Drain the Oceans (2018–…): Season 3, Episode 7 - Raiders of the Civil War - full transcript

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[narrator] Deep beneath the surface
lie secrets from America's darkest days.

Think we're starting
to come over something right now.

[narrator] Hidden evidence
of the bloodiest war in US history,

when this nation
almost tears itself apart.

Mag's going crazy.

-You've got something big here.
-It's big.

[narrator] Stories are now emerging

that tell of a revolution in warfare.

Earlier conflicts employed
both ships and troops on land.

The Civil War
took it to a whole new level.

[narrator] This is war
waged not just by armies



but entire societies.

A remorseless conflict
over land, food and money

raging in every corner of the world.

[man] The American Civil War
was an all-encompassing experience.

It was a war that involved
the entire economy of both sides.

It spread itself
through the entire social fabric.

[James] This was total war.

In total war,
you sink everything the enemy sends in.

[narrator] April 1861.

Eleven Southern states break away

and form the Confederate
States of America.

[gunshot]

In the years that follow,

cannons roar and muskets crackle



across Virginia, Maryland
and Pennsylvania.

But what does a wreck in a Florida river

reveal about the forgotten
battle lines of the Civil War?

The state of Florida
is a bastion of the rebel Confederacy.

Although it's a full 700 miles
from the front line,

it's a vital bread basket
supplying the South's army

with everything from pork and beef
to corn and potatoes.

Twelve miles south of Jacksonville...

That's Mandarin Point right there, right?

[Keith] Right in front of us.

[narrator] Maritime archaeologist
James Delgado

and explorer Keith Holland
are on the St. John's River.

The team's magnetometer is picking up
a powerful signal from the riverbed.

[Keith] The mag's going crazy.

[narrator] The unmistakable signature
of a shipwreck.

[James] There's something there.

[narrator] Sonar equipment
generates an image

of what's down there.

All right, it looks like we're starting
to come over something right now.

[narrator] A chunk of metal
rests on the bottom.

A tantalizing hint
of a wreck buried in sediment.

But the black water
creates an impenetrable cloak.

The visibility in the very bottom is zero.

You are swimming in a thick,
viscous suspension of mud.

Literally, when you dive there
are times you can't see

your hands in front of your face.

[narrator] The team deploys
a sub-bottom profiler.

Its low-frequency sound waves
penetrate the sediment

and return data on the structure
hidden beneath the mud.

Combining this data
with reports from exploratory dives,

we can reveal what no camera
could ever see.

As the water begins to drain away,

the object picked up
by the sonar is revealed,

a rusted, 40-foot length of iron.

It's the axle of a paddle wheel.

Stripping back the black Florida mud

exposes wooden planks.

The remains of a long deck.

And more rusted metal.

The broken leftovers
of two smoke stacks and a boiler.

This is a side-wheel paddle steamer.

Fifty years after their invention in 1807,

paddle steamers had come
to dominate the rivers

of the American South

as transporters carrying
trade goods, mail and people.

So what can this one tell us
about the Civil War?

Keith hunts for answers
deep within the wreck.

Diving the dark waters of the St. John's,
archaeologists must rely on touch.

But deep inside the ship,

Keith's team makes a massive discovery.

Hundreds of wooden boxes, mostly intact.

Each one inscribed with faded letters.

[Keith] Every single box we opened up

had somebody's name on it,
and their regiment.

This was a United States
Northern military transport.

[narrator] The wreck
is a fascinating time capsule,

containing more than 6,000 items,

belt buckles with the insignia "US"

confirm that the boxes belong
to the northern Union Army,

but there are no firearms
and not one case of ammunition.

We expected we would find
primarily military weapons, military gear.

In fact, what we found
was mostly personal items.

[narrator] Toothbrushes.

Smoking pipes.

Molded clay checkerboard pieces
and chessmen.

Ordinary everyday objects.

Keith's discovery
is one of the largest recoveries

of Civil War artifacts ever.

But what was this paddle steamer doing

carrying toothbrushes and chess pieces
deep into the Confederate South?

Searching through military reports,

Keith discovers that
a Union paddle steamer was lost

in the river in 1864,
three years into the war.

The Maple Leaf.

It's a civilian vessel
being used by the Union Army.

Not carrying troops,

but transporting the belongings
of three regiments.

An occupying force.

The Maple Leaf is an important cog
in the Union war machine.

The support boat for an infantry invasion.

The Union wants to take control
of northern Florida,

and cut off crucial supplies
flowing to Confederate soldiers

on the front lines.

So how did the transport ship

end up at the bottom
of the St. John's River?

Jim and Keith look for clues in the silt.

Couple of meters of good data down there.

[narrator] By combining
the sub-surface information

with archaeological
and historical research,

we can return to the drained wreck

and reconstruct
the exact shape of the hull

buried below the river bottom
for the first time since it sank.

The 180-foot-long wooden vessel
remains largely intact,

but on the starboard side

the structure appears to be punctured.

The damage at the Maple Leaf's bow
almost certainly caused it to sink.

[Keith] OK.

[narrator] Hunting for an explanation,

Keith digs further
into the historical records.

He uncovers eyewitness testimony

given by the ship's pilot,
local navigator Romeo Murray.

"For 16 years I've been acting as a pilot

on the St. John's River,
and between that..."

[narrator] He describes
a clear, moonlit night

and reveals some key evidence.

[Keith] He's holding the wheel,

and all of a sudden,
Romeo describes the whole pilot house

being raised up and then falling forward,

and standing up he smells powder,
black powder.

[narrator] There are no other ships
on the river,

and no cannon fire from the shore,

so who or what delivered the fatal blow?

Keith finds the reports
written by Confederates

defending the river.

They reveal that the Southern forces
employ a new tactic.

They plant homemade river mines

moored just below the surface
of the water,

the Civil War equivalent of IEDs.

They call them torpedoes,
and they are highly controversial.

One of the things
about the American Civil War

is that it pushes the boundary

of what's considered
acceptable in warfare.

There was a sense on both sides
when the war began

that putting a torpedo
in the path of a ship

was somehow a violation
of the rules of war.

It was inhumane behavior.

[narrator] For the Confederacy,
there's no choice.

It's a rural economy,
lacking military resources,

desperately trying to land punches
on an industrial heavyweight.

[James] The South was always
at a disadvantage in the Civil War.

In a sense, it was
a David versus Goliath fight.

[Craig] The Confederacy needed
to be more inventive,

more creative in the kind of
naval weapons it employed.

[James] The torpedo
was an effective and innovative weapon

that has never been used in naval combat

until the Civil War.

[narrator] This is a new,
merciless type of conflict

where the old rules of engagement
are blurred.

Even a transport ship
becomes a critical strategic target.

It's now possible to piece together
the final moments of the Maple Leaf.

The Union's campaign in Florida

threatens to cut the Confederacy supplies
to the front line,

so the South responds
in the only way it can,

with guerrilla tactics.

4:00 a.m., April 1st, 1864.

The Maple Leaf's hull touches the trigger
of a Confederate torpedo.

There's a huge explosion.

The pilot house topples
as the mast falls forward.

The ship sinks in minutes.

As tactics evolve, the war
becomes a remorseless struggle

to destroy the enemy's logistics,
resources and supplies.

What does a bizarre set of wrecks
off the South Carolina coast

reveal about the Union's determination
to drive the South to ruin?

Union commanders
are battling for the survival

of the United States of America.

But they're not just fighting an army,

they're fighting an idea,
Southern independence.

To kill it, they need
to target its economy.

In 1861, that means cotton.

The Confederacy thought of their cotton
as white gold,

almost the bullion
that would underwrite their economy.

[narrator] The Confederate war effort
depends

on exporting cotton to Europe
in exchange for vital supplies.

The more cotton that can go out
and feed a hungry British textile market,

means more credit
and the ability to buy things abroad.

[Craig] Abraham Lincoln was convinced
if you could limit the availability

of critical elements in the South,

it cannot continue to fight
such an all-embracing conflict.

[narrator] It seems impossible.

The Confederate coastline
stretches 3,500 miles.

It includes 189 harbors,
inlets and river mouths.

How do you lay siege to half a continent?

Let's do four to five knots,
should be good.

[narrator] Marine archaeologist Jim Spirek

has come to the epicenter
of the South's cotton trade,

Charleston, South Carolina.

[Jim] One, two, three.

[narrator] Jim believes
this harbor could hold clues

to the Union's strategy.

[Jim] Fish looks good. Let's go.

[narrator] As he crisscrosses
the coastline,

his equipment picks up
some surprising signals.

All right, there's some magnetic readings.

A large amount of iron down there.

-Can you see anything on the sonar, Ryan?
-I mean, there's some relief.

There's no real structure to it.

[narrator] On the southern approach
to the harbor,

Jim's sonar uncovers an unusual formation.

There is definitely a scatter of material.

[narrator] The scans appear
to show irregular mounds.

Not just one, but more than a dozen,

almost all long and narrow
and shaped like boats.

Churned up sediment clouds the water.

Visibility is just a few feet.

But he can identify
an unusual pile of rocks.

How did these get here?

To find out, we can shed light
on the murky South Carolina seabed.

As water pours away,

it reveals
that there are multiple piles of rock

resting on the muddy bottom.

And pieces of metal, now clearly visible,

jutting up from the rocks.

Rocks are often used as ballast
to control a ship's buoyancy.

But there are far more here
than any ship would need.

What is this ghostly fleet of stone ships?

Jim believes clues might lie
in the rocks themselves.

He retrieves a sample
from one of the wrecks.

[ship horn blows]

Analyzing the stone,
he discovers the rock piles

are composed almost entirely of granite.

There are no natural occurring
granite outcrops

along the South Carolina coast,

so these would've had to been brought in.

[narrator] But 750 miles away,

there is a rich source
of this type of rock

in Union-controlled New England.

These must be the wrecks of Union ships.

So why was the Union Navy carrying granite
into the heart of the Confederacy?

Returning to the drained outer harbor,

a closer look
at the protruding metal reveals

that they are short lengths of lead pipe

that aren't normally part
of a ship's structure.

Jim digs into military intelligence
reports.

He finds that in 1861,

the Union Navy buys a fleet
of New England whaling vessels.

The fill them
with locally quarried granite,

and set a course south.

And there's one further clue,

each is fitted with a pipe and valve.

They must be designed
to let in water on purpose.

The whaling vessels are not
the victims of a sea battle,

they're scuttled,

sunk by their own crews.

Jim wants to know why the Union
would sail all the way down to Charleston,

only to sink its own ships.

He compares the location of the rock piles

to historical maps
of the harbor's geography,

where he deciphers the still-visible signs

of a remarkable Union strategy.

In 1861, a natural sandbar blocks ships
from entering Charleston Harbor.

Five separate channels
offer a safe passage through the bar.

The Union Navy scuttles
its armada of granite-filled wrecks

in the two largest channels,

and then guards the other channels
with warships.

[Jim] The purpose of the stone
fleet off Charleston Harbor

was to, in effect,
completely isolate Charleston

from the world.

[narrator] By the end of January 1862,

more than two dozen wrecked hulks
rise up from the seabed,

blocking the main channels

in and out of the South's
largest cotton trading port.

A bold attempt
to starve the Southern economy.

But historical sources
suggest that the Union blockade

is far from watertight.

The Confederate blockade runners
got in and out

with some regularity,
and every time that happened,

Northern newspapers would shout

that the blockade was not working,
that it was a failure.

[narrator] The Union has spent
hundreds of thousands of dollars

scuttling ships
to block the entrance to Charleston.

Why isn't the stone fleet doing its job?

[narrator] Marine archaeologist
Jim Spirek and his team

are exploring the drowned remnants
of the Union's blockade of the South.

Records suggest
that the strategy wasn't working.

Ships ran the blockade
more than 3,500 times

in the first year of the war.

But how?

By clearing the rock

from the scuttled
New England whaling ships,

we can see what lies beneath.

The last signs of the original vessels.

The remains of their wooden hulls.

But also copper fasteners
used by shipbuilders

to hold the planks in place,

but something's not right.

If the wooden hull had rotted away,

the copper spikes
should be standing straight,

but these are bent out of shape.

Jim's research turns up
an account of the stone fleet

observed from the shore.

It describes the wrecked hulks
poking up out of the water,

blocking the channel.

But there's a twist to this story.

Within weeks,
the scuttled ships are falling apart.

[Jim] The stone fleet really
wasn't doing its job

because large sections of the shipwreck
were breaking away,

and some of them
coming into the harbor itself.

[narrator] The Union Navy is floundering
in its attempt to close off

the Confederacy's chief source of income,

because it fails to factor in
the rough winter seas.

[waves crashing]

Atlantic waves
quickly rip the hulks apart,

twisting the copper pins
as the wood is pulled away,

leaving behind
only their heavy stone cargo.

The stone fleet is failing.

So the Union plows more money
into more warships,

until as many as 500 ships
with a total crew of 100,000 men

patrol the Southern ports.

More ships, more men were involved
in trying to blockade the Southern coast

than had been involved in all
of America's previous naval wars combined.

[narrator] Soon every
important Southern harbor

has 20 or more ships circling offshore.

Only Wilmington, North Carolina,
remains open to Confederate trade.

[Craig] The total amount of trade
in and out of the Confederacy

dropped by 90%.

The South was constantly gasping
for economic breath.

[narrator] The Union
is starving the South of income,

while on land,
its army inflicts famous defeats

at Vicksburg and Gettysburg,

but somehow the Confederacy clings on.

What does the wreck of a Confederate ship
in the middle of the Atlantic

reveal about how the South
fights for its life?

On August 25th, 1864,

the Mary Celestia
successfully clears the blockade,

carrying 550 bales of cotton
from Wilmington.

Four days later,
she offloads her cargo in Bermuda,

a convenient drop-off point
for European merchants.

But just seven days later,
on a flat, calm day,

she sinks in mere minutes
in what should be safe waters.

Anthropologist Philippe Rouja
is one of a team of experts

working to unravel
what happened to the Mary Celestia.

This wreck in particular,

especially on a day like this
where it's starting to kick up,

something might get moved
or something might get exposed

that we hadn't anticipated,
but every dive is different.

[narrator] In the century and a half
since the Mary Celestia's sinking,

the ocean has buffeted her remains.

She's been buried,
stripped bare, and buried again

as hurricanes lash the seabed.

Philippe explores her rusting carcass

after every major storm,
looking for new clues.

But a single dive
gives only a snapshot view of the wreck.

Now we can integrate data
from archaeological surveys

in all conditions,
and drain the shores of Bermuda.

As the water recedes,

the blades of a paddle wheel emerge.

Remarkably, it still stands upright,

even after more than 150 years
on the ocean floor.

Her bow lies on its port side,

sheared off
from the rest of the structure.

The steamer's engine room
remains vertical.

And now, fully visible,
the ship's riveted all-iron hull.

Enough of the ship's architecture survives
to reconstruct her.

And she's an extraordinary piece
of engineering.

Unusually narrow for her length,

her hull is streamlined.

Her powerful engines are oversized,

and the paddle wheel blades
could be tilted

to hit the water at the perfect angle.

Mary Celestia was built
to be fast, with a sleek hull,

and also with a low profile
to help blend in with the environment,

an ideal blockade runner.

[narrator] Confederate blockade runners
are specially designed

to carry goods swiftly
through lines of warships,

and outrun the Union guns.

They drop off their cargo

at points in and around
the North Atlantic,

close enough to the South
for a steamer to reach on minimal fuel,

but far enough away
to escape the Union warships

guarding the coast.

Three years into the war,

the blockade runners
are keeping the Southern economy afloat.

By September 6th, 1864,

the Mary Celestia
has already beaten the blockade

eight times in four months.

Now she's safe
from Union warships in Bermuda,

and unloads her precious cotton.

So with the Union Navy 650 miles away,

why does she sink?

Searching through local newspapers,

Philippe discovers a customs report.

[Philippe] There it is.

[narrator] It lists the cargo
carried by the Mary Celestia

on her final planned voyage,

another run through the blockade
back into Wilmington.

So we see here that
the records are indicating

that she was carrying bacon
and 534 boxes of merchandise.

[narrator] Some details of the report
don't add up.

[Philippe] The first thing they say

is that she's going to Nassau,
and she just absolutely is not.

She's actually running the blockade,

you know, we know
that this log is not accurate.

And so, what was actually
on the Mary Celestia?

Well, that is a mystery.

[narrator] The wreckage
of the Mary Celestia

still holds secrets.

Clues to the Mary Celestia's sinking

may lie in what the blockade runner
was bringing back to the Confederacy.

To uncover the ship's secret cargo,

we can return to the drained ocean floor.

At the bow,
the ship's forepeak now lies exposed.

This tight space
was used in ships like this

for secure storage.

Based on archaeologists' data,
it can now be reconstructed.

When the ship is built,
this locker is used by the bosun,

the ship's head of maintenance.

Now its wooden compartments
are rotted away,

leaving the contents uncovered.

Among the finds
are tins of paint and lengths of rope,

a pair of shoes

and a foot-shaped wooden mold
used by shoemakers.

They could simply be
the bosun's personal supplies,

but they could also hint
at a larger cargo.

The discovery of a letter written

by the ship's chief engineer,
Charles Middleton,

contains clues to some of the merchandise

declared by the captain
as the Mary Celestia left Bermuda.

Charles Middleton
describes in one of his letters

very specifically the things that he lost
on the Mary Celestia.

This includes ladies' dresses,
barrels of sugar,

tea, and 59 pairs of shoes.

Amazingly enough, shoes were
in short supply in the Confederacy.

Most of the leather manufacturing,

most of the shoemaking
was up in the Northern states.

Shoes become invaluable.

[narrator] Not only does the blockade

prevent the Confederacy
from getting cotton out,

it stops it bringing in daily essentials,

hurting Southern morale.

The goal was to asphyxiate

not only its military,
but its civilian society,

and demonstrate to Southerners
that they'd made a terrible mistake

to secede from the Union.

[narrator] The cargo in the forepeak

reveals the Mary Celestia's mission,
and the pressure on the South.

But it doesn't explain
what happened to her.

Perhaps the discovery of items not listed

on the customs report
can help reveal the truth.

There are lots of local stories
about early divers

finding things on the Mary Celestia.

They found cases of guns, cases of rifles.

[narrator] If she was carrying
a cargo of weapons and ammunition

bound for the Confederate Army,

the Mary Celestia would be
a prime target for Union warships.

But Bermuda is a safe haven,
650 miles from the Union Navy

patrolling the Confederate coast.

Returning to the drained seafloor,

a closer look
at the wreck's surviving structure

reveals more detail.

Her twisted bow
is separated from her engine space

and the rest of the hull.

Whatever caused this destruction

did so with huge force,

but there's no sign of damage
to the boilers.

There was no explosion.

And there were no sea mines
this far from the American coast.

The wreck lies surrounded
by a different threat, coral.

Beneath the ocean's surface,
a giant reef encircles Bermuda.

A lethal barrier reaching up
from the seabed.

It's as hard as marble,

and a ship hitting
that literally gets torn to pieces.

[narrator] The Mary Celestia
must have struck the reef,

but reports suggest
conditions were flat and calm.

"Loss of the steamer, Mary Celestia.

It is our painful duty to record the loss
of that beautiful little steamer..."

[narrator] Philippe learns
that on the day she sinks,

the Mary Celestia is piloted

by an experienced Bermudian navigator,
John Virgin.

His job is to carefully guide the ship
clear of Bermuda's dangerous reef,

but the account of the sinking

suggests the vessel
is moving with reckless speed.

[Philippe] The ship was traveling
at 12 to 13 knots.

That's fast. I mean, that's really fast.

[narrator] A local pilot plows
into a well-known reef

at 13 knots.

It could have simply been misfortune,

but for some experts,
the clues point elsewhere.

[James] In my opinion, there's no way
the wreck of Mary Celestia is an accident.

John Virgin picked
the right spot to wreck her.

It's the perfect spot to destroy the ship

while making sure that the crew
has a chance to live.

[narrator] Some believe that John Virgin
is a secret enemy of the Confederacy,

or a saboteur in the pay of Union spies.

If that's true,
then he does a very effective job,

wrecking one of the best
blockade runners of them all.

By shutting down
its every effort to trade,

the Union is slowly
squeezing the Confederacy.

The idea of an independent South
is beginning to die.

But 3,500 miles from the American coast,

a mysterious wreck reveals
a final desperate Confederate plan

to take the Civil War global.

June 19th, 1864.

A crowd gathers on the cliffs
of northern France

to watch a fiery spectacle.

The last stand
of a legendary Confederate warship,

the CSS Alabama.

The Alabama has been
the scourge of the seas,

sinking dozens of Union ships
wherever she can find them.

There are ships that don't leave harbor

because they're not sure
that they can get away from the Alabama.

[narrator] The Union Navy
needs to end her reign of terror.

A total of 18 warships
were finally sent out

to try to find the Alabama.

[narrator] Finally, in French waters,

the Union Navy catches up
with its nemesis,

and sinks her
with an hour of continuous fire.

[man yells]

[narrator] For years,
historians have wondered

just what made the Alabama so deadly.

When archaeologists
finally locate the wreck,

six miles out from Cherbourg
on the coast of Normandy,

they discover she lies at the very edge
of diving technology,

Two hundred feet below the surface

in the frigid waters
of the English Channel.

[James] It's deep but it's also dark.

It's cold, the water's fast,
and your time is limited.

[narrator] In these depths,

divers have less than 15 minutes
on the seafloor

before they run out of air.

Now, combining the latest sonar data
with the archaeologists' observations,

we can pull the plug
on the English Channel

to reveal the secrets
of a Confederate ocean raider.

At the stern, a cone-shaped ruin.

The remains of a propeller fin.

Sitting beneath an H-shaped frame,

clearly designed to pull
the propeller out of the water.

The evidence reveals
Alabama is powered by steam,

but able to lift her prop
and travel by sail.

And there's something else unusual,

the remains of a strange smokestack.

It's divided into several sections.

This means it was telescopic,
it could be lowered.

At this time,
warships are increasingly clad in iron.

But with her propeller retracted,

and her smokestack lowered,

the Alabama looks more like
an ordinary merchant sail ship.

British maritime historian Sam Willis
is an expert in naval tactics.

He has a theory about the Alabama's
special design features.

The Alabama would approach
looking as friendly as possible,

but as she got close,

she might haul up the colors
of the Confederacy,

and she would transform
from a seemingly harmless merchant ship

into an extremely powerful ship of war.

[narrator] Her disguise
means she can sneak up

on unsuspecting Union ships.

How did the Confederates manage to build

such a terrifying wolf
in sheep's clothing?

The Confederate warship CSS Alabama
is a hunter.

But she's not targeting the Union Navy.

She's built like a merchant ship,

making her a perfect commerce raider.

The Alabama is specifically designed
to overpower other merchant ships.

This is the traditional strategy
of the weaker naval power,

to attack your enemy's merchant fleet.

[narrator] The Union is slowly crippling
the Southern economy,

strangling its cotton exports

and choking it of essential supplies.

So the Confederacy fights fire with fire,

and targets the Northern economy,

sending the Alabama on a global expedition

to seek out Union merchant ships
wherever they operate.

But how can the blockaded South
produce such a devastating warship?

Returning to the drained wreck site
reveals further evidence.

The ship's cannon lie on the deck,

just as they were
when the Alabama went down.

Each is encased
in more than a century of concretion,

rock-hard mineral deposits
clinging to the iron.

Archaeologists lift the cannon
from the wreck.

French conservator Paul Mardikian
is the first to lay hands on the weapons.

His first job
is to remove the mineral deposits.

Generally on shipwrecks,

you cannot easily predict
what you're going to find.

So it's always,
there's always a surprise factor.

[narrator] Beneath the carbonate layer
encrusting the iron,

he discovers a clue,

a maker's mark.

The 32-pounders were clearly stamped,

"Fawcett and Preston, Liverpool, 1862."

[narrator] She may have flown
the Confederate flag,

but the stamp reveals the Alabama's cannon
are not from the South.

They're forged across
the Atlantic in Britain.

Under international law,

Britain cannot supply arms
to either side in a civil war.

So why is the Alabama armed
with British guns?

The cannon's manufacturer
no longer exists,

but its archives and sales records
have been preserved.

Today they're held
in Liverpool's Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Sam Willis discovers a set of plans.

Cannon matching the guns
found on the Alabama's wreck.

There's no mention
of the Confederacy on the plans,

only a mysterious set of initials, IDB.

[Sam] The original drawing
of this was sent to IDB.

Now I think that stands
for someone called James Dunwoody Bullock.

He's a really important person
in this naval war.

[narrator] Bullock's name is well-known
to British maritime historians.

He's a Confederate secret agent
operating in Britain.

[Sam] Britain was officially
neutral in the war,

but there was a particularly
strong link between Liverpool

and Liverpool merchants
and the Confederacy,

and that was because of cotton.

[narrator] In 1860,
80% of Britain's cotton imports

comes from the American South,
through Liverpool's docks.

But this city is more than a trade hub,

it is Britain's industrial powerhouse.

The evidence is clear.

The Confederate agent
wasn't just sourcing guns here,

but ships.

Sam uncovers Bullock's name

on a contract
with a local shipbuilder, Lairds.

The firm's Victorian shipyard
still exists.

What's interesting about this document
is that

if you look at the dimensions,
the construction,

the details match almost exactly
everything we know about the Alabama,

about her hull, her rig, her outfitting.

That means I'm confident to be able to say

that this is a contract
for the building of the Alabama,

and that means that the Alabama
was built in that dry dock.

We know that the Confederates paid
for the Alabama to be built,

but nowhere in this entire document

does it mention the Confederacy
of the Southern states.

They exist behind the words like a ghost.

[narrator] Desperate to strike
blow to the Union juggernaut,

the Confederacy builds
a secret warship in Britain

and releases her into the Atlantic
to decimate the Union fleet.

In her first month at sea,

the South's stealth raider
burns 10 American whalers.

She avoids capture
while taking on coal in French Martinique,

and then wreaks havoc
off the coast of Brazil.

Her odyssey of destruction
takes her all the way

to the South China Sea.

The raider makes the Civil War global.

By the time the Alabama is caught in 1864,

she has sunk more than
60 Union merchant ships.

But despite all of its secret tactics
and innovations,

the writing is on the wall
for the Confederates.

When Ulysses S. Grant
accepts the surrender of Robert E. Lee

in 1865, the American Civil War is over.

The war that launches modern America

has given birth to a new mode of warfare,

a war on the water
as well as on the battlefield.

A war between societies
fought over money and resources.

Total war!