Albert Hicks, facing execution as the United States' last pirate, confesses to a spectacular life of crime

Four days before his execution, forty year old Albert W. Hicks, the last man tried, convicted and executed for the federal crime of piracy in the United States, gave a lengthy and fanciful confession of a spectacular career in crime to a Deputy U.S. Marshall.  Hicks claimed to have robbed and killed for twenty years in California, through Latin America, and on the high seas.  This secured his fame and thousands came to watch his execution. (By John Osborne)   
Source Citation
DeWitt Publishing House, The Life-Trial-Confession and Execution of Albert W. Hicks: the Pirate and Murderer .... (New York: DeWitt Publishing, 1860), 39.
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Crime/Disasters
    How to Cite This Page: "Albert Hicks, facing execution as the United States' last pirate, confesses to a spectacular life of crime," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/32508.