The Virginius Affair was a diplomatic dispute that played out between October 1873 and February 1875 between the United States, Great Britain, and Spain. Virginius was a fast American ship that had been hired by Cuban insurrectionists to land men and munitions in Cuba during the Ten Years' War, the first of three late-19th century uprisings against Spanish rule in Cuba. The ship was captured by the Spanish, who wanted to try the men onboard (many of whom were American and British citizens) as pirates and execute them. The Spanish executed 53 men in Santiago de Cuba, but stopped when the British government intervened.
Through the first month of the affair there was agitation for war in both the United States and Spain, but as more was learned tensions faded on both sides, and the threat of war had largely evaporated by the end of December. However, it took more than a year after that for the final details to be settled, largely because of the ineffectiveness of the original American envoy to Spain, Daniel Sickles, and two turnovers of the Spanish government. In the end the Spanish government compensated British families for the deaths of British citizens, and subsequently newly appointed US consul Caleb Cushing ended the episode by negotiating for reparations to be paid to the families of the remainder of the executed men, American or otherwise. The settlement of the issue through diplomacy represented a major achievement for US Secretary of State Hamilton Fish.
Ten Years' War After the American Civil War, the island country of Cuba under Spanish rule was one of the few Western Hemisphere countries where slavery remained legal and was widely practiced.Bradford, pp. 6–7. On October 10, 1868, an uprising by Cuban landowners that became known as the Ten Years' War began, with Carlos Manuel de Céspedes claiming the title of President of Cuba in Arms..Bradford, pp. 7–8. The Spanish, led initially by the Captain-General of Cuba, Francisco de Lersundi y Hormaechea, used the military to try to suppress the rebellion.Bradford, p. 8. In 1870, American Secretary of State Hamilton Fish persuaded President Grant not to recognize Cuban belligerency, and the United States maintained an unstable peace with Spain.Bradford, pp. 5, 14.
As the Cuban war continued, international support for the insurgency began to arise, with war bonds being sold in the US to support the rebellion.Bradford, p. 12. One of the Cubans' American supporters was John F. Patterson, who, in 1870, bought a former Confederate blockade runner, the Virgin, that was laid up at the Washington Navy Yard, and renamed her Virginius.Bradford, p. 16. The legality of Patterson's purchase of Virginius would later come to national and international attention.Bradford, pp. 100–101. The Cuban rebellion ended in an 1878 armistice after Spanish general Arsenio Martínez-Campos pardoned all Cuban rebels.Bradford, pp. 136–137.
Virginius Virginius was a small, high-speed side-wheel steamer built to serve as a blockade runner, operating between Havana and Mobile, Alabama, for the Confederacy during the Civil War.Bancroft, p. 25.Soodalter, p. 62. Originally built as Virgin by Aitken & Mansel of Whiteinch, Glasgow in 1864, she became a prize of the United States when captured on April 12, 1865. In August 1870, Virginius was purchased by an American, John F. Patterson, acting secretly as an agent for Cuban insurgent Manuel de Quesada and two US citizens, Marshall O. Roberts and J.K. Roberts. The ship was originally captained by Francis Sheppherd. Both Patterson and Shepphard immediately registered the ship in the New York Custom House, having paid $2,000 to be bonded. However, no sureties were listed.Bancroft, p. 26. Patterson took a required oath attesting that he was the sole owner of Virginius. The secret purpose of purchasing Virginius was to transport men, munitions, and supplies to aid the Cuban rebellion. She operated in this role for three years under the protection of US naval ships, including and . The Spanish said that it was an outlaw ship and aggressively sought to capture it.
Capture, trial, and executions
Captain Joseph Fry was made the new captain of Virginius in October 1873.Soodalter, p. 64. Fry had served in the US Navy for 15 years before joining the Confederacy during the Civil War. Fry rose to the rank of Commodore in the Confederate Navy. With the war's end in 1865, Fry found himself underemployed. He took charge of Virginius while she was moored at Kingston, Jamaica. By this time she was badly in need of repair, with boilers that were breaking down.Soodalter, p. 63. As most of the previous crew had deserted, Fry recruited a new crew of 52 American and British men, many of them inexperienced (three being under 13 years of age) and not aware that Virginius was supporting the Cuban rebellion. The ship took on 103 native Cuban soldiers who had arrived on a steamer from New York. The US Consul at Kingston, Thomas H. Pearne, had warned Fry that he would be shot if captured. However, Fry did not believe the Spanish would shoot a blockade runner.Hartford Weekly (November 22, 1873), The Cuban Massacre In mid-October, Captain Fry, accompanied by his four most prominent passengers, Pedro de Céspedes (brother of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes), Bernabé Varona, Jesús del Sol, and William A.C. Ryan, took Virginius to Haiti and loaded the ship with munitions.Soodalter, pp. 63–64. On October 30, Virginius sailed to Comito to pick up more weapons and then, on the same day, started toward Cuba. The Spanish had been warned when Virginius left Jamaica and sent out the warship to capture the vessel.
On October 30, 1873 Tornado spotted Virginius on open water from Cuba and gave chase. Virginius was heavily weighted, and the stress from the boilers caused the ship to take on water, significantly slowing any progress.Bradford, pp. 38–41. As the chase continued, Tornado, a fast warship, fired on Virginius several times, damaging the top deck. Captain Fry surrendered Virginius, knowing that, with his ship's overworked boilers and leaking hull, he could not outrun Tornado on the open sea. The Spanish quickly boarded and secured the ship, taking the crew and its passengers prisoner and sailing the ship to Santiago de Cuba.Bradford, pp. 43, 45.
The Spanish immediately ordered all aboard to be put on trial as pirates.Bradford, p. 45. The entire Virginius crew, both American and British citizens, as well as the Cuban insurgents, were found guilty by a court martial and were sentenced to death. The Spanish ignored the protest of the US vice-consul, who attempted to give American citizens legal aid. On November 4, 1873, the four insurgent leaders aboard were executed by firing squad without trial, having already been condemned as a pirates. After the executions, the British vice-consul at Santiago, concerned by the fact that one of the individuals killed, George Washington Ryan, claimed British citizenship, wired Jamaica to ask for aid from the Royal Navy to stop further executions.Bradford, pp. 47–48. Hearing news of the ship's capture and the executions, Altamont de Cordova, a Jamaican resident, was able to get British Commodore A.F.R. de Horsey to send the sloop under Sir Lambton Loraine, 11th Baronet to Santiago to stop further executions.Bradford, pp. 48–49. On November 7, an additional 37 men, including Captain Fry, were executed by firing squad.Bradford, pp. 52–53. The executioners' aim was said to have been bad, so they finished the job in a grisly fashion, decapitating them and trampling their bodies with horses. On November 8, twelve more crew members were executed; but at this point the USS Wyoming, under the command of Civil War Naval hero William Cushing, and HMS Niobe both reached Santiago.Bradford, p. 54. The carnage stopped on the same day, as Cushing (and possibly the British Captain Lorraine) warned local commander Juan N. Burriel that he would bombard Santiago if there were any more executions, leaving the final death toll at 53. In an interview that Burriel requested with Sir Lambton Lorraine, he attempted to shake hands with the English captain, who stood straight and exclaimed, "I will not shake hands with a butcher".
US public reaction The initial press reaction to the capture of Virginius was muted, but as news of executions poured into the nation, certain newspapers became aggressive in promoting war, or at least formal recognition of Cuban belligerency.Bradford, pp. 64–65. The New York Times opined that if the executions of Americans from Virginius were illegal, war needed to be declared.Bradford, p. 65. The New York Tribune asserted that actions of Burriel and the Cuban Volunteers necessitated "the death knell of Spanish power in America." The New York Herald demanded Secretary Hamilton Fish's resignation and the recognition by the US of Cuban belligerency. The National Republican, believing that war with Spain was imminent, encouraged the sale of Cuban bonds.Bradford, p. 64. The American public considered the executions to be a national insult and rallied for intervention. Protest rallies took place across the nation in New Orleans, St. Louis, and Georgia, encouraging intervention in Cuba and vengeance against Spain.Bradford, pp. 65–66.
The British Minister to the United States, Sir Edward Thornton, believed the American public was ready for war with Spain.Bradford, p. 66 A large rally in New York's Steinway Hall on November 17, 1873, led by future Secretary of State William Evarts, took a moderate position, and the meeting adopted a resolution that war would be necessary, yet regrettable, if Spain chose to "consider our defense against savage butchery as a cause of war...."Bradford, pp. 70–71.
US diplomatic response
Hamilton Fish and State Department
On Wednesday, November 5, 1873, the US Consul-General in Havana, Henry C. Hall, informed the US State Department that Virginius had been captured.Bradford, p. 57. Secretary of State Hamilton Fish believed the Virginius was just another ship captured aiding the Cuban rebellion; no one in the American administration was yet aware of the first four executions However, with Cuba heading the agenda of the November 7 meeting of the American cabinet, news came in during the meeting of the deaths of Ryan and the three Cubans.Bradford, p. 57–58. The Cabinet agreed that the executions would be "regarded as an inhuman act not in accordance with the spirit of the civilization of the nineteenth century."Bradford, p. 58. On November 8, Fish met with Spanish minister Don José Polo de Bernabé and discussed the legality of the capture of Virginius.Bradford, pp. 58–59.
On November 11, Grant's Cabinet decided that war with Spain was not desirable, but intervention in the rebellion on the side of Cuba remained possible.Bradford, p. 59. On November 12, five days after the event, Fish received the devastating news that 37 additional men had been executed.Bradford, p. 60. Fish ordered US Minister to Spain Daniel Sickles to protest the executions and demand reparations for any persons considered US citizens who were killed. On November 13, Fish formally protested to Polo and stated that the US had a free hand on Cuba because of the Virginius Affair. On November 14, Grant's cabinet agreed that if US reparation demands were not met, the Spanish legation would be closed. That day a report came into the White House that more crew members had been shot, but it turned out that "only" twelve additional people had been executed.Bradford, p. 61. On November 15, Polo visited Fish and stated that Virginius was a pirate ship and that her crew had been a hostile threat to Cuba.Bradford, p. 62–63. Fish, although doubtful that the ship really represented US territory because of questions about its ownership, was determined to stand up for the nation's honor by demanding reparations from Spain.Bradford, p. 63.