boarding-officer

Updated: May 11, 2025

He hoped to escape observation, but the Confederate boarding-officer had been a classmate of his, and spotted him at once. Being paroled, he was for the time shut off from war service, and was sent to the Academy. He was a singular man, by name Tecumseh Steece, and looked with a certain disdain upon the navy as a profession.

A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan - From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life

The master of this vessel informed the boarding-officer that a United States man-of-war, supposed to be the Ino, was in the South Atlantic, in eager search of the Alabama! At daybreak, on the 2d March, a sail was made out through the hazy atmosphere, slowly steering towards the cruiser.

Raphael Semmes - The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter

"We don't know anything about that," returned the boarding officer, referring to the permit. "My orders are to stop every vessel carrying Englishmen!" The boarding-officer turned and ordered all the male prisoners to separate themselves from the ladies. Passports were produced upon demand and closely scrutinised. Then the officer, stepping back a few paces, beckoned the nearest man.

Frederick Arthur Ambrose Talbot - Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben

Patiently the Confederate waited, as the light wind from the south bore the stranger towards them; their patience, too, was rewarded, for at 6 A.M., a boarding-officer stepped on board the ship John S. Parks, of Hallowall, Maine.

Raphael Semmes - The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter

Since the termination of the war with England, which guaranteed our independence, the British never pretended to impress American citizens; but pretended to the right of entering our vessels, and taking from them the natives of Britain or Ireland, and this was their general rule of conduct; they would forcibly board our vessels, and the boarding-officer, who was commonly a lieutenant, completely armed with sword, dirk, and loaded pistols, would muster the crew, and examine the persons of the sailors, as a planter examines a lot of negroes exposed for sale; and all the thin, puny, or sickly men, he allowed to be Americans but all the stout, hearty, red cheeked, iron fisted, chestnut colored, crispy haired fellows, were declared to be British; and if such men showed their certificates of citizenship, and place of birth, they were pronounced forgeries, and the unfortunate men were dragged over the side into the boat, and forced on board his floating hell!

Benjamin Waterhouse - A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed.: Late A Surgeon On Board An American Privateer, Who Was: Captured At Sea By The British, In May, Eighteen Hundred: And Thirteen, And Was Confined First, At Melville Island,: Halifax, Then At Chatham, In England ... And Last, At: Dartmoor Prison. Interspersed With Observations, Anecdotes: And Remarks, Tending To Illustrate The Moral And Political: Characters Of Three Nations. To Which Is Added, A Correct: Engraving Of Dartmoor Prison, Representing The Massacre: Of American Prisoners, Written By Himself.