Last Flag Down

by by John Baldwin and Ron Powers
352 pp. Crown Publishing Group, 2007 $25.95

Reviewed by Allyson Wright

The victors write history. That’s how we know the North won the American Civil War. Last Flag Down offers an alternative ending, replete with a chivalrous hero and grand adventure on the high seas. In this version, the South’s naval war continues for seven glorious months after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Court House, with the CSS Shenandoah boldly capturing Yankee whalers, firing the last shot of the war (off the coast of Alaska), and earning a place in history as the last Confederate command to lower the stars and bars.

The story begins in October 1864, with Lieutenant W. Conway Whittle, age twenty-four, arriving in Liverpool to finalize the secret purchase of a British vessel. Whittle will be executive officer aboard this new steam-and-sail vessel, on a mission to inflict maximum damage to Yankee commerce during a voyage of 58,000 miles that eventually circumnavigates the globe. En route, Shenandoah confronts thirty-eight unarmed merchant ships and whalers, and takes nearly a thousand prisoners.

Lt. Whittle dutifully records the details of each capture in his logbook, along with descriptions of his bi-polar captain, the shortage of willing sailors, vividly muscular storms, and his own longings for the “Old South.”

In June 1865, the captain of a captured whaling ship delivers the news that the war is over.  But Shenandoah continues preying on unarmed Yankee vessels, taking twenty-one more “prizes.” Shenandoah becomes a pirate ship and Whittle, his captain, and the crew will be executed if they’re caught at sea. Their survival rests on sailing undetected back to England, a voyage of 15,000 miles, where they can surrender to a neutral country and plead for mercy.

Throughout the book, Lt. Whittle remains a pure defender of Southern gentility and honor, “as good a man as history seems able to produce: a warrior of courage inconceivable to most people; a naval officer of surpassing calm and intelligence; a seeker after Christian redemption; a steadfast lover; a student of human nature; a gentle soul; a custodian of virtue.”

But Whittle’s image is more than perfect, suffering from over-polishing by co-author John Baldwin – a direct descendant of the amazing lieutenant. In Baldwin’s account of the war, the South assumes the golden glow of a victor. Whittle comes out a winner– but the losers are his co-author (Pulitzer-winner Ron Powers) and readers hoping for a more balanced picture.