Speaking of words...

hands could no longer be dragooned from american ships

Is this a common usage of this one? I knew exactly what was meant, but haven't heard it used this way, in the sense of shanghai: To kidnap (a man) for compulsory service aboard a ship, especially after drugging him. ETYMOLOGY: After Shanghai, from the former custom of kidnapping sailors to man ships going to China. (Courtesy AHD)

The term used more broadly, without the connotation of drugging anybody, was "press," where the press-gangs would go out and collect men off the street to serve aboard ship, but that sense of the word has definitely faded.