In late 1864, the Confederate States Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory, ordered Bulloch to write a check drawn on "secret funds" to Patrick Martin, a Confederate blockade runner operating from Canada. These funds were intended to support the plot to kidnap Abraham Lincoln. Martin's project later evolved into a successful assassination plot. Captain Martin and his ship were lost in a storm in December 1864, as he was "en route" to Maryland with supplies for John Wilkes Booth.