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Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White
The true story of David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor enslaved on the high seas during the Civil War, whose life was falsely and intentionally appropriated to advance the Lost Cause trope of a contented slave, happy and safe in servility.
David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor from Lewes, Delaware, was kidnapped by Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862, from the Philadelphia-based packet ship Tonawanda. White remained captive on the Alabama for over 600 days, until he drowned during the Battle of Cherbourg on June 19, 1864.
In a bestselling postwar memoir, Semmes falsely described White as a contented slave who remained loyal to the Confederacy. In Kidnapped at Sea, archaeologist Andrew Sillen uses a forensic approach to describe White's enslavement and demise and illustrates how White's actual life belies the Lost Cause narrative his captors sought to construct.
Kidnapped at Sea is the first book to focus on White's actual life, rather than relying on Semmes and other secondary sources. Until now, Semmes's appropriation of White's life has escaped scrutiny, thereby demonstrating the challenges faced by disempowered, illiterate people—and how well-crafted, racist fabrications have become part of Civil War memory.
David Henry White, a free Black teenage sailor from Lewes, Delaware, was kidnapped by Captain Raphael Semmes of the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862, from the Philadelphia-based packet ship Tonawanda. White remained captive on the Alabama for over 600 days, until he drowned during the Battle of Cherbourg on June 19, 1864.
In a bestselling postwar memoir, Semmes falsely described White as a contented slave who remained loyal to the Confederacy. In Kidnapped at Sea, archaeologist Andrew Sillen uses a forensic approach to describe White's enslavement and demise and illustrates how White's actual life belies the Lost Cause narrative his captors sought to construct.
Kidnapped at Sea is the first book to focus on White's actual life, rather than relying on Semmes and other secondary sources. Until now, Semmes's appropriation of White's life has escaped scrutiny, thereby demonstrating the challenges faced by disempowered, illiterate people—and how well-crafted, racist fabrications have become part of Civil War memory.
352 pages, Hardcover
Published October 8, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 1, 2024
This is a fascinating subject and one that should absolutely be written about, but this was a book that should have been an article. If this is your first introduction to CSS Alabama, then you will probably enjoy this book. If not, the information included here is mostly a rehash of what other books have already shared. The story of David Henry White is the only new information and one that needs to be written, but there was way too much context and tangential info included - mostly because there simply isn’t enough information about White to write an entire book about him.
April 18, 2025
Dense historical exploration of a young man who was enslaved and died in the sinking of the ship he was on. Deep read!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews