Much more interesting than that of the _Savannah_ are the stories of some of the other privateers. The _Jefferson Davis_, for instance, had a career that approached that of some of the American privateers in 1812. She was built by Northern capitalists in 1854 for a slaver, and was captured on the coast of Africa with many slaves on board, and sent to Charleston. A fine Baltimore clipper she was, and when the war came she was seized and armed with three eighteen-pounders and two twelves. She got out to sea on June 28th, having seventy men before the mast. On July 6th, off Hatteras, she got the brig _John Welsh_, loaded with sugar. On the same day the schooner _Enchantress_ was captured, and the next day, being but 150 miles from Sandy Hook, she took the schooner _S. J. Waring_, that was bound to Montevideo with a valuable cargo. The first-named prizes were sent to Southern ports; but William Tillman, a colored man, recaptured the _Waring_, and one fact connected with the adventure makes the story worth telling. The _Davis_ placed a prize crew of five men on the _Waring_, Mr. Montague Amiel, a Charleston pilot, being the prize master. William Tillman, who was the _Waring’s_ cook; Brice Mackinnon, a passenger, and two of the _Waring’s_ seamen were left on board of her, and she was headed toward the South. The Northern men at once made friends with their captors. The negro continued to cook perforce, but he made no objection to the work, and the two Northern seamen volunteered to make the best of a bad streak of luck by helping to work the ship. But because Tillman knew that he would become a slave as soon as he was carried into a Southern port, he determined that he would never go there, and on the night of July 16, 1861, when fifty miles south of Charleston, he found opportunity to become master of the schooner. It was at about midnight. Prize Master Amiel was asleep in the cabin, with the prize mate in a nearby berth. The second mate was on deck, but about half-asleep, while one of the _Waring’s_ original crew was at the wheel, and two of the prize seamen were on duty near the bow. Taking the hatchet which he used in splitting wood for the galley stove, the negro killed the prize captain and the two mates, when the Confederate seamen surrendered and agreed to help work the ship back to New York. There was no one on board who understood navigation, but the negro knew enough to lay a course that would bring “the broadside of America in sight,” and after that he followed the coast until he reached New York. Meantime the _Davis_ had captured the _Mary Goodell_, from New York to Buenos Ayres; but she was allowed to go after the prisoners were put on board, and five of her crew had shipped in the _Davis_. On the same day (July 9th) the _Mary E. Thompson_, of Searsport, was captured and sent in, after which the _Davis_ went to the West Indies.