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Comment by taneq | Hacker News Reader

> After pulling out of the dock, the Planter stopped at the West Atlantic Wharf to pick up Hannah and the children along with four other women, three more men, and another child.

So this guy jacked a warship (without spilling a drop of blood!) to evacuate his friends and family out of slavery. Sounds like a proper hero to me!

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Why praise not spilling a drop of blood? It was wartime - if he had killed the enemy, that would have been even better.

Tactically yes, but it's often considered a greater honor to achieve an objective without loss of life.

I would think it depends on his objective. Was it to fight a war or bring about rescue/escape? Leaving the moral considerations aside, stealing something vs. stealing something [i]and[/i] shedding blood brings an entirely different response from the enemy.

He wasn't a soldier at that time, just a defector with a risky plan. The "enemy" were people he had worked alongside hours earlier.

> The "enemy" were people he had worked alongside hours earlier

I think you mean people he had slaved under - let's call a spade a spade here, they could have talked cordially and all, they did not consider themselves his peers - the only people a chattel slave 'works' alongside with are other slaves

No, not always. In many cases - on both sides of the conflict - the "enemy" were slaves as well. Many of those who were free were conscripts.

> In many cases - on both sides of the conflict - the "enemy" were slaves as well. Many of those who were free were conscripts.

Are you seriously equating conscription with chattel slavery? A chattel slave is the property of his master, his children are automatically his master's property at birth, like livestock. How many newly-born were conscripted, on either side? How many women were conscripted? Were entire families conscripted on the basis of the father's conscription?

He was a slave. The enemy were his captors.

Thanks for pointing that out. I don't mean to diminish at all the wrongness of slavery.

I apologize for my wording that did not bring to the fore that aspect of his not being a soldier at the time. Escaping from is not the same choice (morally and in terms of risk and preparedness) as killing your captors, and is again different from enlisting in an army against them.

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