The C.S.S. Nashville was a 1,200 ton former passenger side-wheeler fitted as a commerce raider, commanded by Lieutenant Robert B. Pegram. Two days before, he crew had boarded and burned the Harvey Birch, an American merchantman bound from Le Havre to New York, the first U.S. ship commerce raiders destroyed in the north Atlantic during the war. The Nashville then docked in Southampton for repairs, the first Confederate ship of war to visit a British port. Heated international discussion over neutrality laws followed. (By John Osborne)