Months after General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, his nephew, Confederate naval officer Sydney Smith Lee, Jr., was still at sea aboard the CSS Shenandoah, targeting Union whaling ships in the Pacific. Unaware the war had ended, the crew only learned the news in August 1865 from a British merchant vessel. Fearing prosecution as pirates, Lee and his shipmates sailed more than 17,000 miles to Liverpool, England, where they surrendered to British authorities on November 6, 1865. This event is considered the final official surrender of the Confederacy. Lee later returned to the U.S. and was buried at Christ Church Cemetery in Alexandria, near his parents.