VERBATIM
 For some inexplicable reason, Charles Kuhn Prioleau was until quite recently, one of the lesser known figures of the American Civil War. Now however, thanks to research by dedicated historians, the full extent of Prioleau's importance is finally being recognised. Born on 15 April 1827 in Charleston, SC, he is best remembered as a Senior Partner of Fraser, Trenholm & Co., Liverpool, England. Known to all as the 'Friend of the Confederacy', Charles was one of the main financiers of Confederate blockade-runners during the Civil War.
The fourth of five children of a prominent Charleston,
SC, Judge, Charles Kuhn Prioleau was described as "the best looking of the family - had a
round face, good complexion, good blue eyes, and he grew to be of medium
height..." He served with distinction with the US Army in the Mexican War and in 1854 aged
27, moved to Liverpool, England as Managing Partner of the shipping and
trading company Fraser, Trenholm. He was naturalized in England in 1863 at the
start of the Civil War. As a Fraser, Trenholm, partner, he was entitled to 5%
of profits and ran a profitable trading business, importing cotton and
exporting English goods to the Southern states.
During the Civil War conflict, Prioleau served as unofficial banker to
the Confederate States Government in England. The Confederacy deposited funds
with his company and the firm financed the purchase of ships, arms, ammunition
and other goods for the Southern war effort. Working with Confederate Navy
purchasing agents, the firm also helped acquire and outfit some sixty five ships which were subsequently
engaged in blockade running and disrupting Northern shipping.
Early in the War, he took an option on ten, large
steel-hulled East Indiamen available for the bargain price of two million pounds sterling
in London. His proposal to Gen. Beauregard, the Charleston Area Commander, and
the Confederate government in Richmond, VA, to use these to blockade Boston and
therefore possibly win the War was never accepted.
At one point, Charles Prioleau bought a modern rifled cannon which he sent to Gen.
Beauregard to be used in Charleston against Fort Sumter in the first days of
the war. This rifled cannon, the Galena Blakely, was bought from George
Forrester & Co in Vauxhall and shipped to Charleston. It was first used in action on 12 Apr
1861 to fire on Fort Sumter.
In 1866, he represented Charleston's St. Michael's
Episcopal Church in Liverpool by having the eight old church bells re-cast and
shipped from Liverpool to Charleston. They had been sent to Columbia to avoid
the shelling of Charleston but had been melted by the heat from the Sherman’s burning
of Columbia. The bells arrived in Charleston in Feb 1867, were hung in the
steeple and are used to this day.
On 18 Oct 1864, the Prioleaus' organized 'The Grand
Southern Bazaar' in Liverpool's St. George Hall. Most of the Liverpool
gentry, sympathetic to the South attended - and the event raised £22,000
for the Confederate wounded over the five days of the event.
After the war was lost, Fraser, Trenholm was owed
170,000 pounds by the defunct Confederacy and had to declare bankruptcy in May
1867. Following this, Charles Prioleau was involved in several litigations both as a
plaintiff and defendant.
Around
1870, Prioleau moved from Liverpool to 47 Queen's Gate
Gardens, Kensington, London, and formed Prioleau & Co., a banking
house.
Later, he moved his family to Bruges, Belgium, where Charles conducted a
banking
business. Sadly his health deteriorated and he was forced to return to
London where, on 3 August 1887 at the age of 60 he died at Brown's
Hotel, London. Charles was buried in August 1887 in Kensal Green
Cemetery, London, England. The grave of a man who bankrolled the
Confederate side in the American civil
war, and ended up costing the British government £3.3m in compensation
to the
victorious north, was largely forgotten until rediscovered in a patch of
brambles in the mid 1980's.
Charles Kuhn
PRIOLEAU and Mary Elizabeth WRIGHT were married on 3 May 1860 in
Walton-on-the-Hill Church, near Liverpool, England. Mary Elizabeth WRIGHT,
daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Richard WRIGHT, was born in 1840 in New Brunswick. She
died in 1897 at the age of 57 in Sainte Croix, Bayonne. She was buried in
France. Before marriage, she lived with her parents at 'Elleslie', Breeze Hill,
Liverpool, and was the acknowledged "Belle of Liverpool". Later, she
and Charles lived at the baronial Allerton Hall in Liverpool and the house they
built at 19 Abercromby Square in Liverpool. During the Civil war, she organized
"The Grand Southern Bazaar" in St. George Hall, Liverpool, which
raised over £20,000 for American Southern wounded. After her husband's
death, she moved to Biarritz, France.
Charles Kuhn PRIOLEAU and Mary Elizabeth WRIGHT had the
following children:
Lynch
Hamilton PRIOLEAU, born 1861, England; married Frances MORRIS, 1894,
London, England.
Charles
Arthur PRIOLEAU, born Jan 1862, Liverpool, England; married Violet
BRADSHAW, 1895; died 1912, Kingston Lisle, England.
Richard
PRIOLEAU, born 1865, England; married Elise GURDON.
Major
Louis St. Julien PRIOLEAU, born 1869, England; married Alexina WOMBWELL.
Margaret
"May" PRIOLEAU was born about 1872. She died about 1960 at the
age of 88. She lived at the Hermitage, Ilminster, Somerset, England.
George
Trenholm PRIOLEAU was born about 1874.
John
"Jack" PRIOLEAU was born in 1882 in England. He died during the
War about 1945 at the age of 63. He was buried in Cheltenham, England. Alexina
Saunders-Davies recalls him as "Uncle Jack", a favorite of hers and
her mothers. He had been Motoring Correspondent of the London Times in the late
1920s. In 1922, he made an epic journey from England across France, Italy and
Morocco in a Bull-Nosed Morris called "Imshi" (Arabic for "Get
out of the way, fast") and wrote a book "The Adventures of
Imshi". A charming and vital person, he married in his 60s and moved to
Jersey in the Channel islands.
Kindly submitted by H. Frost Prioleau, Hon. Member 290 Foundation
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