James Bulloch, a sea captain turned Confederate agent, arrived in Liverpool at a crucial moment during the U.S. Civil War: a Union blockade was preventing Southern cotton exports from reaching Britain, threatening to destroy what was left of the Confederate economy, unless Bulloch could secretly arrange for the construction of a fleet of warships to break the northern grip on the South. Shortly thereafter, Union operative Thomas Dudley, a pious Quaker and radical abolitionist, arrived in Liverpool to stop the Confederate spy. Either man's mission, if successful, would determine the war's outcome and the country's fate.
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