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Below is a transcription of a newspaper article that
appeared in the Baltimore Sun magazine on May 8, 1983 and was written by
Carleton Jones. The copy of this article was supplied by Dana Daffin, whose
grandfather, Francis Dawes Daffin, was among the men who volunteered for
this Zouave outfit and participated in the capture of the ship. According
to Dana, this is how his grandfather made it to Virginia to be in the confederate
Army.
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A Colonel In Petticoats
by Carleton Jones
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| From the BALTIMORE SUN MAGAZINE - May 8, 1983 |
One
afternoon in June of 1861, the 1200 ton side wheel steamer St. Nicholas
puttered out of Baltimore harbor southbound. On deck were a number of ladies
of Confederate sympathies who were returning to Virginia or moving out
of turbulent Baltimore. Behind the steamship, in the fading sunlight, the
city lay seething in the aftermath of riots and military occupation. Union
Gen. Nathaniel Banks had just locked up the city's police chief on charges
of treason.
On
board the St. Nicholas that afternoon was a lady dressed in smart French
attire, set off from the other rather rustic passengers, deck hands, and
Chesapeake Bay roustabouts. Porters had piled her cabin high with millinery
trunks, the Nineteenth Century version of ladies' luggage.
The
St. Nicholas was primarily a freighter that made cargo stops all along
the bay, and it was also a supply ship for a powerful Union warship, the
USS Pawnee, which patrolled Maryland-Virginia waters on the lookout for
Confederate gunboats and shoreside snipers.
Around
midnight at Point Lookout, where the Potomac enters the bay, the St. Nicholas
was brought to, and several men were taken on board as passengers. As they
lounged around on the deck, the ship resumed it's course and the "French
lady" retired to her cabin. "She" soon emerged in the uniform of a Confederate
Army Zouave, armed with a cutlass and revolver. The Point Lookout passengers
armed themselves with guns that had been concealed in the millinery trunks,
cornered the captain in his wheelhouse and took the ship.
One
witness later said the "French lady" had played her part to perfection
that afternoon, "tossing her fan about and even coquetting with a Federal
officer who was among the passengers," according to a detailed history
of the incident by Charles A. Earp published in 1940 in the Maryland
Historical Magazine.
The St. Nicholas swept triumphantly down the bay unopposed, hauling
unsuspecting and helpless freighters into tow at gunpoint - a brig out
of Rio de Janeiro loaded with coffee, a collier and an ice ship, all carrying
valuable cargoes for the Southern cause.
At
Fredericksburg the Rebel pirates were treated like heroes and the "French
lady" was made a colonel in the Virginia volunteers. The South rocked with
exultant laughter when the tale reached the newspapers.
The
"lady" was soon identified as Richard Thomas of Mattapany, the son of a
speaker of the house. He was 28, an international adventurer who had once
been a member of Garibaldi's liberation army in Italy, where he was known
as "Zarvona"
Foolishly,
Thomas decided to pull his trick once more, and in female gear, hoopskirts,
wig and all, boarded a steamer headed for Baltimore. He was quickly recognized
by two Baltimore policemen on board, taken off at Fort McHenry and confined
to Union jails for two years. Pleading ill health, the prisoner was allowed
to be exchanged and seems to have abandoned his career as a Confederate
spy-pirate. He emigrated, in fact. And where did he choose to go?
Why,
to Paris, of course. |
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