There has been a lot of mystery surrounding the true history of Confederate States Marine sergeant, George P. Canning, with some web sites making a large number of unsubstantiated assumptions about Canning, which are not backed up by actual documented sources. Then there are those who take this unverified data, and continue to spread it further afield, without trying to confirm such information.
I have, today, been able to verify some of the actual service data of Canning, as stated by Canning to his fellow crew members on the CSS SHENANDOAH, and which is recorded in the journals of several of the officers of the cruiser. Thanks especially to a fellow researcher, Caroline Hancock, in North Carolina, I now have copies of actual documents and letters of Canning, proving that his service as aide to General Polk, as well as his English background, and fluency in French, was definitely true. Canning states, in one letter, that he had been educated in Paris, and he also requests, in a dispatch sent to President Jefferson Davis, a commission in the Confederate Army. He never did receive this commission, but was eventually discharged from service, having been described as a "British subject."
Anyway, much has now been confirmed, and further details located on this fine gentleman, who eventually went to Australia, then stowed away aboard the SHENANDOAH, and was to pass away, at the end of October, 1865, and be buried at sea. We are slowly peeling back the mystery surrounding Canning, as well as several others who went aboard the SHENANDOAH, which material will eventually be compiled into a publication.