As far as I know there has been no important work on international law published in the past fifty years that has not contained a discussion of the "case" of the Virginius. The "Virginius affair," as it was called in the newspapers, created great excitement in this country, an excitement that lasted for weeks, and it was the cause of the mobilization of the ships of our European, North Atlantic, and South Atlantic squadrons at Key West early in 1874. As this controversy brought us to the verge of war with Spain, a backward glance at it may prove not unprofitable.
The Virginius was a small, iron, paddle wheel steamer, of fine lines and great speed, built on the Clyde in 1864, and intended to be used as a blockade runner. She ran the blockade two or three times, but was finally captured by one of our gunboats and placed under the orders of the Treasury Department, which later transferred her to the Freedman's Bureau. Presumably her great coal consumption and small cargo space militated against her usefulness, for, after having passed through other hands, she was finally sold to one John F. Patterson in August, 1870. The ownership by Patterson of the Virginius is questionable, for there is every reason to suppose that he was acting for the Cuban Junta when he bought her, or, if not, that he sold her to the Junta immediately after he acquired her. From October, 1870, until her career was brought to its abrupt close, she was engaged in several expeditions helpful to the Cuban cause, two or three of them consisting of landing various military arms and equipment on the south side of the island for use by the Cuban "patriots."
From October, 1870, on she did not return to an American port, but continued to have a questionable claim to American registry, as American papers had been taken out by her at the New York Custom House in September, 1870. These papers seem. to have answered all her purposes for the next three years.1
On October 28, 1873, the Virginius left Port-au-Prince, Haiti, with a large amount of war material, said to have included several hundred rifles, revolvers and sabres, together with a large quantity of ammunition, as well as clothing, medicine and provisions. All these were to be slipped into Cuba for the use of the insurgents, then engaged in their Ten Years' War against Spain; but the previous filibustering voyages of the Virginius had made the Spanish officials suspicious of her and they evidently had an agent in Port-au-Prince who informed them of her departure, for, on October 31, being then off the south coast of Cuba, she was sighted and chased by the Spanish gunboat Tornado. The Virginius had on board, crew and passengers, 155 men, consisting of Americans, British, and Cuban "patriots." The captain made strenuous efforts to gain Jamaican waters, even throwing overboard a considerable portion of his cargo, but as her bottom was foul, she having been in tropical waters without docking for over a year, her speed was so much reduced that the captain's efforts were in vain, though before she surrendered to the Tornado she had covered more than half the distance to Jamaica, being thus in a position far from Cuban territorial waters. After her capture she was taken to Santiago de Cuba, where, on November 4, four of her crew, by order of the commander of the Spanish forces, were shot, and three days later thirty-seven more of the prisoners, including her captain, shared the same fate.2
1In his opinion delivered December 19, 1873, Mr. Williams, Attorney General of the United States, found that the Virginius had no right to fly American colors, by reason of her unlawful registry in the United States.
2If any of my readers having access to a copy of that useful book of reference, the Register of Graduates of the Naval Academy, will turn to the second class graduated from the Academy—that which entered in 1841—they will find that graduate No. 148 was Joseph Fry and get the further information that he "res. Feb. 1, '61, Lt." and further that he was "killed, Nov. 7, '73, Santiago de Cuba." Joseph Fry was the captain of the Virginius.
The good work went on, for, on the eighth, twelve more of the crew were given the same medicine, despite the protest of the British Consul, the American Consul being at that time absent on leave. The remaining 102 of the unfortunates might have gone the same road as that traveled by their companions had it not been for the timely arrival of the British sloop-of-war Niobe, Captain Sir Lambton Loraine. With his ship cleared for action and guns loaded, Sir Lambton protested against the further illegal butchery of helpless prisoners. This prompt action put an end to the slaughter. The survivors were incarcerated in Moro Castle for a time and ultimately turned over to the U. S. sloop-of-war Juniata, Commander Braine, by which they were transported to New York, where the Cuban Junta took charge of them.3
To continue the story of the Virginius it seems to me that I can do no better than insert a paragraph from Maclay's History of the Navy (p. 41).
If possible, the outcome of this affair was more disgraceful to the United States than the outrage itself. After long correspondence the Spanish Government disclaimed all responsibility for the shooting, agreed to pay an indemnity of eighty thousand dollars, "punish those who have offended," surrender the Virginius and salute the American flag. General Burriel, the really culpable official in the transaction, was "punished" by speedy promotion. The Virginius had been carried in triumph to Havana, where she had been received with every demonstration of delight, but it was not at Havana that the flag was rehoisted and saluted. She was taken to the obscure port of Bahia Honda, where the only witnesses of the international ceremony were the hills of the bay and a few fishermen who knew nothing of its significance. When the Americans took possession of the Virginius, they found that she had been purposely defiled and rendered filthy, and left in such an unseaworthy condition that she sank on her way north.
3I joined the Juniata in April, 1874, and was told by one of the officers in her at the time she took these survivors north that they were nearly all Cuban "patriots," and a sorry lot, with undesirable habits, and it was a great relief when New York was reached and they could be got rid of.
4This title was changed to that of lieutenant, junior grade, by Act of Congress, August, 1882.
The Virginius was turned over to the U.S.S. Despatch at Bahia Honda on December 16. From the Despatch she received a crew of about forty men and three officers, Lieutenant A. Marix, Master4 G. A. Calhoun, and Second Assistant Engineer N. H. Lamdin. The run from Bahia Honda to Dry Tortugas, Florida, where the Virginius had been ordered, was quickly and easily made, the water being like a mill pond. The Despatch convoyed her. Arriving at Dry Tortugas, the sloop-of-war Ossipee, Commander Watters, was found at anchor awaiting her. Lieutenant Marix was relieved of the command of the Virginius by Lieutenant Commander D. C. Woodrow, the former returning to the Despatch. The following named officers of the Ossipee were also detailed to the Virginius, First Assistant Engineer A. Kirby and Midshipmen F. H. Tyler and E. B. Underwood.5
The Virginius had been turned over to us by the Spaniards in sorry shape. She was dirty in the extreme, leaked badly, her hatches had disappeared, the companionways had been shattered, compasses smashed, furniture broken and damaged. The tanks in the toilets were of lead and each had been laid open by the blow of an axe or hatchet—wanton acts of Spanish vandalism. Clocks and gauges had been taken down, gutted of their works, then filled with unmentionable filth and returned to their places. The ship was alive with cockroaches—the large, tropical kind, the kind that fly at night and can be heard to bring up with a thud against a bulkhead. Tyler and I found billets for our mattresses on a transom at the extreme after end of the cabin, close to the rudder casing, but the second night out a following sea broke in one of the after deadlights, and we were driven, with wet mattresses, to the cabin floor.
Working parties from the Ossipee and the Despatch were sent aboard the Virginius as soon as she arrived at Dry Tortugas and they did everything possible to fit her for the trip north, including coaling her from a coal schooner that had been sent there to meet her. There were two serious defects, however, that could not be greatly remedied, one being the broken down condition of the boilers that had evidently deteriorated greatly in the desperate attempt to escape from the Tornado, and the other being a serious leak in the port bow, which kept the forward compartment about one-third full of water. There was no way of pumping this out, the limber holes in the forward bulkhead having been plugged in order to prevent the water from reaching the fireroom and putting out the fires. Bailing seemed to have no effect upon it.
5Tyler and I had left the Naval Academy the previous spring and were making our first cruise after graduation.
However, after a fashion, defects were remedied and repairs made, and at two o'clock in the morning of December 19 we started for New York, all hands praying that good weather might be our portion. The Ossipee towed us with a twelve-inch manila hawser, at a scope of about 400 feet. We were able to raise steam sufficient to keep the pumps going and barely to turn the engines over. At first the sea was smooth and we were able to keep the water down with our main engine pump, but as Lieutenant Commander Woodrow said in his report: "As we proceeded north and the sea arose, the working of the ship gradually loosened the rivets of one of the bow plates, an old patch on the bow became loose and she leaked so badly that I had to plug the limber holes in the forward bulkhead to keep the fireroom clear." On the twenty-second we lightened the ship by throwing overboard the port bower anchor and heavy weights stowed in the forehold, such as wire rigging, chain cables, and the like. On the twenty-third we had from nine to ten feet of water in the forward compartment, the bulkhead of which protruded like the stomach of a high-liver. We made some props out of baulks of timber and wedged them against the bulkhead, thereby relieving it of some of the pressure, but we were in momentary fear that it would give way and allow the water to rush aft and put out the fires. All this time the wind was getting up. On the twenty-fourth we signalled our precarious condition to the Ossipee, which headed in toward shore, in order to get into smoother water. On the morning of the twenty-fifth, the wind having increased in violence, the Ossipee ran in and anchored on the Frying Pan shoals, on the coast of North Carolina, with eighty fathoms of chain, in eight fathoms of water, the Virginius riding to her hawser astern. That was a dreary Christmas day for us—anxious in mind, worn out in body, all clothing and bedding soaked, and no food except ship's provisions badly cooked and poorly served.
At four o'clock in the morning of the twenty-sixth our last boiler gave out and the water began to rise in the engine room and flood the fires. We then signalled to the Ossipee to take us off. At that time the forward compartment was full of water up to within a foot and a half of the spat deck, there were four feet of water in the forehold, and the water was over the grate bars in the fire-rooms. Nothing could now save the vessel, and at daylight the Ossipee shortened in the tow line so as to bring us within about 100 feet of her stern, and one of the cutters in charge of a skilful and experienced officer (Lieutenant W. W. Rhoades) was veered down along the hawser till she got under our bows, when our people, taking advantage of each "smooth time," were lowered into her by bowlines. It was slow work, the cutter having to make five trips.
However, we all got safely aboard the Ossipee, but we lost all of our effects.6
The first thing I did on reaching the Ossipee was to have a bath and get into some dry clothes, eat a civilized breakfast, and then turn in for a good sleep. I was up, however, in time to see the last of the Virginius. At 4:17 P. M. she went down, bows very much in advance, her stern rising high in the air. As the water rushed into her after compartment and cabin, the poop deck burst with a loud explosion, and she sank rapidly from sight.7 When she reached bottom, she settled on an even keel, and the fore topmast went by the board, leaving the foremast head a foot or two out of water. As she was about to go down, the towing hawser had been cut and a buoy made fast to the end of it.
At five o'clock, although a terrific gale was blowing, the Ossipee got up anchor and started for New York. It was a mercy that the Virginius was not still in tow, for in that wind and sea, with no sail power, and practically no engine power, she would inevitably have been lost with all hands.
The Ossipee reached New York at noon of December 30, and we then learned that the United States ownership of the Virginius was more than doubtful, and it was openly charged in the Spanish newspapers and covertly hinted in some of our own that she had been purposely sunk in order to relieve the government of an embarrassing situation. Of course these charges were baseless, as everything possible had been done to get her to New York, but the effort was hopeless from the beginning, unless—which was not likely at that time of year—we had had an unusually protracted spell of unusually fine weather.
6Under the then current Navy Regulations, each member of the enlisted force of the Virginius automatically received a credit of thirty dollars on his accounts. This "bag money" was supposed to be sufficient to replace lost clothing and bedding. Under the same regulations, the officers were entitled to not in excess of a month's pay, but each one had to make claim on the Treasury Department, submitting an itemized and sworn-to list of articles lost. I followed this procedure, and months later received a Treasury Department draft for $83.33, the same being a month's sea pay for a midshipman after graduation.
7On seeing her go down, I think my first feeling was one of exultation that her colony of cockroaches had at last got its "come uppance."
We soon got orders to proceed to Washington, where the customary inquiry following the loss of a naval vessed was to be held. The inquiry resulted in a manner entirely favorable to our officers and men concerned. When it was over, the Ossipee was orderd to Norfolk, from which place she had to tow a monitor to Key West, there to become a unit in the mobilization taking place, the Ossipee herself becoming another.
The "Virginius affair" was one of the beginnings of the resentment in this country against the Spanish conduct of affairs in Cuba—a resentment that grew until it finally culminated, a quarter of a century later, in the Spanish War, which resulted in the ejection of Spain from Cuba, let us hope forever.
NOTE: The question of the legal status of the Virginius is both interesting and complicated; any one desiring to read a discussion thereof is referred to Hyde's International Law, vol. I, pp. 114-116.