* * * * *
In writing of Raleigh I referred to the post-bellum activities of the
Confederate cruiser _Shenandoah_. Captain Dabney M. Scales, a
distinguished citizen of Memphis, was on the _Shenandoah_. Born in
Orange County, Virginia, in 1842, Captain Scales was appointed to the
Naval Academy by L.Q.C. Lamar. He was a classmate of Captain Clark,
later of the _Oregon_. When the war broke out, young Scales was in his
second year at the Academy, but like most of the other southern cadets
he resigned and offered his services to the South. When commissioned he
was the youngest naval officer in the Confederate service. Eight months
after the War was over, the _Shenandoah_ was still cruising in the South
Seas, looking for Federal merchantmen. In January 1866, somewhere south
of Australia, she overhauled the British bark _Baracouta_, taking her
for a Yankee man-o'-war flying the British flag as a ruse. Young Scales
was sent in command of a boarding party, and was informed by the skipper
of the _Baracouta_ that the Civil War had terminated months and months
ago. The _Shenandoah_ then made for Liverpool. In the meantime a Federal
court had ruled that her officers were guilty of piracy--a hanging
offense. Naturally, they did not dare return to the United States.
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