Mutiny

[Craig Tx]

From the Texas State Historical Association

Texas marines mutiny in old New Orleans
 
On this date in 1842, the first and only mutiny in the Texas Navy began. The schooner San Antonio was anchored in the Mississippi River at New Orleans. Although the high-ranking officers were ashore, the sailors and marines were confined aboard because of fear of desertion.

But they evidently got drunk on smuggled liquor and, under marine sergeant Seymour Oswalt, began a mutiny in which Lt. Charles Fuller was killed. Eventually, Commodore Edwin Moore brought some of the mutineers to trial. Three were sentenced to flogging, and four were hanged from the yardarm of the Austin on April 6, 1843. Oswalt himself escaped from jail in New Orleans and was never brought to justice.



Craig