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William Tillman

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Rajiv Varma (talk | contribs) at 19:30, 25 June 2019 (→Recapture of the Waring: Fixed typo on ‘resistant.’). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Not to be confused with William Tilghman.
William Tillman
Born
William B. Tillman

c. 1834
Milford, Delaware, U.S.
OccupationMariner
SpouseJulia Prophet
ChildrenFrederick Tillman

William Tillman (c. 1834 – ?) was an American mariner known for his salvage of the S. J. Waring in July 1861.

Early life and career

William B. Tillman[1] was born in Milford, Delaware, in around 1834.[2] Although most black Delawareans of his time were born into slavery, Tillman belonged to a family of free blacks.[3] They relocated to Rhode Island in around 1850, after which Tillman began working as sailor who would eventually be hired by Jonas Smith & Co.[4]

Recapture of the Waring

The eight-year-old schooner S. J. Waring owned by Jonas Smith & Co. set sail from New York on July 4, 1861, with Tillman among her ten-men crew.[5] Three days later, the ship was seized by Confederate privateers who subsequently had plans to sell Tillman into slavery after docking at their intended destination, Charleston.[6] Fiercely resistant to becoming a slave, Tillman enlisted fellow Waring sailor William Stedding's help in recapturing the ship. On July 16, Tillman waited till dark before striking both the captain and second mate multiple times in the head, using a hatchet that he had hidden from the Confederates. An awoken first mate was also killed in a similar fashion.[7] The bodies were thrown overboard, and the entire operation took only eight minutes.[8] The remaining Southern shipmen were caged up and Tillman assumed captaincy of the Waring; he successfully navigated the way back to New York Harbour on July 21.[9] Tillman as well as Stedding were warmly received by the police, journalists and curious onlookers alike.[10] When asked if he had any "difficulty" in mastering the men he had killed, Tillman replied:[11]

They struggled a little, but I put them overboard quicker than lightning. They all had breathing life in them, and as they sank in the sea my heart palpitated slightly. It was a feeling of sorrow that I had been compelled to sacrifice human life. Everything being as still as midnight on the sea could possibly make it, I felt a shuddering sensation, but as soon as I felt the cause which impelled me on to the deed, I felt relieved.

No criminal charges were filed against Tillman. He and Stedding were soon approached by Phineas T. Barnum to make appearances at his museum; however, audience response was varied, with some denigrating William Tillman as a "villain" and "murderer".[12] For his efforts in recapturing the Waring, Tillman was awarded seven thousand dollars by a Judge Shipman on February 6, 1862, after a salvage trial was established by the same judge on October 28 of the preceding year. The award was affirmed on May 13, 1862, after an appeal by Jonas Smith & Co.[13] Jonas Smith's legal team had unsuccessfully argued that Tillman and the other salvors were not entitled to salvage because they were "ignorant of navigation" and, in Tillman's case, had acted out of selfish intent.[14]

Later years

Tillman wed housekeeper Julia Prophet on January 15, 1863.[1] The couple had one son, Frederick (c. 1869 – ?).[15] He registered for conscription in June of the same year but it is not known if he actually performed military service during the Civil War.[16] His date and place of death are unknown; historian Gerald Henig offers that "no verifiable evidence" exists to account for Tillman's final years.[17]

Legacy

Many of Tillman's contemporaries, including notable figures in the African-American community, paid tribute to him. Frederick Douglass likens him to the slave rebels Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey in his August 1861 Douglass' Monthly column titled "A Black Hero", adding that Tillman "walked to his work of self-deliverance with a step as firm and dauntless as the noblest Roman of them all".[18] Booker T. Washington devotes two pages of his 1900 work A New Negro for a New Century to narrating Tillman's recapture of the schooner and praising him for being "as brave as a lion".[19]

Tillman's story was retold in several contemporaneous publications, including The Bugle Blast (1864) and The Rebel Pirate's Fatal Prize (1865).[20] Stories on Tillman also ran in Scientific American, Harper's Weekly, and Frank Leslie's Illustrated Weekly.[21] A writer for the New-York Tribune remarked that the Union was "indebted" to William Tillman "for the first vindication of its honour on the sea".[19] The Herald described Tillman as "the splendid son of Africa" while predicting that his name "will now become historic as the enacter of as great a piece of daring and heroism as perhaps the world ever saw."[22] Similar sentiments were echoed in other abolitionist pieces.[23]

The monthly American Phrenological Journal provided a thorough analysis of Tillman's phrenological profile:[24]

He has more than a common degree of Firmness and self-reliance, considerable Self-Esteem, and large Approbativeness and Conscientiousness. His social faculties are well indicated. His Combativeness and Destructiveness are not predominant qualities, though they are rather strong. We judge that he would never quarrel nor exercise cruelty if he could well avoid it, but that he would be executive and thorough in whatever he undertook to do.

References

Notes

  1. ^ a b McGinty, p. 172.
  2. ^ McGinty, pp. 23.
  3. ^ McGinty, pp. 29.
  4. ^ McGinty, pp. 38.
  5. ^ McGinty, pp. 67.
  6. ^ McGinty, pp. 74.
  7. ^ McGinty, p. 101.
  8. ^ White, Jonathan W. (February 8, 2019). "Sometimes, a good man has to take a hatchet to a bad man's skull". Navy Times.
  9. ^ McGinty, pp. 101–102.
  10. ^ McGinty, pp. 105.
  11. ^ McGinty, pp. 106.
  12. ^ McGinty, pp. 127–128.
  13. ^ McGinty, pp. 157–159.
  14. ^ "The Case of the Colored Steward William Tillman". The New York Times. December 25, 1861. p. 4.
  15. ^ McGinty, pp. 172–173.
  16. ^ McGinty, pp. 171–172.
  17. ^ McGinty, pp. 179.
  18. ^ McGinty, pp. 168–169.
  19. ^ a b McGinty, p. 171.
  20. ^ McGinty, p. 169.
  21. ^ McGinty, p. 114.
  22. ^ McGinty, p. 110.
  23. ^ McGinty, p. 111.
  24. ^ McGinty, pp. 115–116.

Bibliography

  • McGinty, Brian (2016), The Rest I Will Kill, New York, N.Y.: Liveright Publishing Corporation, ISBN 9781631491290 {{citation}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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