Troublesome handling of dropped connection

I had connected to a Postgresql database, running 7.1.3 on FreeBSD,
machine through ssh/psql. My machine crashed.

Upon restart of my machine I recconected to the database machine, again
ssh to the machine and then run psql.

The table I was loading data to at the time of the disconnection was
unresponsive. I tried to "truncate" it, tried to "vacuum <table> and psql
would just sit there for a long time. On the server log there were several
"MoveOfflineLogs" entries, but nothing else.

I tried to do a "smart" shutdown (pg_ctl stop) and that didn't seem to
work. I ended up doing "pg_ctl stop -m fast".

After the fast stop, the server came back up fine. Did a vacuum <table>
and it was instantaneous.

Any ideas what happened to the database prior to the shutdown?
I didn't have anyone else connected so it was not a problem shutting down
the server, however is there anything else I could have tried? In the
coming weeks this machine will go into production and then I will have
more users and a shutdown would not be convenient.