Sad news from the Confederacy.
As there was now but little probability of doing much more in the
Arctic,
Captain Waddell headed the
Shenandoah to the southward, hoping to capture a California steamer between
San Francisco and
Panama.
But on the 2d of August, when nearly west of the
Sandwich Islands, we fell in with the English bark
Baracouta, thirteen days from
San Francisco, bound for
Liverpool, and learned for the first time of the colapse of the
Confederacy.
Had she been an American ship the chances are she would have been burnt, that is it would have required something more than the mere statement of the captain of an American vessel to convince us that the war was over.
We had heard through some of the whalers captured in the
Arctic, from
San Francisco papers dated the 15th April, of the assassination of
Mr. Lincoln, and of the disastrous events up to that date, but
General Johnston was still in the field with his army.
He did not
[
125]
surrender until the 18th April, and
Kirby Smith until the 26th of May.
