Virginius Affair

The Virginius Affair

The side-wheel steamer Virginius, built during the American Civil War as a Confederate blockade runner, was under lease to Cuban patriots based in New York City, and was flying the American flag that day in October 1873. She left Kingston, Jamaica, and sailed for Port-au-Prince, Haiti, where on October 27, she was loaded with 500 rifles, 400 revolvers, 600 machetes, several cannons, medicines, clothes, and boxes of ammunition, destined for the Ejercito Libertador de Cuba [Cuban Liberation Army]. Spies in Kingston had alerted Spanish officials in Cuba of her departure and she was intercepted by the Spanish man-of-war, Tornado just off the coast of Cuba

A wild chase back towards Jamaican waters ensued and the Tornado caught up with the Virginius six miles off the coast of Jamaica - well within British waters. Firing shots across the bow of the Virginius, the Tornado forced her to a standstill and the Spanish boarded her. Her entire compliment of crew and passengers, 155 men in all, were arrested on charges of piracy, transferred to the Tornado, and taken to Santiago de Cuba.

There were immediate protests from the US whose flag the Virginius flew (illegally, as it turned out) and from England, in whose waters the Virginius had been taken. The Spanish comandante, brigadier general Juán Nepomuceno Burriel, refused to meet with the consuls of either US or England, and the 52 crew members, predominantly American and British subjects, and the 103 passengers, mostly Cuban expatriates, were sentenced to death on a charge of piracy. Among the passengers was Pedro María de Céspedes, the brother of the leader of the revolutionary forces in Cuba, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, shown on the right.

On the third day following their capture, Burriel visited Pedro María de Céspedes in jail, and, for an hour, tried to get him to write to his brother to tell him of the situation and offered to spare the life of Pedro Maria and his friends if Carlos Manuel would surrender himself to Burriel.

On November 4, 1873, Pedro María and three other Cuban officers were shot by a firing squad in Santiago de Cuba. A few days later, 37 officers and members of the crew of the Virginius were also executed. Twelve more passengers were executed a day or two later, and only the appearance of a British warship, the Niobe, under the command of Sir Lambton Loraine, its guns trained on Santiago de Cuba, prevented further executions.

In Washington a settlement was worked out and, on December 16, Spanish naval personnel towed the Virginius from Santiago de Cuba to Bahia Honda, 60 miles west of Havana, and turned her over to US naval authorities. On the last leg of the journey, the Virginius sank off South Carolina during a storm, and on December 18, 1873, Spain released its remaining prisoners along with an payment of $80,000 to be shared by the families of those executed.