CSA 11a-AD, 10¢ milky blue (4 large to huge margins) tied CHARLESTON / S.C. // AUG / 20 / 186_ (year date inverted) cds on commercially made cover to Miss Minnie Mordecai, Hon M. C. Mordecai, Columbia, S.C. On back flap are notes from Ashbrook and MacBride concerning the “broken E” of POSTAGE” – a constant variety that is not noted in catalog but should be (see upper left bar of the E). Ex Ashbrook, MacBride, Hubbell and Karrer. $250.

Hon. Moses Cohen Mordecai (1804-1888), an importer of fruit, sugar, tobacco, and coffee, was Charleston’s most prominent Jewish citizen in the decades before the Civil War. Minnie was one of his daughters. It was Mordecai’s steamer, Isabel, which transferred U.S. Army Major Robert Anderson and his men from Fort Sumter to the Union fleet following the opening bombardment of the Civil War. Isabel, named for Mordecai’s wife, gained fame for breaking through the Yankee blockade of the coast. In February 1865, after Sherman’s troops left Columbia smoldering behind them, the city council appointed Mordecai "food administrator" to help feed the starving citizens. Blind and broken by the war, the reluctant secessionist moved to Baltimore, leaving his son-in-law Edgar Marks Lazarus in charge of his business affairs in South Carolina.