Of all the ships assigned to his own expedition, only one was present, the Harriet Lane, and it had experienced a near mutiny. En route to Charleston, its captain, John Faunce, found himself confronting an unhappy crew. The ship, ordinarily assigned to the Treasury Department, was a dozen hours south of New York when Faunce opened sealed orders that told him for the first time where he was headed and what his objective would be. The orders included instructions for Faunce to lower the flags that identified the ship as a Treasury vessel and replace them with those of the U.S. Navy. The ship’s
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