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.

The VIRGINIUS
GENERAL:

The VIRGINIUS was an ex-Confederate blockade runner that was used by Cuban rebels and their American collaborators during the first half of the Ten Years' War (1868-1878), Cuba's unsuccessful first attempt to fight for independence from Spain. When Spanish authorities captured the vessel and executed several of its crew members (including American and British citizens) in 1873, war between the United States and Spain temporarily loomed. Although diplomacy averted armed conflict, memories of the incident would later fuel animosities between the two countries when Cuba erupted again in 1895. The "VIRGINIUS Incident" became again very highly publicized as tensions rose before the Spanish American War and during the war itself.

THE VIRGINIUS AFFAIR:

As the nineteenth century progressed, the United States developed strong economic and territorial interests in Latin America in general and Cuba in particular. Remaining part of Spain's overseas empire long after its continental colonies in the Western Hemisphere had achieved independence, Cuba, the “Pearl of the Antilles,” attracted American expansionists for several reasons. Geographic proximity to the United States (and distance from Spain) made Cuba a tempting prize for Americans whose quest for “Manifest Destiny” had already gained them territory spanning North America by 1848. By the mid-nineteenth century, numerous American businessmen had invested in the island's rich sugar resources, making the United States its largest commercial partner. Lastly, rumors of corrupt and repressive Spanish colonial policies won American sympathy for the Cuban people. Emboldened by their successful seizure of land from Mexico in 1848, American leaders soon turned their attention to Spain's “Ever Faithful Isle.” Their initial attempts to acquire the island reached a climax in 1854. In October of that year, three expansionists who were then serving as United States ambassadors in Europe (Pierre Soulé in Spain, John Mason in France, and James Buchanan in Britain) met in Ostend, Belgium, to discuss annexation of Cuba, under orders of Secretary of State William Marcy. The “Ostend Manifesto” that they drafted stated that the United States should purchase the island for no more than $120 million, and would be justified in seizing it if Spain refused to sell it. Northern newspapers in the United States detected a conspiracy on behalf of the Southern states to expand slavery (since two of the Manifesto's authors were Southern defenders of slavery), and vehemently protested. Politically embarrassed, the administration of President Franklin Pierce abandoned its Cuban venture. Sectional tensions, civil war, and postwar recovery preoccupied the United States for the next two decades, but Cuba would emerge once again as a major focus in American diplomacy during its first, abortive fight for independence known as the Ten Years' War (1868-1878). Halfway through this conflict, an incident involving an ex-Confederate blockade runner brought the United States and Spain to the brink of war. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, and war was thus postponed for a quarter century.

Between 1868 and 1873, the United States officially kept its distance from the rebellion in Cuba. Leaders in Washington focused on post-Civil War reconstruction and economic recovery, and they directed their expansionist urges toward other targets with varying degrees of success, such as Alaska and the Dominican Republic. Moreover, the United States refused to recognize Cuban belligerency, since that would have undercut the then-pending American case against Great Britain, which had recognized the belligerency of the Confederate States of America in 1861. The fledgling Cuban revolt hardly constituted a national movement, being led by a small group of rebels without an organized army and control of ports. Also, American recognition of Cuban belligerency would absolve Spain of responsibility for rebel-inflicted damage to American property on the island.

Still, there was unofficial collusion between Cuban rebels and American citizens. Cuban patriots living in exile in the United States (many of whom claimed American, as well as Cuban, citizenship) successfully sought money and material aid from sympathetic Americans. Cubans in New York City organized a Junta to organize monetary acquisition and expenditure. On March 1, 1870, General Manuel Quesada, the rebellion's Commander-in-Chief (and brother-in-law of the provisional President Manuel de Céspedes), arrived in Washington, DC in search of additional ways of securing assistance from the United States while skirting its neutrality laws. He found two sympathizers who owned and operated a New York steamship line. With their aid and money from the Junta, Quesada purchased the Virgin, a former Confederate blockade runner that was docked in the Washington Navy Yard. Another American, John F. Patterson, made the actual transaction on Quesada's behalf; only Patterson's name appeared on the bill of sale. The vessel was refitted and renamed the VIRGINIUS.

This ship had been constructed in Scotland for the Confederate States of America in 1864. Over 200 feet long, and having a displacement of 491 tons, this fast sidewheel steamer was an ideal vessel for navigating along coastlines to land men and supplies. Over the next three years, it made several supplying missions for the Cuban rebels, flying either the American or the Cuban insurrection flag as expediency dictated. United States ambassadors in the South American and Caribbean nations whose ports the VIRGINIUS used to obtain its cargo frequently expressed their misgivings about the legality of the ship's activities. However, United States consuls in the ports of call were often sympathetic to the Cuban cause and disregarded propriety. En route, the Virginius regularly outran any Spanish pursuers.

In 1873, the ship's luck finally ran out. In June, it stopped at the port of Aspinwall, Colombia (now in present-day Panama) to have its engines overhauled. There, the Spanish gunboat BAZAN attempted to intercept it. Infuriatingly for the Bazan's crew, the USS KANSAS interceded, claiming that the outlaw vessel was American property, and abetted its escape.

Afterward, the VIRGINIUS landed at Kingston, Jamaica to await its next mission, which came in mid-October. For this voyage, it would carry American and British citizens, as well as Cuban rebels and weapons. Commanding the expedition was General Bernabé Varona. On his staff were Lieutenant-Colonels Jesús del Sol and Agustin Santa Rosa. Pedro de Céspedes, younger brother of the Cuban President, was also present. Along with other Cubans on board, these four men claimed United States citizenship. The two main American nationals on board were General William Ryan, a Union Army veteran who had emigrated from Ireland, and Joseph Fry, a Confederate Navy veteran who was the last in a long line of captains for the VIRGINIUS.

The first stop after leaving Kingston in late October was Haiti, where the VIRGINIUS' crew picked up 300 Remington rifles, 300,000 cartridges, 800 daggers, 800 machetes, shoes and gunpowder for the Cuban rebels. Flying the American flag, it then started for a beach where two large artillery guns were buried. Unfortunately for the crew, the Spanish corvette TORNADO intercepted them en route on October 30. The heavily laden, leaking vessel was no match for its Spanish pursuer. Within site of Guantánamo Bay, the TORNADO captured the infamous contraband vessel, and hauled it and its crew to internment at Santiago.

The Virginius Affair (sometimes called the Virginius Incident ) was a diplomatic dispute that occurred in the 1870s between the United States , the United Kingdom and Spain , then proprietor of Cuba , during the Ten Years War .

The Virginius was a blockade-runner used in the American Civil War . Originally built as the Virgin by Aitken & Mansel of Glasgow in 1864, she became a prize of the United States federal government when captured on April 12, 1865. She was sold in 1870 to an American, John F. Patterson , who immediately registered her in the New York Custom House . It later appeared that Patterson was merely acting for a number of Cuban insurgents who falsely flew the American flag and were using the Virginius to deliver contraband to the insurrectionist Cubans.

On October 31 , 1873 then commanded by Joseph Fry , a former officer of both the Federal and Confederate navies, and having a crew of 52 (chiefly Americans and Englishmen) and 103 passengers (mostly Cubans), she was captured off Morant Bay , Jamaica , by the Spanish vessel Tornado , and was taken to Santiago de Cuba . There, after a summary court-martial , 53 of the crew and passengers, including Fry and some Americans and Englishmen, were executed on November 4 , 7 and 8 as pirates . The intervention of the HMS Niobe and her captain, Sir Lambton Lorraine , prevented further deaths.

Relations between Spain and the United States became strained, and war seemed imminent; but on December 8 the Spanish government agreed to surrender the Virginius to the U.S. on December 16 , to deliver the survivors of the crew and passengers to an American warship at Santiago, and to salute the American flag at Santiago on December 25 if it should not be proved before that date that the Virginius was not entitled to sail under American colors.

The Virginius foundered off Cape Hatteras as she was being towed to the United States, by the Ossipee . The Attorney General of the United States decided before December 25 that the Virginius was the property of General Quesada and other Cubans, and had had no right to carry the American flag.

Under an agreement of the February 27 , 1875 , the Spanish government paid to the United States an indemnity of $80,000 for the execution of the Americans, and an indemnity was also paid to the British government

sources: http://figueredo.freeservers.com/virginius.htm - http://www.spanamwar.com/virginius.htm