The Civil War conjures images of blood-soaked battlefields in the United States, but few are aware of the equally important diplomatic and intelligence contest that raged between the North and South in Europe. While the Confederacy sought Great Britain as a strategic ally, the Union utilized diplomacy and espionage to avert both the construction of a Confederate navy and the threat of war with England.
At the forefront of the international fray was Thomas Haines Dudley, the American consul in Liverpool and “the father of modern American intelligence.” As the Confederates determined to utilize British shipyards, Dudley established a network of agents throughout England to report on enemy activities and, ultimately, to negate foreign intervention in the American Civil War.
David Hepburn Milton is a professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Oregon, and author of The Politics of US Labor: From the Great Depression to the New Deal. He and his wife, Nancy Dall Milton, coauthored The Wind Will Not Subside: Years in Revolutionary China 1964–1969, cited in the New York Times Best Books of the Year list, 1976. He also co-edited the Random House China Reader: People’s China.
William Hughes is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator. A professor of political science at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, Oregon, he received his doctorate in American politics from the University of California at Davis. He has done voice-over work for radio and film and is also an accomplished jazz guitarist.