A nearby island served as a resort for fishermen, hunters, and small boats, and during the Civil War, 1861-65, it was used by captains such as H.C. Wedemeyer, a peacetime shipbuilder, as a base for operations defying the Federal blockade. Ships loaded with cotton entered waterways around Titlum-Tatlum and hid among willows, beyond the range of observers with spyglasses on the tall masts of Federal blockading ships. On dark nights or in bad weather, blockade-runners slipped out from here to the open seas, hugging shores and sometimes being towed by men on land until water was reached. Cotton carried overseas by such ships bought for the Confederacy, which was hampered by a lack of manufacturing facilities, guns, gunpowder, medicines, coffee, cloth, hardware, and shoes, and these purchases came into Texas by the same route that cotton was freighted out. Along with havens like Titlum-Tatlum, blockade-runners needed every advantage because they supplied the life-blood of the Confederacy, and Texas gave them unstinted support from its coast guard and from infantry and cavalry that would not let Federals land even to get drinking water or wood, so blockade ships often had to leave duty and go to New Orleans for supplies and repairs.