Nevertheless, the cruise was not a paying venture, for soon after sending the prize away the _Savannah_ chased the government man-o’-war brig _Perry_, thinking her another merchantman, and was, in consequence, captured. The _Perry_ turned her over to the _Minnesota_; the _Minnesota_ towed her into Charleston harbor near enough to let her owners learn of their loss, and then sent her North. At New York the _Savannah’s_ crew was thrown into prison as pirates, and on July 16, 1861, they were indicted for piracy. The printed report of the trial that followed makes an interesting book of 385 pages. The accused as a whole claimed the rights of prisoners of war, but in spite of the plain evidence that they were entitled to such rights, the jury disagreed. Perhaps when one considers the state of the public mind in the North at that time, the wonder is that they were not convicted and hanged. Having been remanded in irons to prison, the Confederate authorities took up their case. The victory the Confederates had obtained at Manassas enabled them to put a number of Federal prisoners into irons to abide the fate of the _Savannah’s_ crew. The Federal officers so confined included five colonels, two lieutenant-colonels, three majors, and three captains. Mr. Davis sent an envoy with a protest to Washington. Nothing was done about the matter just then. Meantime, on October 25, 1861, a member of the crew of the privateer _Jefferson Davis_ was convicted on a charge of piracy, and on the 29th three others of the crew were convicted. Nevertheless, on February 3, 1862, all of the alleged pirates, with thirty-four men from the privateer _Petrel_, were sent to Fort Lafayette as prisoners of war, and the date is of some importance because the change of policy, even though it were compelled by a threat of retaliation, was another official acknowledgment that the government had a very great war upon its hands instead of a local insurrection of no concern to the rest of the world.