The Long and Varied Saga of the USS Nightingale-- Part 4:

AS A SLAVER

In the fall of 1860, the Nightingale arrived in England from New York.  Word soon got around the docks that she was  going to become a slaver.  A cover was devised where she supposedly was loading with  cargo of guns, powder and cotton cloth with the intention of going to St. Thomas.

She sailed several times from Cabinda, Angola.  During that time, some 2,000 Africans were transported in irons on their way to become slaves.

SEIZURE

About midnight on 20-21 April 1861, two boats from the  sloop of war USS Saratoga pulled silently  toward a darkened ship anchored near the mouth of the Congo River at Cabinda, Angola.  After clambering aboard the Nightingale, a suspected slaver from Boston, Massachusetts, the American sailors and Marines found 961 men, women and children chained between the decks.

Of those, some 160 died while the ship was en route to Liberia where they were to be released.   When the ship was taken, it was in the process of loading even more slaves to go to America.

--Old Secesh