Confederate blockade-run cover

1861-1865

Incoming Confederate blockade mail through the port of Wilmington, North Carolina. Rated "12c" collect postage and sent on to Marietta, Georgia, from where it was forwarded to Talmage, Georgia, with an additional "10c" collect postage charged for forwarding. Letter is addressed to Mrs. William G. McAdoo, who, with her husband and family, had settled in Marietta after fleeing Knoxville, Tennessee, when Union troops occupied that city. The notation at the top of the envelope refers to the famous Confederate cruiser 'Florida'. It is possible that the writer was on board this ship, or perhaps he entrusted the letter to a member of the crew to be placed with a blockade runner in a Caribbean port. The 'Florida' was the first of the CSA cruisers built in England. Armed and outfitted in Mobile, Alabama, the 'Florida' set out to sea in January 1863. It had already taken the three prizes by the time it reached Nassau in the Bahamas. After spending the fall in a French port undergoing repairs, the 'Florida' returned to the West Indies in the winter of 1864. U.S. naval forces captured it off the coast of Brazil in October 1864.