VOYAGE OF MERCY
The USS Jamestown, The Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission
More than 5,000 ships left Ireland during the great potato famine in the late 1840s, transporting the starving and the destitute away from their stricken homeland. The USS Jamestown was the first vessel to sail in the other direction. In March 1847, Captain Robert Bennet Forbes and his crew left Boston loaded with precious food to help the millions of Irish citizens unable to escape. This is the compelling story of one nation’s struggle to survive, and another’s effort to provide a lifeline. In an unprecedented move by Congress, a warship was stripped of its guns, placed in civilian hands and committed to the peaceful delivery of food, clothing, and supplies. This single mission inspired an unprecedented outpouring of relief across the country and launched America’s first full-blown humanitarian relief effort. It also changed the world. No nation had ever extended a hand to a foreign neighbor for purely humanitarian reasons before. This single “Voyage of Mercy” showed that national generosity and brotherhood were not signs of weakness but displays of quiet strength and moral certitude.

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