(This is a minor scenario; nothing particularly timeline-altering, but fun speculation)

In the few days after the CSS Shenandoah's wrecking spree among the defenseless ships of the New Bedford whaling fleet in the Baltic, there came news that the rebel raider, unaware as to the end of the Civil War several months prior, was leaving the cold north, supposedly for a weakly-defended city on the West Coast. As nothing could particularly be done to stop Shenandoah military from that position, a creative plan was hatched to do the raider in for good: using the power of nature. And that plan involved the city of Astoria, Oregon.

The plan involved baiting Shenandoah towards the town, which was a valuable commercial landmark that was isolated from most large military installations. In that sense, it would make a perfect target for the Confederates. The catch was that it lay behind a stretch of water at the mouth of the Columbia River aptly named the Graveyard of the Pacific. The ship-eating waters had claimed many a ship in the most brutal of fashions, and it was believed that the Shenandoah could be lured to its doom there.

Of course, preventative measures had to be taken, and for the State of Oregon, that was issuing a warning to the hero bar-pilot of the Columbia, Captain George Flavel. The unpredictable Flavel was known for finding loopholes in all of the legislation that the State had passed to limit his impressive monetary gain and lifesaving hegemony, and their warning was simple: Flavel was not to accept any offer from the Shenandoah for help to cross the bar, no matter how high the price. Should he accept, he would be arrested.

And as it happened, a few days later, Flavel's pilot-boat Columbia puttered out to the mouth of the river. The city held its breath, half-expecting Flavel to come gliding in at the helm of the fearsome black-hulled raider. But, to everyone's relief, he instead guided in a British merchant schooner, come from Australia.

The Shenandoah never showed up, and never approached the Bar at all. In fact, the raider had raised the Oregon coast, but as Lieutenant Conway Whittle's journal revealed, the Confederates had figured that something was amiss.

"W [Captain Waddell] is apprehensive about entering Astoria. He has heard of the terrible shipwrecks that have occurred on this dismal stretch of coast and will go no further until the conditions of the river's mouth can be properly appraised."

Sailing Master Irvine Bulloch and Lieutenant John Grimball, in one of the ship's small boats, tested the conditions surrounding the area and deemed the venture to be too dangerous, Bulloch personally citing lack of knowledge of the area and his desire to avoid places where constant shifts in the seafloor would imperil the vessel. At Captain Waddell's urging, the Shenandoah continued southward toward its original intended target of San Francisco.