[SoCal Pubbie]

The Star of the West WAS an unarmed merchant ship. The Queen Mary carried 15,000 troops during WWII, but that didn’t make it a warship. Johnny Reb fired first, and you can’t blame that Lincoln.

[DiogenesLamp]

It was a US military mission, and therefore the ship was a belligerent. That "unarmed" stuff is just propaganda. They had plenty of arms on board that ship, and they tried to sneak them in to the fort.

And I bet you didn't know about it's troop carrying mission. I'm probably the first person to ever tell you about this covert operation.