Short answers, pulled from the story.
The American Civil War erupted on the 12th of April 1861 with the Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter. President Jefferson Davis issued a proclamation on April 17 offering letters of marque to anyone willing to provide ships for the Confederacy.
James Dunwoody Bulloch arrived in Liverpool inside two months after the attack on Fort Sumter to establish his base of operations. He established a relationship with the shipping firm of Fraser, Trenholm & Company which arranged for the construction and purchase of vessels like the Florida, the Alabama, and the Shenandoah.
Blockade runners emerged as side-wheel steamers that were long and narrow with a shallow draft allowing them to cut through water efficiently. Some ships used cotton soaked in turpentine as fuel because it produced little smoke and intense heat resulting in marked increases in speed.
Wilmington served as the central depot for blockade runners throughout most of the Civil War. Between October 1864 and January 1865, over eight million pounds of meat reached the Confederates through this single port alone.
Union forces eventually captured more than 1,100 blockade runners and destroyed or ran aground another 355 during the war. The largest Union fleet ever assembled in the Atlantic attacked Fort Fisher on the 23rd of December 1864.