Hijacking Maple Leaf

Hijacking Maple Leaf. Prisoners Escape through Currituck County. Here on June 10, 1863 twigs cracked and leaves rustled in the woods around you as escaped prisoners of war moved cautiously in the dusk. Earlier that day, the troop transport Maple Leaf had steamed away from Fort Monroe, Va., carrying 97 captured Confederate offices. After a layover at Fort Delaware, they were to be sent to Johnson's Island prison in Ohio. But two hours later, the prisoners overpowered the 12-man guard, took over the ship, and escaped in small boats. About 70 officers went ashore near False Cape and trekked south down the beach to a salt works. Edmond McHorney and other local residents ferried them across Currituck Sound, where they split into smaller groups, avoiding Currituck Court House and Union soldiers there., Four hours after the escape, Maple Leaf returned to Fort Monroe and sounded the alarm. Federal cavalrymen rode in pursuit while Union gunboats prowled Currituck Sound,searching for the fugitives. Confederate Capt. Willis B. Sanderlin, Co. B, 68th North Carolina Infantry, a local defense force, and local residents helped conceal and care for the former prisoners. B.F. McHorney led into the Great Dismal Swamp., Maple Leaf continued to function as a troop transport until it struck a Confederate "torpedo" floating mine near Jacksonville, Florida on April 1, 1864. The ship sank in the St. John's River with it's cargo including the baggage of three Union regiments. In the 1980s, archaeologists located the wreck, one of the great treasure troves of the Civil War and salvaged thousands of artifacts.