Biography
Algernon S. Sullivan was a New York lawyer and counsel for Captain Baker of the privateer Savannah. A September 7, 1861 State Department order directed his arrest and commitment to Fort Lafayette. Officials alleged disloyalty, correspondence with Confederate recipients and obstruction of federal plans, citing papers requested for Baker's legal defense. The account records actual release October 21, 1861 on an allegiance oath and restrictions on travel and correspondence; the order authorizing that release was dated October 18. The cited account records administrative wartime detention and supplies no criminal conviction. Source: Official Records, series II, volume II, section 1, printed page 682, https://archive.org/details/cu31924079570242/page/n697/mode/2up. His name also appears among the October 8, 1861 prisoner remonstrance signers reproduced in American Bastile (1869), printed pages 666-667, https://archive.org/details/americanbastile00marsgoog/page/n683/mode/2up.
The Fort Lafayette return records admission on September 8, 1861; this is a prison admission, not a separately verified physical arrest day. It records actual discharge on October 21, 1861. Source: Official Records, Series II, Volume II, printed page 229, https://archive.org/details/cu31924079570242/page/n244/mode/1up. The institution-specific admission recorded here does not establish the start of all custody in this case; a complete imprisonment total is therefore left unspecified.
Inspector Dilks’s September 8, 1861 letter reports the arrest executed and places Sullivan in Burke’s custody; Daniel Lord’s September 9 letter says he had been taken on Saturday. The September 7 arrest instruction and September 8 prison delivery should therefore remain distinct. Lord argued that the disputed correspondence was required for Savannah defendants’ legal defense, whereas Seward rejected that justification. His wife Mary’s visit was limited by the one-visit-per-pass rule, documented in the October 2 appeal for a further visit with their infant. After Sullivan signed the October 21 oath and was released that evening, Seward telegraphed October 22 not to release him; Burke answered that discharge had already occurred. The late countermand does not prove renewed custody. Source: Official Records, Series II, Volume II, printed pages 683–688, https://archive.org/details/cu31924079570242/page/n698/mode/1up.
