Synopses & Reviews
Blending high-seas adventure and first-rate research, The Last Shot is naval history of the very first order, offering a riveting account of the last Southern military force to lay down its arms in June 1865. Following orders received the previous autumn, the Confederate raider Shenandoah fell upon a fleet of whalers out of New England working the waters near Alaska's Little Diomede Island. More than two dozen ships went down in a frenzy of destruction that occurred three months after the South's official surrender. In breathtaking detail, author Lynn Schooler re-creates one of the most astonishing events in American military history—a final act of war that brought about the near-demise of the New England whaling industry and effectively ended America's growing hegemony over worldwide shipping for the next eighty years.
Synopsis
In 1865, the Confederate raider Shenandoah destroyed a fleet of more than two dozen New England whaling ships off the coast of Alaska. It was decisive victory for the South -- three months after its official surrender to the Yankees.
Lynn Schooler re-creates this remarkable but little-known episode in Civil War history in The Last Shot. Before the Shenandoah's voyage was over, she captured or sank thirty-eight ships, took more than a thousand prisoners, and led the Union Navy on a chase that circumnavigated the globe. The single Confederate ship nearly ended the New England whaling industry, and would put a stop to America's growing hegemony over worldwide shipping. The Last Shot proves that, contrary to popular belief, the Civil War did not end on a battlefield in Virginia, but in a ship just south of the Arctic Circle.
Lynn Schooler, author of The Blue Bear, has lived in Alaska for more than thirty years. During that time, he has built his own cabin in the remote wilderness and worked as a commercial fisherman, a shipwright, a trapper, a professional seaman, a wildlife photographer, and a wilderness guide. He is a two-time winner of Alaska magazine's grand prize for wildlife photography, and winner of the National Wildlife grand prize.
"A first-rate sea saga ... Schooler does an excellent job of portraying the ship, her colorful crew and her astonishing mission, putting into clear perspective a key Civil War episode." -- Kirkus Reviews (starred)
About the Author
Lynn Schooler, author of The Blue Bear, has lived in Alaska for more than thirty years. He is a two-time winner of Alaska magazine's grand prize for wildlife photography and winner of the National Wildlife grand prize.