THE ANDROMEDA
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During the Civil War, the Supreme Court upheld the condemnation of the schooner Andromeda and its cargo of cotton and hides as enemy property, finding that the vessel and cargo were owned by Confederate rebels despite claims of neutral ownership. The Court rejected the defendants' assertions that portions of the cargo belonged to neutral merchants in Havana, determining that the evidence—including the lack of appearance by the alleged neutral owners, the destruction of shipping documents, and the continuous control by known Confederate sympathizers—established that the property remained enemy property at the time of capture.
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The decree of the District Court must be affirmed.
NELSON, J.
The proofs in the case, I think, fairly lead to the conclusion, that Ashby, the master of the Andromeda, was the real owner of the vessel, and that the sales' by himself and others, in Mayj 1861, at New Orleans, to Alleyn, and by himself as attorney, for Alleyn to Watson, at Havana, in March, 1862, were, colorable; and, if Ashby was a resident and inhabitant of New Orleans, at the time of the capture of that port and city by our forces, on the last days of April, 1862, as seems to he assumed, there would he ground for claiming that he was entitled to the benefit and protection of General Butler’s proclamation of the 1st of May following; and, also, to the effect of that capture upon the status and property of the inhabitants of the captured city.*
The view I have taken of the proofs in the case, do not involve these questions.
Ashby left the city of New Orleans in this vessel soon after the breaking out of the war, and before the establishment of the blockade, and has never returned to it. During all this time and down to the seizure of the vessel, 26th of May, 1862, ho has been in command of it, and engaged in the Gulf trade; and the greater portion of the time with the rebel territory. In answer to the first interrogatory, in pre-paratorio, he says, “that he ivas born in New York; lie now lives in Louisiana, and owes allegiance to Louisiana and the Confederate States; is not a citizen of the United States.” In answer to the fourth interrogatory, under an order allowing further proofs, he says that he left New Orleans with the vessel anticipating a. blockade, that she might not'become useless property, and that he did not expect to communicate with that city while the blockade continued. The proofs, as we have seen, show how he has been engaged during all this period.
On the above ground, I agree that the vessel was properly condemned in the court below, as enemy’s property; and, also, the cargo, which the court have adjudged belonged to him.
Decree aeeirmed.
*
See supra, p. 263 .The Venice; also, TheBaigorry; precéding case.— Ref.