Fingal was designed and built as a merchantman by J&G Thomson's Clyde Bank Iron Shipyard at Govan in Glasgow, Scotland, and was completed early in 1861 [REF].
The ship briefly operated between Glasgow and other ports in Scotland for Hutcheson's West Highland Service[REF] before she was purchased in September 1861 by James D. Bulloch, the primary foreign agent in Great Britain for the Confederacy, to deliver the military and naval ordnance and supplies that he had purchased.