August 13, 1861---The Father of the Confederate Navy

AUGUST 13, 1861:    

Commander James Dunwoody Bulloch, C.S.A. is in England establishing trade relations with the United Kingdom. His efforts have proven very successful, setting up trade routes for cotton in return for weapons, ammunition, uniforms, and sometimes cold, hard cash.  Today he began the establishment of another very important necessity, building a navy.

It is widely known that England secretly, or perhaps not so secretly, favors the South. They have a stringent abolitionist attitude but need Southern cotton. The United Kingdom is also hostile after losing two wars to the United States, and has secret plans to absorb the North into Canada if the U.S. loses the war.  Bulloch is trading cotton to a British concern, Fraser & Tenholm, who then sell the cotton to the British government, and in return, Fraser & Trenholm act as Bulloch's private bank in England. Bulloch's priorities recently have switched from weapons for land to weapons for the sea.

Having served 14 years in the United States Navy, Bulloch is uniquely qualified to outfit a fleet of armed commerce raiders, which is a-building in Liverpool. The United States has already declared all privateers working for the Confederacy to be pirates, and has threatened to hang anyone involved in such a practice. The Confederacy has retaliated by threatening to hang U.S. prisoners if this is done.  Due to his role in creating the Commerce Raider Fleet, Bulloch will not be included in the General Amnesty extended to Confederates at war’s end, and will remain in England, where his sister’s son, Theodore Roosevelt, later 26^th President of the United States, will visit him.