MAPLE LEAF
AS A UNION ARMY
TRANSPORT

By James W. Towart and Col. J. V. Witt, USA Ret.
Contact James W. Towart


Litigation over the Maple Leaf..
In December 1868, Charles Spear filed two lawsuits in the U.S. Court of Claims.53 In one case, Spear claimed $32,650, which was the amount his income was reduced in the period from April 22 to August 19, 1863, when the Army cut the hire rate on the first charter contract. The basis for the claim was the fact the reductions were retroactive and allegedly obtained under duress.

Archibald Getty testified that during the negotiations in Washington, D.C., in August 1863, Colonel Clary threatened him by saying that should Getty fail to agree to the Army's new charter terms, payments due the Maple Leaf to that date would be delayed, possibly until the end of the war. Colonel Clary denied this allegation in his testimony.54

In the other case filed by Spear, he claimed that he was owed $30,111, which was the difference between the agreed value of$50,000 for the Maple Leaf in the second charter and the $19,889 that the Army paid him in August 1864 for the loss of the ship. The Army had calculated the latter figure based on the formula included in the Army's purchase option in the charter contract. Spear's argument was that the Army, having assumed the war risk liability, should have paid the full value of the ship as a commercial insurer would have done.55

In responding to both of these cases, the Quartermaster General's Office wrote that Spear had accepted the compensation awarded to him in 1864 without any objection or complaint until the claims were filed four years later. The court dismissed both of these cases in 1870. In May, Spear filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, which was withdrawn shortly thereafter.56

Fourteen years later, in August 1884, records show the Quartermaster General's Office rejected another claim by Spear. In this instance, he wanted $8,800 of charter hire for a 16-day period in which the Maple Leaf was undergoing repairs in Baltimore in November and December l862.57 This appeared to be the last attempt by Spear to profit from the Maple Leaf, an attempt made 20 years after the vessel was sunk by the Confederate mine. However, in October 1895 Spear's son Frank consulted Washington D. C. lawyers who recommended that a bill be introduced into Congress to enable Charles Spear to reopen his claim for the Maple Leaf. A bill H. R. 2362 was introduced in the House of Representatives and referred to committee. No record of a vote in the House or of a new trial in the Court of Claims has been found.

On a minor, but poignant note, the U.S. Commissioner on Pensions on January 22, 1880, rejected the claim for a pension filed by a Maple Leaf sailor named Dennis Simons. Simons had signed on as a crewman aboard the vessel on January 1, 1863, and he was discharged on February 11, 1864.58


Endnotes.
53J. H. B. Lang had assigned his interest in the Maple Leaf to Charles Spear.
54National Archives, Record Group 123, Case No.3731.
55National Archives, Record Group 123, Case No.3705.
56National Archives, Record Group 123, May 17, 1870.
57National Archives, Record Group 92.
58Ibid.