Items for Sale - CSA 12, 10¢ Blue Intaglio - Type II on Cover - Section Three - Item#15009
15009 Click on image to enlarge.
Item# 15009

CSA 12-KB, 10¢ bright blue tied CHARLESTON / S.C. // FEB / 6 / [1865] cds, characteristic of the nearly unreadable postmarks found from the weeks before Charleston fell only a little more than a week late to Union forces. Late use on clean commercially made cover to Mrs. Edgar M. Lazarus, Hon. M. C. Mordecai, Columbia, S. Ca. Ex Welch and Karrer. $220.

Hon. Moses Cohen Mordecai - an importer of fruit, sugar, tobacco, and coffee - was Charleston’s most prominent Jewish citizen in the decades before the Civil War. 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.

Price: $220