DERELICTS: An Account of Ships Lost at Sea in General Commercial Traffic and a Brief history of Blockade Runners Stranded Along the North Carolina Coast 1861-1865 (Author signed)

Sprunt, James

Published by Wilmington, NC: [The Lord Baltimore Press], 1920

About this Item

BOOK DESCRIPTION: 8vo, xii, 304 pp. Frontis plate with tissue guard., Original blue pictorial cloth of a 3-masted ship in gilt on cover. Presentation inscription from the author dated 1920 on front free endpaper. CONDITION DESCRIPTION: Cover gilt bright, minor rubbing to edges and joints. Interior is clean and tight. With clear mylar wrapper. CONDITION DESCRIPTION: James Sprunt, exporter, Cape Fear historian, and philanthropist, arrived in Wilmington in 1854 from his native Glasgow, Scotland. At the beginning of the Civil War, his father Alexander Sprunt was captured while running the Federal blockade. At age fourteen the son left school to assume family responsibilities. He also studied navigation at night and after three years secured the purser's berth on the blockade-runners North Heath and Lilian. Engaging in the sugar and cotton trade, Sprunt's early enterprise was interrupted when he was captured and imprisoned at Fort Macon and afterwards at Fortress Monroe. He made a daring escape, however, and returned to Wilmington by way of Boston, Halifax (Nova Scotia), and Cape Canaveral, Fla., surviving a shipwreck en-route. He then became purser of the blockade-runner Susan Beirne until the fall of Fort Fisher on 15 Jan. 1865. After the war, he and his father continued the import / export trade establishing international offices and connections. When his father died in 1884, James succeeded him as British vice-consul. For five years (1907-12) he was also Imperial German Counsel. He served both posts with distinction and received special recognition from each government. There were rumors he avoided British restrictions on trading cotton with Germany during the War. A noted philanthropist, he is perhaps best remembered as Wilmington's most dedicated citizen for the preservation of the historical facts and legends of the Cape Fear region. Among his best-known works are Information and Statistics Respecting Wilmington, North Carolina (1883), Tales and Traditions of the Lower Cape Fear, 1661-1896 (1896), A Colonial Apparition (1898), Chronicles of the Cape Fear River (1914, 1916), Derelicts (1920), and "Tales of the Cape Fear Blockade," North Carolina Booklet 1 (1902). REFERENCES: NEVINS I pg. 235; "Undocumented accounts written or recorded by a former purser on blockade runners.".

Seller Inventory # 1223032

Bibliographic Details

• Title: DERELICTS: An Account of Ships Lost at Sea in General Commercial Traffic and a Brief history of Blockade Runners Stranded Along the North Carolina Coast 1861-1865 (Author signed)
• Publisher: Wilmington, NC: [The Lord Baltimore Press]
• Publication Date: 1920
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Near Fine
• Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Maritime
  • Military
  • Military History