Theodore Roosevelts maternal uncle, James Bulloch, was diabolically effective in his role as the Confederacys chief foreign agent in Great Britain. So much so that he would remain in Britain for the remainder of his life. Bulloch was not included in the general amnesty that followed the end of hostilities, and he decided not to take his chances by returning home. Or, perhaps he simply found the commercial opportunities in Liverpool too tempting. Bulloch would become quite prosperous acting as a cotton broker and importer. The CSS Alabama is by far the best-known of the Confederate sea raiders, but the story of the Shenandoah sounds far more compelling. I am going to look for a good book about the raiders adventures. The Shenandoah was dispatched to the icy waters of the Bering Strait to prey upon Yankee whaling vessels. That struck me as an odd mission for the ship, and a rather impractical one. But, it seems that the decision to target the whalers was made for symbolic, as well as practical, reasons: As Stephen Mallory, the Confederacy’s secretary of the navy, had described the mission, to attack the Western arctic whaling fleet, in a letter to Bulloch, A blow at the whalemen is a blow at New England exclusively.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 18:09:36 +0000
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