THE INN KEEPER'S DAUGHTERS: A Tale of Southampton and the American Civil War

In 1861 the American Civil War was raging. In 1861 in Southampton the first modern docks were thriving after the arrival of the railway.  In French Street, on the edge of a medieval slum within the old walled town, the Bell Inn was kept by the Day family.  There were two daughters: the youngest restless, ambitious and inclined to behave badly.

In December a Confederate commerce raider entered the port seeking repairs.  Discovered, she was bottled up there by a Union warship.  CSS Nashville’s crew adopted the Bell as their favourite ‘run ashore’, which led to an elopement and in the end a desperate journey across war-torn America.