We're hoping someone on this forum can help fill in a few details in reguard to William Anderson Hicks of Vicksburg who was attending the United States Naval Academy when Mississippi secceded. He resigned from the Academy and enlisted in the Confederate Navy early in 1861 and was sent to New Orleans as a midshipman aboard the CSS Sumter under Raphael Semmes. Eventually he was given command of the prize ship Joseph Maxwell with orders to take her to Cienfuegos or some other port in Cuba to be adjudicated. When permission to leave the ship at Cienfuegos was denied by the Cuban authorities he sold her cargo and ran the ship aground. A few weeks later he left Cuba in command of the ship Ezilda with a cargo of Enfield rifles. Early in October the Ezilda was captured by the USS South Carolina off Ship Island and Hicks was sent to New York to be tried as a pirate. He arrived in New York aboard the USS Rhode Island on November 22nd and was confined to the Tombs to await trial. The following day the crew of the privateer Savannah went on trial in New York City which ended up in a mistrial. His case as well as the cases of other Confederate seamen being tried for piracy caused the government in Richmond to select several Union POW's to be held as hostages to suffer the same fate as any convicted naval personell. In February of 1862 Union authorities relented and all Confederate naval officers and men were transferred from the Tombs to Fort Lafayette but Hicks was not among them. According to his obituary he escaped and made his way back to the South but we can find no written record of his escape from either Fort Lafayette, Governors Island or Fort Warren. We're hoping that somebody on this forum has some details of his escape or can point us in the right direction.
After his return he was sent to Memphis to serve aboard the CSS Arkansas and was quartered aboard the Capitol. The Arkansas was towed to Greenwood on April 26th and Hicks died on the 30th. We think he was killed in a construction accident but are unsure so any help with the details of his death would be greatly appreciated.