Donald McNeill Fairfax
United States Navy admiral (1818–1894)
Donald MacNeil Fairfax (March 10, 1818 – January 10, 1894) was an officer in the United States Navy during the American Civil War.
Early life and family
The son of George William Fairfax, and Isabella McNeill, grandson of Ferdinando Fairfax, and great-grandson of Lord Bryan Fairfax of Cameron, he was born at Mount Eagle, Virginia. Fairfax entered the Navy as a midshipman on August 12, 1837. His younger brother, Edwin Cary Fairfax (1833-1912), also served in the Union Army, enlisting in the 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry, Company D.
Trent Affair
As executive officer in San Jacinto, he was a participant in the 1861 "Trent Affair," a diplomatic controversy involving the U.S. Navy's removal of Confederate commissioners from the British mail-steamer, RMS Trent. On November 8, 1861, Fairfax boarded Trent to remove Confederate commissioners James M. Mason and John Slidell, after the ship had been stopped by his captain, Charles Wilkes.
Wilkes had given Fairfax the following written instructions:
On boarding her you will demand the papers of the steamer, her clearance from Havana, with the list of passengers and crew.
Should Mr. Mason, Mr. Slidell, Mr. Eustice [sic] and Mr.
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This entry incorporates text from “Donald McNeill Fairfax” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.