$24.95

Author:   W.T. Block

ISBN-10:   1887745084

ISBN-13:   978-1887745086

The writer is fully aware that several books already exist about Confederate blockade-running, enough so that one might think there is nothing new to be written, but many of those books deal solely with the Atlantic seaboard. Nevertheless, it was the author's desire to write a story devoted solely to blockade-running in the Western Gulf of Mexico, that is, the Louisiana-Texas coast lines.

Over a long period of years, the author collected a long bibliography of blockade-running stories, devoted to the heroism and ingenuity exhibited by both the Confederate blockade runners and the West Gulf blockading Squadron. One old Galveston Daily News reporter, who devoted many of his newspaper feature length articles to that field, was Ben C. Stuart. As a 15-year-old youth, Stuart once served as an ordinary seaman aboard the Old Galveston Bay lumber schooner Experiment in 1860, years before that vessel was captured off Galveston Island with a load of cotton aboard.

The names of Admiral David Farragut and Raphael Semmes will always adorn Civil War naval history books. Much less known were the wiles, skills, ingenuity , and derring-do exhibited by the western Gulf of Mexico blockade runners or the tales of bravery performed by Captain James Alden, Commander (later Admiral) James Jouett, or Commanders Abner Reed and D.A. McDermot of the Federal blockade fleet. One such story was the night time battle between the USS Hatteras and Adm. Semmes' Confederate cruiser Alabama, which resulted in the sinking of the Hatteras twenty miles south of Galveston. And there were many other instances about the blockade runners worth retelling, such as Captain Bill Johnson's feigning his yellow fever "death bed" aboard the captured cotton schooner Soledad Cos. Certainly the most heroic story of all was that of Captain Dave McClusky and his seaman, who on two occasions got the prize crew drunk aboard the captured prize schooner Stingray and each time recaptured their vessel following a fight and kept the Stingray in the contraband trade for three years until the war ended. The writer believes there is something of special interest and intrigue between the covers of this book fro every Civil War buff to enjoy.
                                                                                                    ~ W.T. Block

248 pages.