It is the only Confederate flag to circumnavigate the earth and flew over the ship as it captured and mostly sank 38 Union vessels.
From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., November 6th, the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia, now part of the American Civil War Museum, will display the 7.3-by-11.3-foot flag, known as the "Stainless Banner", the Second National Flag of the Confederacy.
The Shenandoah was purchased in Liverpool in 1864. It was a square-rigged clipper steamship built originally for the China tea trade.
Its commander was Lt. James Iredell Waddell of North Carolina, who had been in the U.S. Navy for twenty ears before the war. The ship was cit off from communications for its Pacific raid on the Union whaling fleet in 1865, and it wasn't until August 3, 1865 that Waddell received irrefutable proof that the war was over (by way of newspapers from another ship).
Knowing that his ship was without a country, Waddell had the guns stowed away and his ship repainted to resemble a merchant vessel and made his way on a long voyage back to Liverpool to surrender.
The flag was brought back to the United States in 1873 and donated to the Museum of the Confederacy in 1907.
The exhibition of the flag will last only for one day and there will be a talk on it given at Brown Bag Lunch on Nov. 20, 2015, at noon.
--Old B-Runner
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