The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, or, How the Confederate Cruisers Were Equipp
(At the outbreak of the Civil War, Jefferson Davis sent me...)
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Jefferson Davis sent merchant marine James D. Bulloch to Europe to clandestinely acquire arms and ships for the Confederate navy. His first stop was Britain, a country hedging its bets on who would win the War Between the States and willing to secretly provide the Confederacy with the naval technology to fight the Union on the high seas. Bulloch's mission continued for the length of the war, and his story, told by the man himself, is one of the least-understood aspects of the Civil War, even today.
James Dunwoody Bulloch was an American naval officer and Confederate agent. He was regarded as an accomplished scholar with a thorough knowledge of maritime and international law.
Background
James Dunwoody Bulloch was born on June 25, 1823, and descended from a distinguished Georgia family of Scotch-Irish and Huguenot extraction. His great-grandfather, Archibald Bulloch, held many important positions under the colonial government, and his father, Major James Stephens Bulloch was a member of the company under whose auspices the Savannah made her famous voyage across the Atlantic from Savannah to Liverpool. His mother was Martha Stewart Bulloch.
His half-sister, Martha Bulloch, was married in 1853 to Theodore Roosevelt, Sr. , and was the mother of President Roosevelt. James Dunwody Bulloch was born near Savannah, Georgia. His later home was "Bulloch Hall" at Roswell near Atlanta.
Education
Bulloch attended naval school at Philadelphia in 1844-1845, graduating second in his class.
In 1839 James became a midshipman in the United States Navy. He served first on board the United States and later on board the United States sailing sloop of war Decatur, on the Brazil station, first under command of Henry W. Ogden and later under command of David G. Farragut.
In 1842 he was transferred to battle-ship Delaware, cruising in the Mediterranean. After brief attendance at the navy school at Philadelphia in 1844-1845, he returned to active service, on the Pacific coast.
In 1849-1851 he served in the coast survey. He succeeded Lieutenant (later Admiral) D. D. Porter in command of the Georgia, the first subsidized mail steamer to California, and subsequently, he commanded various vessels in the Gulf mail service.
He was one of a small number of lieutenants of the United States navy who were detailed by the government to enter the mail service to enlarge the school for experience in steam navigation. Later, influenced by the demand of the growing packet and mail service for commanders and by the slowness of promotion in the navy, he retired and entered private mail service, becoming identified with the shipping enterprises of New York.
Immediately after the opening of the Civil War, he accepted from Secretary Mallory the foreign mission as an agent of the Confederate navy, especially to buy or build naval vessels in England. Arriving at Liverpool in June he promptly began operations, aided by the generous confidence of Fraser, Trenholm & Company. Under his instructions were dispatched and equipped all Confederate cruising ships except the Georgia.
After laying the keel of the Oreto (the later Florida) and arranging for the construction of No. 290 (the later Alabama) he returned to the Confederacy on the blockade-runner Fingal sailing via Nassau and carrying much-needed supplies to Savannah.
In February 1862 he returned to Liverpool on a steamer blockade-runner of Fraser, Trenholm & Company, sailing from Wilmington. Soon thereafter he dispatched the cruiser Florida and later another cruiser the Alabama to seize United States merchant vessels. All these operations he claimed were justified under English law and the rules of war.
In March 1863, following the manifest intention of the British ministry to enforce the Foreign Enlistment Act more strictly, he went to Paris, having received intimations that French authorities would not interfere with the departure of Confederate vessels built-in French ports.
After the War, he decided to establish his residence at Liverpool, partly because he belonged to a class which was excluded from pardon under the postbellum amnesty proclamations, and partly influenced by friendships formed in England. At Liverpool, he entered the mercantile (cotton) business.
Achievements
James Dunwoody Bulloch achieved significant success in his professional career starting off as a midshipman in the United States Navy and then becoming a First Confederate Special Agent who led a group of agents in Liverpool England. He secured monies for many Confederate Navy vessels and material. He was also He was involved in constructing and acquiring a number of warships and blockade runners for the Confederacy.
Another Bulloch's achievement was that he wrote the history of his secret service in Europe during the Civil War in 1881-1883.
(At the outbreak of the Civil War, Jefferson Davis sent me...)
1883
Personality
James Dunwoody Bulloch had a distinguished personality, magnetic courtly manners, and was courteous and kind. He was, however, very reserved in talking of himself and his achievements.
Quotes from others about the person
"It has been my very great good fortune to have the right to claim my blood is half southern and half northern, and I would deny the right of any man here to feel greater pride in the deeds of every southerner than I feel. Of all the children, the brothers and sisters of my mother who were born and brought up in that house on the hill there, my two uncles afterward entered the Confederate service and served with the Confederate Navy.
One, the younger man, served on Alabama as the youngest officer aboard her. He was captain of one of her broadside 32-pounders in her final fight, and when at the very end Alabama was sinking and the Kearsarge passed under her stern and came up along the side that had not been engaged hitherto, my uncle, Irvine Bulloch, shifted his gun from one side to the other and fired the two last shots fired from Alabama. James Dunwoody Bulloch was a commander in the Confederate service...
Men and women, don't you think I have the ancestral right to claim a proud kinship with those who showed their devotion to duty as they saw the duty, whether they wore the grey or whether they wore the blue? All Americans who are worthy of the name feel an equal pride in the valor of those who fought on one side or the other provided only that each did with all his strength and soul and mind his duty as it was given to him to see his duty." - Theodore Roosevelt
"My mother's two brothers, James Dunwoody Bulloch and Irvine Bulloch came to visit us shortly after the close of the war. Both came under assumed names, as they were among the Confederates who were at that time exempted from the amnesty. "Uncle Jimmy" Bulloch was a dear old retired sea-captain, utterly unable to "get on" in the worldly sense of that phrase, as valiant and simple and upright a soul as ever lived, a veritable Colonel Newcome. He was a commander in the Confederate navy, and was the builder of the famous Confederate war vessel 'Alabama'. My uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the 'Alabama', and fired the last gun discharged from her batteries in the fight with the Kearsarge. Both of these uncles lived in Liverpool after the war."My uncle Jimmy Bulloch was forgiving and just in reference to the Union forces, and could discuss all phases of the Civil War with entire fairness and generosity. But in English politics, he promptly became a Tory of the most ultra-conservative school. Lincoln and Grant he could admire, but he would not listen to anything in favor of Mr. Gladstone. The only occasions on which I ever shook his faith in me were when I would venture meekly to suggest that some of the manifestly preposterous falsehoods about Mr. Gladstone could not be true. My uncle was one of the best men I have ever known, and when I have sometimes been tempted to wonder how good people can believe of me the unjust and impossible things they do believe, I have consoled myself by thinking of Uncle Jimmy Bulloch's perfectly sincere conviction that Gladstone was a man of quite exceptional and nameless infamy in both public and private life." - Theodore Roosevelt
Connections
James Dunwoody Bulloch was married twice: on November 19, 1851, at Richmond, to Elizabeth Euphemia Caskie who died at Mobile, on January 23, 1854; and in January 1857 to Harriott Cross Foster, a daughter of Brigadier-General Osborne Cross of Maryland. They had five children together.
