Salvador Pirates

In 1864, the Confederate Navy ordered Captain Thomas Egenton Hogg and his men to board a coastal steamer in Panama City, take it over at sea, and use it to attack Pacific Mail ships and whalers in the North Pacific. The U.S. consul in Havana, Thomas Savage, learned of the plan and alerted Rear Admiral George F. Pearson in Panama City. He had passengers watched, and when Hogg’s group was found on the steamer Salvador, sailors from the USS Lancaster arrested them and took them to San Francisco. Known as the Salvador Pirates, they were tried by military commission, sentenced to hang, but General Irvin McDowell commuted their sentences. He then ordered all weapons surrendered upon boarding American merchant steamers, with passengers and baggage searched and officers armed.