Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1886-04-08

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COMMANDER JAMES j. WADDELL.
On March 10th, there died at Annapolis
Nd, James J. Waddell, whose life forms a
page in the history of our nation. He died
of congestion of the brain. Captain Wad-
dell was born in North Carolina, in 1924, and
entered the Navy in 1898. In 1949, he grad
meantime, served at Vera Cruz, against
the Mexicans. He served in the United
States Navy until the war began, when he
resigned, to 20 into the Confederate Navy.
At the age of fourteen. when midship-
man, he was insulted by senior officer,
whom he challenged, and duel was fought
at Norfolk, Va, in which Midshipman
Waddell received a wound in the thigh
which caused him to limp ever rafter. When
| he entered the Confederate service he was
given command of the we'll known 'Se1adn-
doah, and with his vessel went into the Pa
cifc Ocean, entered the Arctic Seas, and de-
stroyed hundreds Of thousands Of dollars OF
commerce. The war had been over nine
months when he heard of it from an English
vessel. Most of his men begged him to run
the vessel ashore and let each man look out
for himself. This Captain Waddell refused
| to do, but set sail for Liverpool, where he
arrived in due time, running the gauntlet
of the United States Navy for twenty thou
sand miles. He had made a narrow escape,
for an American war steamer was close at
his heels. Captain Waddell did not dare to
return to the United States for longperjod,
as public sentiment was very much against
him, the received opinion being that he con-
tinued the war on unprotected whaling YES
sells. He overhauled them in the high lati-
tudes in May, 1863, and began his work Of
destruction among them. During the
months of May, June and July, he pursued
the whalers as far as Go north latitude, cap
turing and destroying in all twenty eight of
them. At one time he caught thirteen to-
gether and destroyed them all. Several Of
his captures he bonded and provisioned,
sending them to port with the prisoners
captured and paroled from the vessels de-
stroyed. Captain WaddeIl asserted that in
nearly every instance the officers of these
vessels claimed that the war was ended but
as they could not prove the fact, and pro-
fessed to have no later tidngs than he had,
he could not rely on their assertions. After
the destruction Of the whalers, the ,Menan-
doah returned Southwark, and when off
San Francisco, on the 2nd of August, 1865,
fell in with the British bark BdrdcOtd, from
whose master Waddell said he received the
first authentic news of the fall Of the Con-
federacy. He at once shaped his course for
LIVERPOOL The Shenandoah was at sea, un-
der his command, fourteen months, during
all of which time she had been in but one
port-Milbourne Fora continuous period
of eight months her anchors remained un-
disturbed at her bows, their lashings not
even being removed. This, he claimed, is
the longest continuous cruising on record.
During this time the Shenandoah sailed 900
statute miles, and visited every ocean on
the globe, except the Antarctic. She was
the only ship, the Captain boosted, that car
ried the Confederate flag around the globe.
The Shenandoah was built at Glasgow, in
1868, and was called the Sea King. In Sep
tember, 1861, she was sold to Richard
Wright, of Liverpool, and thus passed into
the hands of the Confederacy. She cleared
at London for Bombay, ostensibly as mer-
chant vessel. On the same day that she left
London, another vessel, the LdWpl, left Liv-
erpool, with armament suits, Confederate
officers, and several men enlisted in the
Confederate service. At Madeira, the two
vessels met; the Laurel fitted out the Sea
KIM, which then became the Shenandoah.
After her surrender she was turned over to
the United States Government, and subse-
seuuently sold to the Sultan of Zanzibar.
After the war, Captain Waddell was made
commander of the Pacific mail steamship,
San Francisco. On one Of her trips the YES
sci struck rock, not down on the chart,
and sank. The Captain behaved in the
coolest and bravest manner, and landed his
crew and passengers on aneighboring coast,
whence they were safely taken. Captain
Waddel was exonerated from all blame.
For some time previous to his death he was
commander OF the State flSnery fOrce OF
Maryland.
THE LAST RUSSIAN SERF SET FREE
The Russian papers announce the emancipa-
ton of the last Russian serts. 1t appears
that the peasants on the estates of the for
egn converts in Transcaucasia were until
quite recently the serfs of the dioceses of
Jerusalem and Constantinople. This alb
normal situation has attracted the attention
of the authorities, and since last summer
the enfranchisement of these serfs has been
in progress in the governments of Titlis and
Kutais. The Brotherhood of the Holy
Sepulchre possesses more than 5000 serfs,
and the patriarch of Constantinople, as rep
resenting the convent of Iversky, on Mount
Athos, has about 800 more.-London (thg)