From the Introduction to the Dogwood Press Edition . . . It was the author's desire to write a story devoted solely to blockade-running in the Western Gulf of Mexico. This republished edition includes six first-hand accounts as appendixes, 56 new figures, and a new introduction putting the work in the context of the Denbigh Shipwreck Project.

"The ships carried cotton to Havana and manufactured goods to the Confederacy. The problem was the Union heavily blockaded the area, and even the fast steamship Denhigh, now part of an underwater archeological site, was in peril of losses in trade the south could ill afford. Independent scholar Block turns from the Atlantic seaboard, where most accounts of the Union Navy's blockade are set, to the area west of the Mississippi River on the Gulf of Mexico. The result is a close description the blockade and blockade-running from Galveston to western Louisiana, the coast of Texas, and ports in Alabama and Florida. He pays close attention to the accounts of officers and sailors on both sides and provides excellent maps, illustrations and photographs. This was originally published in 1997 under another title and has been updated with new appendices, figures and introduction."