June 3, 1861. |
 |
| The Savannah. |
October, 1861. |
July 8. |
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pilot-boat No. 7, off Charleston harbor.
She was only fifty-four tons burden, carried one 18-pounder amidships, and was manned by only twenty men. At the close of May she sallied out from Charleston, and, on the 1st of June, captured the merchant brig Joseph, of Maine, laden with sugar, from Cuba, which was sen t into Georgetown, South Carolina, and the Savannah proceeded in search of other prizes.
Three days afterward,
she fell in with the National brig Perry, which she mistook for a merchant vessel, and approached to make her a prize.
When the mistake was discovered, the Savannah turned and tried to escape.
The Perry gave
hot pursuit, and a sharp fight ensued, which was of short duration.
The Savannah surrendered; and her crew, with the papers of the vessel, were transferred to the war-ship Minnesota, the flag-ship of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron, and the prize was sent to New York in charge of Master's Mate McCook.
She was the first vessel bearing the Confederate flag that was captured, and the event produced much gratification among the loyal people.
The captain and crew of the Savannah were imprisoned as pirates, and were afterward tried
as such, in New York, under the proclamation of the President of the 19th of April.1 In the mean time, Jefferson Davis had addressed a letter
to the President, in which he threatened to deal with prisoners in his hands precisely as the commander and crew of the Savannah should be dealt with.
He prepared to carry out that threat by holding Colonel Michael Corcoran, of the Sixty-ninth New York (Irish) Regiment, who was captured near Bull's Run, and others, as hostages, to suffer death if that penalty should be inflicted on the prisoners of the Savannah.2 Meanwhile the subject had been much discussed at home,3 and commanded attention abroad, especially
1 See page 872.
2 Corcoran was treated with great harshness He was handcuffed and placed in a solitary cell, with a chain attached to the floor, until the mental excitement produced by this ignominious treatment, combining with a susceptible constitution, and the infectious nature of the locality (Libby Prison), brought on an attack of typhoid fever. See Judge Daley's public letter to Senator Harris, December 21, 1861.
3 On the 21st of December, Charles P. Daley, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in the city of New York, addressed a letter to Ira Harris, of the United States Senate, in discussion of the question, “Are Southern Privateersmen pirates?” in which he took the ground, first, that they were on the same level, in the grade of guilt, with every Southern soldier, and that if one must suffer death for piracy, the others must suffer the same for treason; and, secondly, by having so far acceded to the Confederates the rights of belligerents as to exchange prisoners, the Government could not consistently make a distinction between prisoners taken on land and those taken on the sea. He strongly recommended, as a measure of expediency, that the President should treat the “privateersmen,” who had been convicted, and were awaiting sentence, as prisoners of war. He also pleaded in extenuation of the rebellious acts of the people of the South, that, through their want of information concerning the people of the North, they had “been hurried into their present position by the professional politicians and large landed proprietors, to whom they had hitherto been accustomed to confide the management of their public affairs.”
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