CSA 9, 10¢ blue T-E-N (4 margins), tied CHARLESTON / S.C. // JUN 23 CDS on neat commercially made envelope addressed to “Miss Minnie Mordecai, Columbia, S.C.”, slightly reduced at left. A choice use with a great story. Ex Cantey and Felton. $1,300.

Hon. Moses Cohen Mordecai was an importer of fruit, sugar, tobacco, and coffee. He 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.