North versus South in England!

Rose, Alexander.  The Lion and the Fox: Two Rival Spies and the Secret Plot to Build a 

        Confederate Navy.  New York: Mariner Books, 2022.  ISBN: 9780358393252

 

The American Civil War is filled with stories.  There are battles, there are personalities, and then there are the less well-known tales.  These tales tend to be small stories, but not always and Alexander Rose is providing one of those tales in The Lion and the Fox.  Thomas Dudley, a Union  consul, was trying to catch and/or thwart James Bulloch, a Confederate agent, in Liverpool England.  Their struggle in England helped shape the conflict in America. 
 

Captain James Bulloch left the service of the New York and Alabama Steam Ship Company in April 1861 to become an agent of the Confederate States of America.  His job - hire and/or have built blockade runners, commerce raiders and warships in Liverpool using smuggled funds, subterfuge and the promise of cotton.  He enlisted several shipbuilders in Liverpool in his endeavors and skirted the British neutrality act by arming the ships after they left English waters.  

Thomas Dudley arrived in Liverpool as American consul on 19 November 1861 with his family after turning down the job as ambassador to Japan.  When he accepted the job, he did not realize the massive job ahead in trying to curb Confederate influence peddling and shipbuilding activity.  It took him time to realize how the Confederate side has enlisted folks in blockade running as a lucrative business that then financed the building of commerce raiders.  But once he realized the scope of the job, Dudley was relentless in getting agents to spy on shipbuilding, bring lawsuits, and ultimately thwart Bulloch's scheme to build ironclad dreadnoughts that would break the Union blockade once and for all.

Alexander Rose in The Lion and the Fox has written an exciting tale of intrigue, lawsuits, espionage, and diplomacy that shaped the war in America involving lesser known figures of American history.  Then he adds an interesting twist at the end the shows how entwined Americans are with Civil War history.  Read The Lion and the Fox to be entertained and enlightened!