The Voyage of the Catalpa: A Perilous Journey and Six Irish Rebels' Flight to Freedom

by Stevens, Peter F.

• ISBN13: 9780786709748
• ISBN10: 078670974X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-02-19
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

The whaling ship Catalpa set out from New Bedford, Massachusetts, on the morning of April 29, 1875, to undertake a daring yearlong mission of international rescue. American captain George Anthony risked his career as a whalerand his lifeto rescue a group of British-soldiers-turned-Irish-rebels known as "The Fremantle Six" from their prison in Australia. With the help of the prison chaplain, the six men escaped to the coast where Anthony was waiting with a small whaleboat that would take them to the Catalpa. The resistance they overcame, both from armed British vessels and a furious sea storm, made their escape the stuff of legend. In what Britain considered a near act of war, the Catalpa outran the Royal Navy and deposited its politically dangerous cargo in New York Harbor in August 1876. Fast-paced, compelling, and meticulously researched, this saga of American, Irish, British, and Australian history is the first full telling of the Catalpa's voyage. The expedition was embraced by Irish and Irish-Americans as the very symbol of defiance against Great Britain and would loom large in the revolutionary rhetoric of Michael Collins. Though Captain Anthony would never again sail into international waters for fear of arrest by the British government, his rescue voyage, made mostly without the use of a functioning chronometer, is one of the greatest feats of seamanship in nautical annals and one of the most daring deeds performed by an American in the name of Irish independence. Included are eight pages of black-and-white photographs.

Author Biography

Peter F. Stevens is the author of The Rogue's March, and The Mayflower Murderer and Other Forgotten Firsts in American History. His articles regularly appear in American Heritage, American History, Yankee, Civil War Times, Military History, and True West. He lives in Quincy, Massachusetts where he is the News and Features Editor of the Boston Irish Reporter

Table of Contents

Prologue Well on Her Way Now	v
Part 1: Unrepentant Rebels	1	(138)
Desertion for Ireland's Sake	3	(35)
A Floating Hell	38	(11)
In Exile and Chains	49	(15)
The Dragon of Despair	64	(16)
The Penalty of Which is Death	80	(29)
The Companionship of Desperate and Degraded Men	109	(15)
A Path to the Sea	124	(15)
Part 2: A Voice from the Tomb	139	(64)
We Must Not Despair	141	(7)
John Bull Has Not Succeeded in Reforming Us	148	(9)
Until This Thing Is Settled	157	(7)
Just the Man for the Job	164	(14)
We Have Bought a Vessel	178	(18)
A Supreme Test of Pluck	196	(7)
Part 3: Bound for The Establishment	203	(82)
The Other Members of the Syndicate Are Agreed	205	(11)
I Think We Have All the Crew We Need	216	(13)
If She Goes to Hell...	229	(14)
The Door of the Tomb Is Ajar	243	(5)
Very Secure and Well-Guarded	248	(9)
The Very Chart	257	(8)
We Declined Their Money, But Took Their Revolvers	265	(11)
Our Friend Has Reached Port	276	(9)
Part 4: This Chance Can Never Occur Again	285	(58)
Let No Man's Heart Fail Him	287	(8)
The Supreme Test of My Courage	295	(28)
The Open Boat	323	(6)
You Are Firing on the American Flag	329	(14)
Part 5 The Furor and the Fallout	343	(32)
Rolling Home	345	(19)
The Bold Fenian Men	364	(11)
Epilogue	375	(13)
Index	388