On the anniversary of his kidnapping, the recovered story of David Henry White – a free Black American teenager who was enslaved on a Confederate warship for over 600 days during the US Civil War before dying in the 1864 Battle of Cherbourg and whose life has been misrepresented and unjustly appropriated for 150 years.
For over 150 years, historians have recycled the fable that David Henry White – a free Black teenage sailor from Delaware who was kidnapped by the Confederate raider Alabama on October 9, 1862 – remained on the ship for 600 days of his own volition, working for reduced wages and embracing the master-servant relationship under the controversial and racist figure of Captain Raphael Semmes. This version of White’s life, primarily based on Semmes’s self-serving post-war Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States, strips White of his humanity and advances a false Lost Cause narrative. It is also absolutely false, according to a new blockbuster history: Kidnapped at Sea: The Civil War Voyage of David Henry White (Johns Hopkins University Press, October 8, 2024), by Andrew Sillen.
Now, at last, White’s life story and personhood is restored in this long overdue corrective history. This new version of events leaves no question that White was enslaved against his will within the confines of a dangerous and reckless crew until he drowned on June 19, 1864, during the Battle of Cherbourg between the USS Kearsarge and the Alabama.
In correcting this narrative, Kidnapped at Sea recognizes and empowers a Black teenager who died because of racist practices during a time of immense conflict surrounding the question of slavery vs. abolition. It also brings to light the lies perpetrated by Confederate Naval officers, whose moral complications overshadow their military prowess. In contrast to the tyrannical cruelty of Captain Semmes, Union Navy Captain John Ancrum Winslow of the USS Kearsarge emerges as a pro-abolitionist hero and their conflicting foundations of belief are “founding strands, among many, in America’s ideological DNA.”
Great history – when done well – sheds light not only on our past, but on our present and future, and Sillen writes that he wanted to tell the story of David Henry White “to recover the experience of the disempowered,” and to contribute an important new perspective on racism by granting a voice to those marginalized in America’s past.
Kidnapped at Sea takes on the critical task of righting the wrongs that surround the recorded history of David Henry White. But it is also a fascinating and eye-opening chronicle of Naval encounters between the Union and Confederacy, as well as the European, South American, and African countries whose allegiances varied from port to port along the vital coasts of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Sillen has done his research and documents the thrilling and dangerous chases, raids, battles, ship burnings, musical parties, and more that took place during this turbulent time.
This book is written with a storyteller’s flare that brings the past alive and wallops the reader with unfiltered truth. It will find wide readership among Civil War and naval history buffs, as well as all who advance the ongoing conversation about racism in America, past and present.
About the author
Andrew Sillen is a visiting research scholar in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. He was formerly a professor of paleoanthropology and the founding director of development at the University of Cape Town and the vice president of institutional advancement at Brooklyn College.
Learn more about this book at kidnappedatsea.com
Praise for Kidnapped at Sea
“In this fast-paced narrative, Andrew Sillen uncovers the astounding story of David Henry White, a free Black teenager kidnapped from a US ship and forced to accompany the Confederate raider Alabama. Through a haunting account, Sillen restores White’s humanity and, in doing so, provides a timely examination of the necessity for addressing historical crimes.”— Caroline E. Janney, author of Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee’s Army after Appomattox
“In this gripping story, Andrew Sillen rescues from Lost Cause mythology the story of David Henry White, a free Black man kidnapped and enslaved on board the CSS Alabama for 600 days before his untimely death. In the process, Sillen offers an important reminder that the struggle for a ‘new birth of freedom’ was fought as much on the high seas as it was on the battlefield.”— Kevin M. Levin, author of Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth
“This book represents the best in weaving a compelling narrative across generations, geographies, and genres by an archeologist who has effectively used the perspective of his discipline to connect a young Black man’s short life to the horrors of piracy, slavery, and colonial conquest.” — Mamphela Ramphele, author of Dreams, Betrayal and Hope
“This well-researched and captivating account of the Civil War Battle of Cherbourg commands the attention of naval and Civil War scholars alike. The embedded story of the teenage sailor David Henry White is effectively used by the author for a revealing analysis of the personal, professional, and moral strengths and flaws of all involved.” — David C. Brown, Rear Admiral, US Maritime Service (Ret.)
