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As the Confederacy felt itself slipping beneath the Union juggernaut in late 1864, the South launched a desperate counteroffensive to force a standoff. Its secret weapon? A state-of-the-art raiding ship whose mission was to sink the U.S. merchant fleet. The raider’s name was Shenandoah, and her executive officer was Conway Whittle, a twenty-four-year-old warrior. Whittle would share command with a dark and brooding veteran of the seas, Capt. James Waddell, and together with their crew, they would spend nearly a year destroying dozens of Union ships, all while continually dodging the enemy.
Then, in August of 1865, a British ship revealed the shocking truth to the men of Shenandoah: The war had been over for months, and they were now being hunted as pirates. What ensued was an incredible 15,000-mile journey to the one place the crew hoped to find sanctuary, only to discover that their fate would depend on how they answered a single question. Wondrously evocative, LAST FLAG DOWN is a riveting story of courage, nobility, and rare comradeship forged in the quest to achieve the impossible.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
May 15, 2007 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781415938560
- File size: 329013 KB
- Duration: 11:25:26
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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The SHENANDOAH, a warship of the Confederate Navy, sails to the Pacific Ocean, capturing and burning Union merchant ships and whalers. With a crew of kidnapped sailors, mutiny constantly threatens the young captain, who doesn't realize he is being hunted and that the Civil War has ended. Narrator Michael Kramer faces some long sentences, sometimes needing two breaths before finding a period. He lowers his voice for the parenthetical translations of nautical terms, but with few defining pauses or changes of tone, he forces listeners to intuit which words are quotes and which are the authors'. The pleasurable expression in his voice makes the unusual story of the Rebel forces at sea, much of it from the captain's writings, exciting and memorable. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine -
The odyssey of the Confederate ship the SHENANDOAH is the type of story that, if it were not documented, no would believe. Launched as a privateer in Britain in the fall of 1864, near the end of the Confederacy, the ship raided Union merchant vessels around the world during the summer of 1865. Then, after nearly single-handedly destroying the New England whaling fleet, her crew was informed by a British vessel that the Civil War had been over for months. Upon hearing this news, she left the waters off Alaska and returned to Liverpool, where the crew melted into history. Ron McLarty's reading of this abridgment is somewhat flat. He reads clearly but lacks energy. Sometimes he uses an accent, sometimes not. Overall, the entire performance becomes monotonous. M.T.F. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
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April 30, 2007
Thriller writer Baldwin (The Eleventh Plague et al.) joins forces with the prolific Powers (coauthor ofFlags of Our Fathers et al.) to come up with a fast-reading Civil War true adventure saga centered a on young CSA navy lieutenant. The 24-year-old Conway Whittle, an ancestor of Baldwin's, was assigned as first lieutenant and executive officer on the Confederate raiderShenandoah late in the war. The ship sailed from London disguised as a merchant vessel and underwent a memorable cruise round the globe, attacking and destroying Yankee merchant ships and whalers. Whittle and company kept up their daring sea raids until August of 1865, when they learned that the war had ended five months earlier. The ship returned to England, having flown the last Confederate flag at sea in defiance of the U.S. Baldwin and Powers recount their tale in a lively, evocative style and may be forgiven for being overly fond of their hero. Whittle, they say, "was 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." -
March 19, 2007
Thriller writer Baldwin (The Eleventh Plague
et al.) joins forces with the prolific Powers (coauthor of Flags of Our Fathers
et al.) to come up with a fast-reading Civil War true adventure saga centered a on young CSA navy lieutenant. The 24-year-old Conway Whittle, an ancestor of Baldwin's, was assigned as first lieutenant and executive officer on the Confederate raider Shenandoah
late in the war. The ship sailed from London disguised as a merchant vessel and underwent a memorable cruise round the globe, attacking and destroying Yankee merchant ships and whalers. Whittle and company kept up their daring sea raids until August of 1865, when they learned that the war had ended five months earlier. The ship returned to England, having flown the last Confederate flag at sea in defiance of the U.S. Baldwin and Powers recount their tale in a lively, evocative style and may be forgiven for being overly fond of their hero. Whittle, they say, "was 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."
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