The town of St. George, redolent of history, rapidly declined after the heady years of the blockade runners. It had long since lost the Royal Navy to Her Majesty’s Dockyard, at the West End, and the capital to Hamilton, which was centrally situated on the mainland by Crow Lane Harbor.

Due to its proximity to the southeastern US coast, Bermuda was frequently used during the American Civil War as a stopping point base for the Confederate States' blockade runners on their runs to and from the Southern states, and England, to evade Union naval vessels on blockade patrol; the blockade runners were then able to transport essential war goods from England and deliver much needed cotton back to England. The old Globe Hotel in St George's, which was a centre of intrigue for Confederate agents, is preserved as a public museum.

St. George could always take pride, however, in being the oldest settlement on the Islands, and the oldest continuously occupied town of English origin in the New World.