The Salvador Pirates

Benjamin F. Gäbert received his doctorate at the University of California in 1951 and is now Professor of History at San Jose State College. He has written articles for scholarly journals on California history and on the Civil War, and is also the author of a history of San Jose State College and a report on western mining history, the latter prepared for the National Park Service. The Salvador Pirates BENJAMIN FRANKLIN GILBERT throughout the course of the Civil War the Confederate states looked gingerly toward the Pacific, aspiring primarily to capture California gold ships and to ravage the important United States whaling industry. If the Confederacy had gold, her weak finances could be bolstered; and if tiie North had less whale oil, perhaps the productive capacity of her war machine could be diminished. In the Pacific Coast ports of Panama, San Francisco, and Vancouver, Confederate agents and sympathizers plotted to outfit privateers to accomplish these ends, but none of the plots succeeded. Actually the only depredations committed upon United State shipping in the Pacific occurred in the final phase of the war, when the CS.S. "Shenandoah" sank four whalers at Ascension Island in the Carolinas on April 1, 1865, and then perpetrated additional havoc in tiie North Pacific and Arctic after the war. The Confederate Navy Department initiated its supreme effort in tiie Pacific when it enlisted Thomas E. Hogg, an erstwhile resident of New Orleans, to capture Panama steamers plying between San Francisco and tiie Isthmus. An adventurer, Hogg had served briefly in tiie Confederate Army as a lieutenant and adjutant of tiie Second Regiment of tiie Arizona Brigade.1 In April, 1864, he was appointed master's mate in tiie Confederate Navy.2 1 Special Order No. 81, February 21, 1863, Hdqts., Dist. of Tex., N.M., and Ariz., in War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, D.C: Government Printing Office, 18801901 ), Ser. I, Vol. 50, Pt. 2, pp. 332-33; hereinafter cited as O.R., followed by the series number in Roman numerals, die volume in Arabic, die part number ( if any), and die pages, as O.R., I, 50, pt. 2, pp. 332-33. At times Hogg used die aliases Edgerton, Egenton, and Essen. 2 Register of Officers of the Confederate States Navy, 1861-1865 (rev. ed.; Washington , D.C: Government Printing Office, 1931 ), p. 90. 294 Prior to receipt of tiie appointment, Hogg had earlier acted on his own as a civilian in a military venture. In 1863 he devised a scheme to capture merchant ships by tiie simple expedient of organizing a party to board a vessel as ordinary passengers and then, when at sea, to overpower the crew and requisition the ship. The plan was approved by General Hamilton P. Bee, commanding Confederate forces at Brownsville , Texas, and Hogg went to work. He procured a ship's register blank from tiie local customs collector and crossed tiie Rio Grande to Matamoros , Mexico, where he enlisted a crew of five Irishmen.3 On November 16, 1863, tiie party boarded tiie American schooner "Joseph L. Gerrity," bound for New York witii a cargo of cotton. Two nights later Hogg and his cohorts imprisoned Captain J. Nicholas and tiie crew. Once in command, Hogg changed tiie course and sailed southward . On tiie 26th the prisoners were left in a small boat off Cape Catoche along the isolated Yucatan coast Thence tiie "Gerrity" proceeded to Belize, British Honduras, where Hogg entered her as tiie blockade-runner "Eureka." Here he sold tiie cotton and dismissed his associates. Eventually tiie original American crew reached tiie office of the United States consul at Sisal, Yucatan. Word of tiie incident was immediately communicated to Belize, where a United States commercial agent tried to have tiie Confederates arrested. Unfortunately, before British authorities could intervene, Hogg escaped to Graytown, Nicaragua ; thence he crossed tiie country to the Pacific and journeyed south to Panama. From that place he sailed to Nassau and by May 3 was in Richmond, reporting his success to the Confederate Secretary of State, Judah P. Benjamin.4 On May 7, 1864, Stephen R. Mallory, Confederate Secretary...