The Lion And The Fox: Two Rival Spies and the Secret Plot to Build a Confederate Navy

by Alexander Rose

Overview

From the New York Times bestselling author of Washington’s Spies, the thrilling story of the Confederate spy who came to Britain to turn the tide of the Civil War—and the Union agent resolved to stop him.

In 1861, soon after the outbreak of the Civil War, two secret agents—one a Confederate, the other his Union rival—were dispatched to neutral Britain, each entrusted with a vital mission.

The South’s James Bulloch, charming and devious, was to acquire a cutting-edge clandestine fleet intended to break President Lincoln’s blockade of Confederate ports, sink Northern merchant vessels, and drown the U.S. Navy’s mightiest ships at sea. The profits from gunrunning and smuggling cotton—Dixie’s notorious “white gold”—would 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. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780358393252
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	12/06/2022
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	193,979
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Alexander Rose is the author of Washington’s Spies (the basis for the AMC drama series, Turn), Empires of the Sky, Men of War, and several other nonfiction books. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020 and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He writes the Spionage newsletter at Substack.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Bloody Spot 1

1 On Secret Service 11

2 The White Gold 21

3 The Black Crow 35

4 The Crowning City 53

5 A River in Sicily 67

6 The First Raider 83

7 The War Rules 95

8 The Magician 115

9 The Dead Letter 127

10 Traitor to His Benefactor 145

11 The Lucky Shoemaker 159

12 The Man with No Hands 177

13 The Great Red God 185

14 Retribution 201

Acknowledgments 215

Notes 217

Bibliography 247

Illustration Credits 257

Index 259

Editorial Reviews

09/26/2022

Historian Rose (Washington’s Spies) delivers an entertaining chronicle of the battle of wits between a Confederate spy and a Union agent in England during the early years of the Civil War. In 1861, ex-Union Navy officer James Bulloch sailed for Liverpool seeking to build a clandestine Confederate navy in order to break the Union blockade of Southern ports. His nemesis was U.S. consul Thomas Dudley, whose “Quaker rectitude, stiff-necked temperance, and remorseless work ethic” provided a jarring contrast to Bulloch’s “designedly aristocratic style.” Tracing Britain’s 1861 Proclamation of Neutrality to the British view that the Civil War “was yet another of their rancorous colonial cousins’ periodic fits of madness,” Rose documents how Bulloch—aided by a well-placed mole in Britain’s Foreign Office—exploited a loophole in the British Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819 to convince Liverpool’s shipbuilders to manufacture the commerce raiders CSS Florida and CSS Alabama. The 1863 Emancipation Proclamation helped turn the tide in Dudley’s favor, however, as Britons came to view the war as “a humanitarian crusade to free the oppressed,” rather than a fight to preserve the Union. Rose’s indelible character sketches and firm grasp of the industrial and political milieu of 19th-century Britain enrich the contest of wills between Bulloch and Dudley. This spy-versus-spy tale delights. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

The complex Confederate conspiracy to fabricate a navy in secret, and the equally energetic Union efforts to stymie it, form the backdrop for Alexander Rose’s entertaining and deeply researched account of the espionage battle that took place among the Liverpool docks, with a rich cast of spies, crooks, bent businessmen and drunken sailors…Rose relates the tale with gusto.”  — New York Times

“With the contest of wits and bribes between Confederate special agent James Bulloch and American consul Thomas Dudley, Alex­ander Rose has proven that true history is indeed stranger than fiction. This account of Confederate machinations in Liverpool to get Rebel warships built in British shipyards is peopled by a color­ful array of special agents, detectives, spies, dockyard toughs, and a Southern mole in the British Foreign Office.”
— James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of War on the Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861–1865  

“Intrigue lovers and Civil War buffs are in for a treat! The Lion and the Fox guides its readers through the shadow war between Confederate and Union agents in England—one trying to procure ships for the Rebel Navy, the other determined to thwart his rival. It is a little-known corner of history but one that is a pleasure to explore in this author’s skilled hands.” — Nicholas Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author of Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935–1961

“Historian Rose delivers an entertaining chronicle of the battle of wits between a Confederate spy and a Union agent in England during the early years of the Civil War. . . . Rose’s indelible character sketches and firm grasp of the industrial and political milieu of 19th-century Britain enrich the contest of wills between Bulloch and Dudley. This spy-versus-spy tale delights.” — Publishers Weekly

“A very interesting and informative story that follows the machination, maneuverings, and politics that influenced what went on behind the scenes…For those wishing to be engaged and even better informed on this Civil War maritime give-and-take, look no further than this well-written and researched volume.” — New York Journal of Books

“Historian Rose (Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring) masterfully delivers an exciting tale of plots and schemes among the shipyards, docks, and government offices of Liverpool and London.” — Library Journal

From the Publisher

[Rose] captures the human dimension of spying, war and leadership.

Wall Street Journal on Washington's Spies

A compelling portrait of [a] rogues’ gallery of barkeeps, misfits, hypochondriacs, part-time smugglers, and full-time neurotics that will remind every reader of the cast of a John le Carré novel.

National Review on Washington's Spies

Genius . . . a definitive tale of an incredible time.

Keith O’Brien

Men of War is deeply researched, beautifully written. It is military history at its best.” 

The Wall Street Journal

Strikingly vivid, well-observed, and compulsively readable . . . with shockingly evocative narrative reconstructions and penetrating, precise analysis . . . A tour de force.

Daily Beast on Men of War

Alexander Rose tells this important story with style and wit.” 

Pulitzer Prize–winning author Joseph J. Ellis

Fascinating . . . Spies proved to be the tipping point in the summer of 1778, helping Washington begin breaking the stalemate with the British. . . . [Alexander] Rose’s book brings to light their crucial help in winning American independence.

Chicago Tribune

07/01/2022

Author of the New York Times best-selling Washington's Spies and more recently Empires of the Sky, Rose tells the story of two secret agents sent to neutral England during the Civil War. The Confederacy's James Bulloch aimed to acquire a swift fleet to challenge the Union, the North's Thomas Dudley aimed to stop him, and the battleground was Liverpool's teeming dockyards, with the outcome of the war hanging in the balance. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal