8thFlorida
First Sergeant
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2016
We recently completed a tour of Bermuda and wanted to share some of the Confederate history that we encountered at the Rogues and Runners Museum. This present day museum was formerly the Headquarters of Major Norman S. Walker Ordnance Agent and was the center command for Confederate Blockade Runner activities between Bermuda, Europe and the Southern States. After the war it became the Globe Hotel, which had some notable guests such as Mark Twain. I attached a copy of the guest book in which he signed as S. Langhorne.
The museum is directly across from the oldest functioning Protestant church in the Western Hemisphere- St. Peter's Anglican Church. The Rogues and Runners museum features a Victorian seal press and a copy of the original Confederate States Seal that was actually copied by its original engravers in London and the copied seal is now on permanent loan to the Bermuda National Trust at the museum. An interesting note is that the original seal and press is somewhere in a private collection on the island.
This museum is a must see. The Florida, Flora, Lynx, Mary Celestia, Thistle, Robert E. Lee, A. D. Vance, and Banshee are several of the Blockade Runners that are highlighted. Many of these risk taking ships originating from Bermuda beat the Federal blockade and went on safely to Wilmington, NC, Fernandina, FL, Charleston, SC, Galveston, TX and Mobile, AL. Some blockade runners like the Mary Celestia sunk off the coast of Southampton Parish in Bermuda. The reefs around Bermuda have claimed many ships and the Confederate Blockade Runners were no exception.
“The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world's luxuries, king by grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.”
― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson
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