150 Years Ago Today-- November 18, 1863

NOVEMBER 18TH:

Merchant schooner Joseph L. Garrity. 2 days out of Matamoras and bound for New York, is seized by five southern sympathizers under Thomas E. Hogg, later Master in the CSN. They had boarded as passengers. Sailed the ship to British Honduras where he entered her as the blockade runner Eureka and sold its cargo of cotton.

Three of the crew were eventually captured in Liverpool and charged as pirates, but by June 1, 1864, had been acquitted. The Garrity was turned over to the U.S. commercial agent in Belize and later returned to her owners. That's one way to get yourself a blockade-runner and make some dough.

--Old B-Runner.