Items for Sale - Blockade-Run Mail

Item# 20048

Price: $2,750

Outgoing blockade-run use from Charleston, S.C. to Liverpool England via Nassau Bahamas. Addressed to Mrs. C[ornelius] L. Burckmyer, in care of Fraser Trenholm & Co. in Liverpool, England; wonderful 4-page original letter No. 44 datelined "Charleston S.C. January 16, 1865" (letter pages 1 and 4) (letter pages 2-3) reverse with scarce "Nassau-New-Providence Feb. 4, 1865" rimless datestamp;unpaid with 2sh due, comprising 1sh packet postage to England and 1sh penalty fee, blue crayon "1/5 + 7 = 2/-" accounting (1p plus half of penalty retained by Bahamas P.O.), Liverpool receiving 4 MAR datestamp, clean use, Very Fine, Special Routes Census No. BO-Nas-97. Ex Littlejohn and Neil. LL $2,750. 

The incredible Burckmyer correspondence was first offered as an original find through Kaufmann Auctions and heavily written up in The Confederate Philatelist. It is a correspondence between two exceptionally well educated, literature and descriptive people who write much about the nature of corresponding by flag of truce in perfectly readable hand, thus a boon to postal historians. In this letter, for example, Cornelius says “…we shall not be shut out from the seacoast entirely in which event our communication will be quite cut off and we may have to depend upon flags of truce to hear from each other…the enemy are moving from Savannah in this direction but it is not supposed that they are aiming at Charleston immediately, it being rather thought that their object will be to cut the RailRoad at Branchville…the Legislature at its last Session appointed a Board of Commissioners to make arrangements for the purchase of a Ship on behalf of the State to run the blockade…they met in Columbia and made me their agent to…buy a ship and superintend their business generally…I was told by the Commissioners that owing to Sherman’s movements and the very uncertain state of affairs they thought it unwise to send out an Agent at the present time and that the whole matter must be stopped. Do you think you can imagine my disappointment? I had fully expected to be with you by 1st April.” and so much more. The Burckmyers lived in France when war broke out and Cornelius returned to Charleston while Charlotte and daughter Mamie (nicknamed Cooty) remained in France. 

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