Do you think that there were any ships that went out whaling out of New England and missed the entire american civil war
Like they went out in 1860 had a long voyage for the usual reasons and came back in late 1865 with very little idea of what had happened. like "oh boy I've finally finished getting my whale oil I can't wait to see my favourite president Abraham Lincoln after having been out whaling since early 1860." do you think that that was anyone
Something like this happened to famous Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton. He set out on an expedition in the arctic in 1914 just as the World War I had begun. The expedition was a disaster, he and his crew got lost and stranded. Somehow they survived though, and after much struggling and an incredible and impossible journey, they found help from a whaling station on South Georgia Island near the end of 1916. One of the first questions Shackleton asked from his saviors was something along the lines of "whatever happened with that war in Europe? How long did it last and who won?". The reply he got back was "the war isn't over. Millions are dead. Europe is mad. The world is mad". It's difficult to imagine the shock and terror that those few words must have generated.
























