 50,000 

 men. Through maintenance of the blockade and other operations it 

 had played a decisive part in the outcome of the war, but while the 

 navy had grown strong American maritime supremacy had been lost. 



America had developed the transatlantic packets, had built and op- 

 erated the clippers, had perfected the whaling vessel and had pio- 

 neered the development of many of the important whaling grounds. 

 The depression that preceded the war and the war itself rang the 

 death knell on these and other characteristic marine enterprises. The 

 United States had also played its part in the development and use of 

 steam for transatlantic freight and passenger services and for coast- 

 wise shipping. Here, again the depression and the war first slowed 

 and then stopped American efforts to develop new ships and new 

 services. 



The Civil War came just at the time when the technology of ship- 

 building had developed to the point where ocean vessels could be 

 built of iron instead of wood and could be driven by steam as well as 

 sail. During the years of the war, while hundreds of American ships 

 were going to the bottom or were being sold abroad to escape capture 

 and reprisal, the shipyards of Great Britain were busy with the devel- 

 opment and construction of iron-hull steam-driven cargo vessels and 

 liners. Britain was able to absorb most of the trade that had previ- 

 ously been shipped in American bottoms. 



After the Civil War American capital and energy were poured into 

 the construction of railroads and the industrial development of the 

 continent. By the time America was ready to give serious considera- 

 tion to merchant marine and to the building and operation of ocean 



