'Mersey Built' chronicles the little-known commercial battle that raged
between North and South during the American Civil War. The South relied
on Europe for its military supplies, which the North tried to stop with
a naval blockade of all Southern ports. The South retaliated by
destroying Northern merchant ships on the high seas, using war ships,
secretly procured from British shipyards and smuggled out of Britain by
sympathetic British captains using British crews. The Charleston-based
business empire headed by George Trenholm provided a conduit for
Confederate finance with its Liverpool branch acting as bankers for the
Confederacy's procurement agents. Merseyside, with its extensive docks
and numerous shipyards quickly became the epicenter of Confederate
operations in Europe. Several British businessmen bought ships
specifically to run supplies through the Union blockade, leaving
relationships between the United States and Britain strained, close to
breaking point.
The book relates the history of Trenholm's commercial empire, its
pre-war expansion into Liverpool and the pivotal role it played in
supporting the Confederate war effort. The involvement of other
Liverpool-based entrepreneurs and their successes and failures in
blockade-running is described. Background histories of the Merseyside
ship builders who constructed warships and blockade runners for the
Confederacy are included as well as several mini-biographies of the
Liverpool-based captains who smuggled out warships and braved the Union
blockade. Details of each ship built on Merseyside for involvement in
the Civil War are listed. The role of the United States consular service
and its extensive, Liverpool-based, spy ring is described, as are the
efforts of the United States ambassador in London to influence British
government policy on neutrality.
The author, a direct descendant of a Liverpool ship builder, and a
blockade-running captain, brings new insights and previously unpublished
facts to light in this fascinating chapter of history.
