One of the ships purchased by Confederate agents in Great Britain was the ship Bat, a fast, steel hulled, side-wheel steamer built in 1864 in Liverpool, England by The Jones and Quiggins Ship Building Company.

Soon after Lincoln announced the blockade, the profitable business of running supplies through the blockade to the Confederacy began.

Scott’s plan emphasized a Union Naval blockade of the Southern ports and called for infantry divisions to advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott proposed to President Abraham Lincoln the Anaconda Plan to subdue the rebellion. Although officially neutral, the British became the primary shipbuilders and source of supplies for the Confederacy for the duration of the civil war. Many private industries in England secretly worked with the Confederate government since much of their industry depended on cotton exports from the plantations of the South. In the months leading up to the war, the Confederate government sought the help of Great Britain to overcome this deficiency. When the American Civil War broke out on April 12, 1861, the newly formed Confederate States of America had no ships to speak of in its navy. Keefe, Archives Specialist at the National Archives at Boston.

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