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James Bulloch argued that his little navy’s record was spotless and that his raiders had attacked the Northern shipping trade without ever harming passengers or crew.11 But there was nothing heroic about commercial warfare, and in real engagements the Confederate cruisers fared badly. On October 7, USS Wachusett had captured CSS Florida—the last of the original three commerce raiders—in the Bay of San Salvador, Brazil, without firing a shot.12 Bulloch’s real contribution to the South was his supply operation, which, under the steady direction of the Confederate agent Colin McRae, was working twenty-four hours a day. Since the beginning of autumn, McRae and Bulloch had sent the Confederacy more than five miles of wire, eight pairs of engines, six torpedo boats, four steamers for the navy, three British engineers, and a large quantity of miscellaneous goods including three unmarked boxes sent by Matthew Maury that contained the parts for a new kind of electromagnetic mine.13

Maury had “locked myself down” in his “experimental establishment of my own,” as he told Louisa, the sister of the Reverend Francis Tremlett.34.3 But he did take one day off to visit the Confederate bazaar in aid of the Southern Prisoners’ Relief Fund.14 Despite James Spence’s fear that the bazaar would have too many contributors and not enough buyers, more than two thousand visitors crammed into Liverpool’s St. George’s Hall on October 18. Inside the neoclassical building were twelve stalls, representing the twelve Confederate states (though the twelfth, Kentucky, had actually remained in the Union). Confederate flags and portraits of Southern generals lined the walls. “This is purely an enterprise gotten up by English gentlemen and ladies, sympathizers with the South and of their own prompting,” James Mason told his wife with great pride.15 Spence had accumulated an extraordinary array of donations, from Robert E. Lee’s pipe to wooden crosses made from the wreckage of Fort Sumter. In addition to persuading local businesses to donate all the food and drink, he arranged for a number of concerts to take place throughout the four days.16 (Raphael Semmes had departed for the South on October 3, or Spence would have tried to make use of him as another attraction.) Encouraged by the large crowds, the organizers extended the fair from four to five days. Even after deducting expenses, their final profits were more than £17,000.

Although many newspapers accepted the organizers’ claim that the bazaar was an exercise in charity rather than political propaganda, Northern supporters were not deceived. Benjamin Moran prayed to heaven that retribution would fall upon the English. “When the day of reckoning comes,” he wrote to Dudley on November 1, “I hope I shall be oblivious of mercy towards this government.”17 Moran’s desire to be merciless was granted a week later when Samuel Hardinge, Belle Boyd’s new husband, paid an unexpected visit to the legation. He came “begging for a loan today,” Moran recorded in his diary on November 7, 1864. “He looks like a traitor—is tall and about 21 years of age. He professes to be loyal.” Moran triumphantly turned him away, but Hardinge returned the next morning, offering to spy for the Federals. Moran was supercilious: “I gave him no encouragement. He is evidently in very straightened [sic] circumstances, and wants money. After associating with rebels and marrying a spy, it is rather cool impudence in him to come here to beg. His coming here is proof to me that the rebels are in very great pecuniary troubles in London.”18 Hardinge returned to America shortly afterward—without Belle. He was arrested on his arrival in the North and taken to the Old Capitol prison, where he was told he would remain at the discretion of Edwin Stanton, the secretary of war.

The irony for the Confederates was that the bazaar had been too successful. The outpouring of support for the South by the British public would make it impossible for the U.S. government—had