Category: Nautical History
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New Book Reveals Arsene Latour’s Adventures
Engineer-mapmaker, War of 1812 historian, architect and erstwhile secret agent Arsene Lacarriere Latour comes vibrantly to life in the new English translation of “A Visionary Adventurer, Arsene Lacarriere Latour 1778-1837, the Unusual Travels of a Frenchman in the Americas” by Jean Garrigoux. Originally printed in French in 1997, the Latour biography was translated by retired…
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Pirates, Privateers and Ethics in the New Orleans Courtroom
Ethics meant everything to attorney John Dick, an Irish emigrant to New Orleans. He felt compelled in May 1813 to ensure everyone else knew that, too, even if it meant possibly provoking a duel with his nemesis, District Attorney John Randolph Grymes, over a recently completed case involving a French pirate Grymes had represented…
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Bicentennial of Jean Laffite’s Takeover of Galveston Is April 8
Privateer Jean Laffite, a hero of the Battle of New Orleans, took control of the Island of Galveston in a bloodless coup two hundred years ago this April 8, taking the small pirate base which had been used by Louis-Michel Aury as a point from which to prey against Spanish shipping. Although he had ostensibly…
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The True Tale of Mitchell, the Zombie Pirate
When notorious Gulf Coast pirate William Mitchell came back from the dead in 1835, he looked like a zombie from Hell. One-eyed, the man was covered with horrible scars, evidence of many deep and dangerous wounds he had suffered in his life. The worst of these the grey-haired 56-year-old bore in the front of his…
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The Bizarre Case of the Wannabe Pirate
Methodist missionary Daniel F. De Putron sought more adventure in his life, so in late spring of 1841 he bought a small schooner in New Orleans, got a sidekick of an affable Irishman with the nickname of “Happy Jack,” and kept a skull and crossbones flag ready for the moment when he planned to partner…
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Paddy Scott: The Irish Pirate Who Plagued Mobile
Irish pirate Paddy Scott terrorized residents and visitors of the Mobile Bay area for some ten years over the 1820s and 1830s, earning himself national notoriety as that “vile pirate.” Oddly, no one now seems to know his story at all, and his legend lies dormant, buried with his bones. Only the old contemporary newspapers are…
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The Spy Who Led the British to the Back Door of New Orleans in 1814
Because he was multilingual and adept at spying, the 23-year-old Capt. Robert Cavendish Spencer, an ancestor of the current British royal family, was one of the most valuable assets the British forces had during their 1814-1815 campaign to take New Orleans during the War of 1812. “Captain Spencer (of the HMS Carron) was very usefully…
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Patterson’s Mistake: the Battle of Lake Borgne Revisited
American Commodore Daniel T. Patterson made the single biggest mistake of the Louisiana portion of the War of 1812 when he deployed almost all of his naval force to patrol and spy along the coastal area of Lake Borgne in December 1814 while he remained in New Orleans. His tactical error not only gave the…