Six Miles to Charleston Read Online Free Page A

piracy. This new age of piracy realized their own personal flags and banners attracted too much undesired attention, so they learned to be more discreet and often downright covert. In fact, one such enterprising pirate, Captain George Clark, had commanded the Louisa under the flag of Buenos Aires. In 1819, he and members of his crew were housed in the city’s jail and were awaiting trial for piracy.
    The Louisa had been a privateer vessel under the command of Captain Joseph Almeina in the War of 1812. Its armament had been ten guns, and the ship had been manned with forty men. It now boasted sixteen guns and a total of eighty-six men. Under Captain Almeina’s command, it had captured a Spanish vessel, and he placed the ship under the command of his lieutenant, Mr. Smith, as he himself left with a boarding party. The gunner, George Clark (also called Craig), took advantage of this moment and took over the ship in a mutiny. The officers of the vessel who remained in support of the previous captain were confined. They were eventually released to a French freighter. Now under Clark’s command, the Louisa wreaked havoc on the seas. They attacked first a British ship and then an American ship loaded with freight from France. They then sailed to the Isle of May, an island off the coast of Scotland. Once there, Clark plundered two American vessels harbored there—the Charles from New York and the Boston from Alexandria, Virginia. The raid went so well that they then continued on to plunder the entire town.
    They were doing so well that they then set sail toward America and, along the way, plundered a Russian ship, a French vessel and another two American vessels, one bound for Rio de Janeiro and the other from Boston bound for Havana. Up until now, Clark had done surprisingly well and had been amazingly lucky in his endeavors as a pirate. Now, to his misfortune, his luck was about to change. By now the Louisa had suffered damage in the attacks and was also being searched for. Clark noted a passing ship and pretended to be disabled and distressed. The ship cautiously moved in to investigate. Clark met with the American schooner from North Carolina and sent all his crew on board except for about twenty-five. Rest assured he used the pretext that his ship had been attacked by pirates. The unsuspecting North Carolina vessel accepted the crew in this heroic “rescue,” not realizing that they were actually pirates themselves and not victims. Clark’s ruse worked well for his crew.
    Captain Clark and this current handful of men stayed behind and scuttled the ship off the coast of Charleston. They turned its own guns upon the ship, set it on fire and left it in flames. The men and Clark then took lifeboats from the vessel and rowed ashore. They then proceeded to Charleston. Their intent was to plunder Charleston much as they had the Isle of May. Unfortunately Captain Clark’s reign of piracy would come to an end in Charleston in 1819, and his life would come to an end in March 1820 at the end of a rope.
    Piracy was not the only threat that Charleston faced from the sea. In June 1819, a yellow fever epidemic forced Governor John Geddes to issue a quarantine proclamation against vessels arriving at Charleston. The vessels were to drop anchor at Fort Johnson and be inspected prior to sailing into Charleston. The commanding officer of Fort Johnson was ordered to enforce this quarantine, with arms and firepower if necessary, against any vessel violating the proclamation. This created further problems for shipping, and the newly appointed governor had his hands full.
    Fortunately there was the wagon trade.
    Wagons loaded with materials traveled far and wide to reach the Carolina coast. It was not unusual for hides, cotton or tobacco to travel three or four hundred miles to market in efforts to reach the wagon yards of Charleston. While the economy may have been bad and exports dwindling, farmers, trappers and