Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/McIntosh, James McKay

McINTOSH, James McKay, naval officer, b. in McIntosh county, Ga., in 1792; d. in Warrington, Fla., 1 Sept., 1860, entered the U. S. navy in 1811, became lieutenant in 1818, commander in 1838, captain in 1849, and flag-officer in 1857. He served with credit in the war of 1812, and participated in the fight between the U. S. brig “Enterprise” and the British “Boxer” off the coast of Maine in December, 1813. In 1820 he was attached to an expedition for the extermination of the West Indian coast pirates, was captured by Lafitte, their chief, and, although threatened with burning at the stake if he refused to be the bearer of an insolent message to his commander, defied the assembly of more than forty pirates, and so excited their admiration by his courage that they released him. He commanded the U. S. frigate “Congress,” of the Brazil squadron, in 1851-'2, and became flag-officer of the home squadron in 1857. During this period, under the declared purpose of suppressing the slave-trade, the British fleet in the Gulf of Mexico boarded and searched forty American vessels. McIntosh, however, denied their right to do so, and for his prompt and vigorous action in the matter received in 1858 the thanks of congress. — His sister, Maria Jane, author, b. in Sunbury, Ga., 1803; d. in Morristown, N. J., 25 Feb., 1878, was educated in the Academy of Sunbury, removed to New York in 1835, and, having lost her fortune in the financial crisis of 1837, adopted authorship as a means of support. Under the pen-name of “Aunt Kitty” she published a juvenile story entitled “Blind Alice” that at once became popular (1841), and was followed by others (New York, 1843), the whole series being issued in one volume as “Aunt Kitty's Tales” (1847). On the recommendation of the tragedian Macready, these and many of her subsequent tales were reprinted in London. Her writings are each illustrative of a moral sentiment, and include “Conquest and Self-Conquest” (1844); “Praise and Principle” (1845); “Two Lives, to Seem and to Be” (1846); “Charms and Counter Charms” (1848); “Woman in America: Her Work and Reward” (1850); “The Lofty and the Lowly” (1852); “Evenings at Donaldson Manor” (1852); “Emily Herbert” (1855); “Violet, or the Cross and Crown” (1856); “Meta Gray” (1858); and “Two Pictures” (1863).