From theNew York Timesbestselling author ofWashingtons Spies, the thrilling story of the Confederate spy whocame to Britain to turnthe tide of the Civil Warand the Union agent resolved to stop him.
Entertaining and deeply researchedwith a rich cast of spies, crooks, bent businessmen and drunken sailorsRose relates the tale with gusto. -The New York Times
In 1861, soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, two secret agentsone a Confederate, the other his Union rivalwere dispatched to neutral Britain, each entrusted with a vital mission.
The Souths James Bulloch, charming and devious, was to acquire a cutting-edge clandestine fleet intended to break President Lincolns blockade of Confederate ports, sink Northern merchant vessels, and drown the U.S. Navys mightiest ships at sea. The profits from gunrunning and smuggling cottonDixies notorious white goldwould finance the scheme. Opposing him was Thomas Dudley, a resolute Quaker lawyer and abolitionist. He was determined to stop Bulloch by any means necessary in a spy-versus-spy game of move and countermove, gambit and sacrifice, intrigue and betrayal. If Dudley failed, Britain would ally with the South and imperil a Northern victory. The battleground was the Dickensian port of Liverpool, whose dockyards built more ships each year than the rest of the world combined, whose warehouses stored more cotton than anywhere else on earth, and whose merchant princes, said one observer, were addicted to Southern proclivities, foreign slave trade, and domestic bribery.
From master of historical espionage Alexander Rose, The Lion and the Fox is the astonishing, untold tale of two implacable foes and their twilight struggle for the highest stakes.
Based on declassified documents and forgotten letters, this gripping true story reveals:
- Clandestine Operations: Follow Confederate agent James Bulloch and his Union rival Thomas Dudley in a relentless contest of intrigue, gambit, and betrayal on the streets of Liverpool.
- The Secret Plot to Build a Navy: Uncover Bullochs audacious plan to use British shipyards to construct a fleet of commerce raiders and ironclads designed to shatter the Union blockade.
- King Cotton Diplomacy: Discover how the Confederacy planned to leverage Britains dependence on Southern cottonso-called white goldto finance its secret navy and draw the worlds greatest empire into the war.
- A Vivid, Forgotten Theater of War: Experience the squalor and intrigue of Dickensian Liverpool, the unlikely battleground where corrupt merchants, drunken sailors, and secret agents decided the fate of the American Civil War.
