Person:William Buckner (19)

William Buckner was a master in the Virginia Navy under Baron von Steuben during the Revolutionary War. By his own account, on 16 Mar 1781 he was detached to carry some dispatches to and serve as pilot for a fleet that had entered the Chesapeake Bay, which they had presumed was the French fleet. Upon meeting the ships, he found "to his great mortification" (though to put it in perspective, it was considerably less mortifying than what happened to his brother Col. Mordecai Buckner) that it was in fact a British fleet under Admiral Arbuthnot. He was captured and sent to England were he suffered a "long and painful imprisonment" until being returned in the Spring of the next year.