<P> During the first year of the Civil War, the southern ports in the Gulf of Mexico experienced a great deal of blockade - running activity . In the first ten months, New Orleans, Louisiana, the largest cotton port in the world, gave port to more than 300 blockade runners . When New Orleans fell to Union forces on April 25, 1862, the center for blockade - running activity shifted to Mobile, Alabama . With New Orleans and the Mississippi River secured, blockade efforts by the Union Navy along the Gulf coast were greatly increased, forcing blockade runners to use the port at Galveston, Texas . When Mobile and its port came under siege in the summer of 1864, all activity there moved to Galveston . Blockade runners used Havana as a stopover point, for transferring cargoes to and from neutral ships . </P> <P> The newly formed Confederacy (C.S.A.) was not officially recognized by the various foreign powers, a situation that led the seceded states to seek the aid of various private shipping companies and other businesses, especially overseas where there was interest and willing compliance to sell and ship the much - needed supply and ordnance to the Confederacy . To handle its important supply dealings and various business affairs, the Confederate government turned to John Fraser & Company, a well - known, patriotic, and respected Charleston - based importing and exporting company which was well connected in England, France, and elsewhere . Established in 1835, John Fraser (Sr .) had turned the business over to his son, John Augustus Fraser and his senior partner George Alfred Trenholm, who would later become Confederate Secretary of the Treasury . </P> <P> Fraser, Trenholm and Company operated from Liverpool, England, and New York . By 1860 the company had five seagoing vessels, among them the Kate, the Cecil and the Herald, making shipping runs from Liverpool to New York and Charleston, and back again . When the southern states seceded from the Union, it opened the door to even greater business, and in little time nearly all of their business was with the C.S.A. The firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Company in Liverpool became the common connection for the Confederacy's naval and financial dealings in Europe . </P> <P> Prior to the actual battles of the war, Fraser & Company had already begun negotiations for steamship service between England and points along the southern coast of the Confederacy . Taking advantage of the fact that neither side was fully prepared for war, George Trenholm and his partners began shipping arms from Liverpool and New York to Charleston . The state of South Carolina was the buyer for these first shipments, which in turn sold them to the Confederate government for a substantial profit . </P>

The last confederate port open to blockade-runners fell in january 1865