During the American Civil War, British-crewed warships harassed Union merchantmen, sinking a total value of more than $15,000,000 in ships and cargo. Considered pirates by the federal government, these ships and crew were at the center of a largely unknown but fascinating struggle between Commander James Dunwoody of the Confederate Navy, U.S. Ambassador Charles Francis Adams, and Consul Thomas H. Dudley. This history of British assistance to the Confederate Navy covers that story in full and provides a close look at the British seamen who manned warships and blockade runners.

A tale of intrigue about the attempts of the Confederacy to build a navy in Britain.

"A major contribution to Civil War and naval history". -- Journal of Southern History

Built in Birkenhead, England, from 1862 to 1865, the "Laird rams" were two innovative armored warships intended for service with the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. The vessels represented a substantial threat to Union naval power, and offered the Confederacy a potential means to break the Union blockade of the Southern coastline. During 1863, the critical year of the Confederacy's last hope of recognition by the British and French, President Lincoln threatened war with Britain if the ships ever sailed under Confederate colors. Built in some secrecy, then launched on the River Mersey under intense international scrutiny, the ships were first seized, and then purchased by Britain to avoid a war with the United States. These armored warships were largely forgotten after the Admiralty acquired them. Historians rarely mention these sister warships--if referred at all, they are given short shrift. This book provides the first complete history of these once famous ironclads that never fired a shot in anger yet served at distant stations as defenders of the British Empire.

The Confederate privateers is a book of action and adventure filled with stories of the Confederacy's privately armed ships and their sea battles with the Union. Called 'pirates' by the North, the South preferred to call them 'gentlemen adventurers', justly boasting of their exploits. Using Naval War records and other archives, the author provides readers with an authentic description of the privateers, their cruises and prizes, their successes and failures, and their ultimate fates. In fact, this is the first narrative history of privateer cruises aboard the Jefferson Davis, the Dixie, the Sally, and the pygmy submarine Pioneer.

The history of the Confederates plans to build a navy with the covert aid of the British. The plan culminated in the building of the C.S.S. Alabama.