Irvine Bulloch Irvine Stephens Bulloch ( 25 June 1842 – 14 July 1898 ) was an officer in the Confederate Navy and the youngest officer on the famed warship CSS " Alabama " . He fired its last shot before it was sunk off the coast of France at the end of the American Civil War . He was the half - brother of James Bulloch and a full brother of Martha Bulloch Roosevelt . Martha was the mother of future U . S . President Theodore Roosevelt and the grandmother of Eleanor Roosevelt . Childhood . Irvine was born in Roswell , Georgia to James Stephens Bulloch and Martha Stewart Elliott , and was the half brother of James D . Bulloch . His family had moved to Roswell , Georgia in 1839 , and he grew up in the beautiful antebellum mansion , Bulloch Hall . Naval service in the Confederacy . In 1861 Bulloch served as a midshipman aboard the CSS " Nashville " , visiting the port of Southampton in England . The " Nashville " returned to the Confederate States of America , and the James River squadron , where she was renamed the " Rattlesnake " . Midshipman Bulloch was then posted to England for foreign service and he served with distinction aboard the CSS " Alabama " . His nephew , President Theodore Roosevelt , maintained that Irvine fired the last two shots from that vessel . After the loss of the " Alabama " , Irvine returned to Liverpool and was sent out on the " Laurel " in October 1864 to join the " Shenandoah " as sailing master . It was Irvine who navigated the " Shenandoah " from just off San Francisco back to Liverpool , arriving on November 6 , 1865 . Upon his return to Liverpool , Irvine discovered that he had been promoted to lieutenant , but had no government to serve in that capacity as the Civil War was over and the Confederacy had collapsed into history . Postbellum influence and collaboration with nephew Theodore Roosevelt . Denied amnesty , Irvine remained in Liverpool after the war , working as a cotton merchant with his brother as the Bullochs realized that they could not return to the U . S . In 1869 , when his sister Mittie and the Roosevelt family toured Europe , the first port they reached was in Liverpool where a joyous reunion took place . Although TR at first seem to show no interest in his uncle ' s exploits , he was no johnny - come - lately to naval topics and history . In fact , Bulloch ' s nephew ' s childhood had been filled with stories told him by Bulloch ' s sister , Mittie . TR would write that his mother used " to talk to me as a little shaver about ships , ships , ships and the fighting of ships , until they sank into the depths of my soul . " Filled with his mother and uncle ' s stories , by the time TR went to Harvard , he was already dreaming of writing a book on a neglected aspect of American Military History , role played by the US Navy during the War of 1812 . Indeed , right in the middle of classes on mathematics at Harvard , ( Morris TR Vol 1 , 565 ) TR ' s mind would wander from his tedious mathematics classes to the accomplishments of the infant US Navy , the clash of the " fighting tops " . When TR ' s father took the family on what they called their " grand tour " in 1869 , TR spent time with those uncles in Liverpool , their first stopping port on their trip . When TR graduated from Harvard , he published his first book , the excellent story of the US Navy ' s origins and actions in the War of 1812 called " The Naval War of 1812 " , which , in part , was an outgrowth of the influence of his two Bulloch uncles and the more direct influence of Irvine ' s brother , James . Roosevelt visits Irvine and James Bulloch . Irvine and his brother James Dunwoody Bulloch , who had served in the U . S . Navy for 14 years before joining a private shipping company , both were seafaring men . When the southern states attempted to leave the Union and the Civil War began in 1861 , one of the first acts of Washington was to begin a strangling Federal naval blockade on the Confederacy . With these developments , Irvine and his brother James decided to serve the southern cause . In 1861 , Irvine became a midshipman on the CSS " Alabama " , its construction having been arranged by his brother James and secret purchase by the Confederacy as a raider to prey upon Union shipping . Irvine fought against the United States government long after the surrender of Lee . He fired the last gun on the Cruiser CSS " Alabama " before it went down in the harbor of Cherbourg , France . His sword is still in the Confederate Museum in Liverpool , England . It would be seen by president and Mrs . Theodore Roosevelt upon their visit to the city . At that same museum , it was of his gallant uncle that Mr . Roosevelt spoke in such affectionate and with such high praise . Final years in Liverpool . Irvine lived in Sydenham Avenue , Liverpool , and died at the age of 56 at Selby Tower , Llandrillo - yn - Rhos , Colwyn Bay , Wales . The cause of his death was Bright ' s Disease and Cerebral Hemmorage . He was buried in Toxteth Park Cemetery Liverpool , in a grave alongside that of his brother ' s family . Nephew Theodore Roosevelt on his uncles . In 1905 , Theodore Roosevelt toured the South . After spending October 19 in North Carolina and skipping South Carolina , TR visited Roswell , Georgia , the next day . He spoke to the citizens there as his ‘ neighbors and friends ’ and concluded his remarks as follows : “ It has been my very great good fortune to have the right to claim my blood is half southern and half northern , and I would deny the right of any man here to feel a greater pride in the deeds of every southerner than I feel . Of all the children , the brothers and sisters of my mother who were born and brought up in that house on the hill there , my two uncles afterward entered the Confederate service and served with the Confederate Navy . “ One , the younger man , served on the " Alabama " as the youngest officer aboard her . He was captain of one of her broadside 32 - pounders in her final fight , and when at the very end the " Alabama " was sinking and the " Kearsarge " passed under her stern and came up along the side that had not been engaged hitherto , my uncle , Irvine Bulloch , shifted his gun from one side to the other and fired the two last shots fired from the " Alabama " . James Dunwoody Bulloch was an admiral in the Confederate service . … “ Men and women , don ’ t you think I have the ancestral right to claim a proud kinship with those who showed their devotion to duty as they saw the duty , whether they wore the grey or whether they wore the blue ? All Americans who are worthy the name feel an equal pride in the valor of those who fought on one side or the other , provided only that each did with all his strength and soul and mind his duty as it was given to him to see his duty . ” In TR ' s autobiography , he mentions his Bulloch uncles in this way : " My mother ' s two brothers , James Dunwoody Bulloch and Irvine Bulloch , came to visit us shortly after the close of the war . Both came under assumed names , as they were among the Confederates who were at that time exempted from the amnesty . " Uncle Jimmy " Bulloch was a dear old retired sea - captain , utterly unable to " get on " in the worldly sense of that phrase , as valiant and simple and upright a soul as ever lived , a veritable Colonel Newcome . He was an Admiral in the Confederate navy , and was the builder of the famous Confederate war vessel " Alabama " . My uncle Irvine Bulloch was a midshipman on the " Alabama " , and fired the last gun discharged from her batteries in the fight with the " Kearsarge " . Both of these uncles lived in Liverpool after the war . "