At the CHAB Club House, conference by Daniel Frankignoul: "The Great Seal of the Confederacy". At the end of May 1863, the Confederate Congress instructed Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin to have a great seal made for the Confederacy. The silver seal was engraved by the internationally renowned firm of Joseph Wyon and entrusted to Lt. Robert Chapman of the Confederate Navy. He left Liverpool for Halifax and arrived in Bermuda in July 1864. Chapman succeeded in running the Union blockade via Wilmington, North Carolina, and finally reached Richmond in September 1864. However, he did not succeed in bringing with him the press and the accessories necessary to operate it. These remained in St. George, the former capital of Bermuda. After the fall of Richmond in April 1865, the great seal disappeared and seemed lost forever. Our lecturer will recount the thrilling saga that led to its discovery and how the Confederate Museum in Richmond finally ended up being its depositary in 1912. Daniel will also track down the whereabouts of the Victorian press left in Bermuda, which also disappeared. During his investigations, he even discovered a museum dedicated to Confederate blockade runners in St. George. It was always believed that the great seal, which reached Richmond a few months before the end of the war, deprived of its accessories, had never been officially used. In September 1979, our lecturer came across some unique documents signed by Judah P. Benjamin and James a. Seddon, dated February 3, 1865, one of them bearing the imprint of the great seal of the Confederacy. A second document proving its use was discovered more recently, in 1995, in the National Archives.