Long and Varied Career of USS Nightingale-- Part 5: Slaves Freed and the Disastrous Cruise Home

SAGA AS A PRIZE

The Saratoga's skipper, Commander Alfred Taylor,  placed a prize crew on board the Nightingale, under the command of Lt. John J. Guthrie.  The captured slaver/clipper got underway on the 23rd April for Liberia, a nation founded in 1822 by the American Colonization  Society as a refuge for  freed American slaves.

En route,  a fever raged through the ship, killing 160  of the now freed slaves  and one member of the crew.  After arriving in Monrovia, Liberia's capital,  on 7 May, the Nightingale landed her  passengers, fumigated the living quarters and sailed for the United States on May 13.

During the first part of the cruise, fever  seriously weakened the crew, at one point leaving  only 7 of her  34-man crew fit for duty.    Two more sailors died before the scourge began to subside.

The Nightingale reached New York City on June 15, 1861.

--Old B-Runner

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