The Holbrook news., 1912-05-24
TOOK RISK AND LOST
WHEN FORTUNE WAS UNKINn
 TO BLOCKADE RUNNER.
Consignment of Buttons for confed. crate Navy Made Cargo of Cap tured Ship contraband, and
 English Merchant Failed.

Wonderful stories are told about
 blockade runners and blockade run
 ming, the dangers, the losses and
 prizes of this feature of the game of
 war, but there is a man in New York
 who relates a story of this sort that
 6 remarkable.
 Near the close of the Civil war,
 when he was quite young man. he
 wandered into a place on Nassau street and looked on while the cargo of captured blockade runner was
 being sold at auction. The goods of- fered at such sales rarely brought much, and this occasion was no ex- ception. One of the chief articles put up at auction was a big consignment of brass buttons on which the raised letters 70. s. N." appeared prom inently. They were buttons appar- ently intended for the navy of the Confederate states. The young man picked up one of the buttons and. after examining it. put it into his pocket as pocket piece. On the un- der side of the button the name Campbell, Isaacs 6 Co." appeared as the manufacturers.
 The young man had this pocket piece with him when he went abroad some time later. In London he paid a visit to a gentleman named Hart, a friend of his family, and was a guest at dinner. After dinner, while chat ting with his host, he happened to take the button out of his pocket MT. Hart asked if he might be permitted to take look at it. He gave a start of amazement as he turned it over and read the name of Campbell, Isaacs & Co.," Then he asked the young man where he got the button and how. The young man explained.
 That button cost me a6O,OOO- $300,000," remarked MT. Hart. Then MT. Hart said he was a silent partner in the firm of Campbell, Isaacs & Co. The Confederate navy was in need of brass buttons and this firm got the order. The firm rushed the work on the order, intending to ship by the fastest of all the blockade runners-a vessel in which MT. Hart, who did quite a business in this line, had a decided interest. There was some de- lay and the vessel sailed without the buttons. She had not proceeded far when they arrived. By the most strenuous efforts the blockade runner was recalled and the consignment was put aboard. Then she started once more for America.
 Advent we'll until the blockade runner was close to the Carolina coast, whither she was bound. Then l -F, I,o,- ,,-,,o1 ero o11 with her usual confidence. The cap | tain and the crew knew she was fast CT than any of the Federal boats patrolling the coast. She had shown | her heels to them before. But while | the blockade runner had been away | on her last voyage the Federal gov ernment had put into commission a i faster, better equipped vessel than ever had been on patrol duty before. The blockade runner was captured 1 and she and her cargo confiscated. The English owners sent a repre- | sentative to Washington and tried to convince the authorities that the | initials "C. s. N" on the buttons | meant Coast Service, Nassau They | were unsuccessful. The buttons were ! the only contraband of war in the | blockade runners cargo. Their pres ence there made everything else in the cargo contraband and subject to seizure.
 MT. Hart had reason to think he was in hard luck If the blockade runner had not been called back to get the buttons all would have been well, and if she had encountered any other patrol boat than the one she did she could have escaped capture. But by a strange coincidence the fastest blockade runner and the fastest patrol vessel came together and MT. Hart of london was out e6O,O0O.