A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War

by Amanda Foreman

  There was more disappointment for Weed once he arrived home and discovered that his control over the New York press had slipped during his absence. His views on Britain had mellowed during his time abroad, yet he found editors resistant to the idea of adopting a more benign view of Anglo-American relations. Bravely, Weed took on the burden himself and published an open letter to New York City’s Common Council in which he urged his countrymen to reconsider their hostility to England. Regarding the Trent affair, “I am bound,” he asserted, “in truth and fairness, to say, that that Government and people sincerely believed that we desired a rupture with them, that we sought occasion to taunt and snub them.” Moreover, America’s recent behavior toward Britain included supporting Russia in the Crimean War, the expulsion of the British minister on a technicality, and Seward’s oft-repeated claim that one day Canada would belong to the United States: “Some of these grounds of complaint were, as we know, well taken.” He begged his fellow New Yorkers to remember that “the Union has many ardent, well-wishing friends in England, and can have many more if we act justly ourselves.”33

  Though wise and admirably sane, Weed’s letter failed to address the intense bitterness caused by The Times and other newspapers. Edward Dicey was disconcerted when he visited the house of a Northern acquaintance who forced him to gaze at the portrait of a young man. “ ‘How,’ he said to me, ‘would you like, yourself, to read constantly that that lad died in a miserable cause, and, as an American officer, should be called a coward?’ ” Dicey admitted that “I could make no adequate reply.”34 The fact that many American newspapers were just as rude about Britain was a rather hollow argument in the face of such grief.35 The U.S. consul in Paris, John Bigelow, warned Lord Russell that it made Americans deeply resentful to learn from the British press “that we are barbarians, that our system of government is a nuisance, that our statesmen are knaves or imbeciles.”36 The British consulate in New York noticed that ordinary Britons suffered every time there was a controversy in the press, and Lord Edward St. Maur wrote home about a new term being bandied about the city: “Anglo-Rebels.”37

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  Despite Butler’s offensive “Woman Order,” the MP William Schaw Lindsay was discovering just how difficult it could be to turn goodwill in Parliament into action. Nine-tenths of the House of Commons, he insisted to James Spence, “was in favor of immediate recognition” of the Confederacy. Spence thought he should wait for a Southern victory before forcing a vote, but Lindsay disagreed; his interviews with Emperor Napoleon in April had made it clear that the only impediment to Southern independence was the British cabinet. As proof, he could point to the leading article in Le Constitutionnel on June 1 that appeared to argue that France should offer to mediate in the conflict without bothering to wait for Britain.12.2 On June 17, Lindsay sent an arrogant letter to Russell warning him that the government would look weak and foolish if its foreign policy ended up in the hands of backbenchers like himself. “Within the next fortnight,” he boasted, support for the Confederacy would be unstoppable. James Mason fervently hoped that his friend was right. He was feeling rather downcast by their lack of progress. “We must wait for ‘King Cotton,’ ” he wrote to Slidell on June 19, “to turn the screw still further.”39

  Two weeks later, Mason’s wish seemed close to being granted. The supply of cotton bales went down while the number of workers on poor relief jumped by another 11,000.40 There were more mass meetings in Lancashire. Even though the results of these meetings were often ambiguous, they were sufficiently heated to alarm the Union’s supporters.12.3 Lord Lyons had been back in Britain for only a few days, but he immediately grasped the seriousness of the situation. He reported to William Stuart, secretary of the legation in Washington, that cotton was “the real question of the day.” Obviously, Lyons was powerless to do anything from England, but, he told Stuart, “if you can manage in any way to get a supply of cotton for England before the winter, you will have done a greater service than has been effected by Diplomacy for a century.”42 The Duke of Argyll, John Bright, and Richard Cobden all wrote to Charles Sumner begging him to use his influence in facilitating the flow of cotton from the South.43

  The U.S. legation was in a high state of anxiety. They had hoped to derail Lindsay by exposing the MP as an arms supplier or blockade runner for the South, but discreet inquiries into his business dealings revealed that the shipping magnate was scrupulously honest.44 Their best hope lay in a military success. “[We are] waiting the event of the struggle at Richmond,” Henry told his brother on July 4, 1862.45 London was swirling with rumors that Lee had defeated McClellan. “No one but me is sorry for it,” wrote Lord Lyons; until now he had not understood how sharply public opinion had turned against the United States.46 Despite the wild ups and downs of the past twelve months, he had never ceased to hope that the two countries might form some sort of an alliance, but “public opinion will not allow the Government to do more for the North than maintain a strict neutrality,” he wrote pessimistically on July 5, “and it may not be easy to do that if there comes any strong provocation from the US.”47 Adams tried dropping heavy hints to Seward that the North could not afford to alienate Europe while her armies looked so vulnerable. The “insurgent emissaries” here, he warned on the eleventh, were eager to seize on “every act” that might “cast odium on the [U.S.] Government.”48

  After the latest news put McClellan in full retreat, Lindsay decided that the time for his motion had come. But over the next few days, the “nine-tenths” he had boasted of began to doubt the wisdom of forcing the British government’s hand. After initially encouraging him, the Tory leadership came to its senses and realized that the American war brought out too many conflicting passions to unify the opposition. “In fact, it seems that there is nothing good to be got out of this American question,” wrote a senior Tory on July 14.49 Lord Lyons was also quietly lobbying senior politicians against making any change to the current policy.50

  Lindsay began to feel uncomfortable. Perhaps, he admitted, Spence was right after all; they needed something exceptional to sweep members off their collective feet. Two days later the longed-for moment arrived when Parliament received the official figures on employment in Lancashire. The report was sufficiently dire to revive Lindsay’s courage. He announced that he would be introducing a debate on the Civil War on July 18. While Lindsay was composing his speech, the news reached London that Lee had crushed the Federal army in the Seven Days’ Battles. Henry Adams stared in amazement at the bold headline of his evening paper. “ ‘Capitulation of McClellan’s Army. Flight of McClellan on a steamer. Later from America.’ This astounding news for a moment made me almost give way,” he wrote.

  William Forster, MP, came rushing to the legation to find out if it was true. “Such odd things have occurred of late, that we can’t be sure now that our generals won’t run away from their own soldiers,” wrote Moran bitterly.51 Charles Francis Adams received Forster in his study, looking ashen. “This has gone too far,” he wrote in his diary, “that I think I should be glad to be relieved of the mission. Nothing but a sense of duty to the public reconciles me to the trial a moment longer.”52 “Things look well for Lindsay’s motion tonight,” gloated James Mason.53 The Times helped maintain the appearance by suppressing information that contradicted the surrender report.54 The legation, however, had the latest newspapers from New York. “A single glance at dates showed us that it was an utter swindle,” wrote Henry; “we had bulletins from McClellan two days later than the day of the reported surrender.”55

  Adams was aghast at how quickly the falsehood was spreading, and he asked William Forster to take the American newspaper to the House of Commons so that MPs could see for themselves that the Federal army had retreated but was still intact. Benjamin Moran went along to watch and was surprised by the enormous crowd that had turned up for the debate. There was much jostling between Northern and Southern supporters over seats in the gallery. James Mason had a shouting match with the doorkeep
er and had to be rescued by William Gregory, who led him to the floor. Moran was pleased to see that the Southern commissioner was wearing the wrong type of coat for the occasion. The only people not present were Adams and Lord Lyons, who both stayed away deliberately.

  Adams might have felt calmer if he had known that the McClellan rumor would not affect the British government’s policy. Three weeks earlier, Lord Palmerston had candidly informed the Confederate agent Edwin De Leon that the Federals could be pushed back and Washington besieged and it would still not be enough to guarantee recognition.56 Knowledge of this would have saved Lindsay from making a fool of himself. He was such a poor speaker anyway that several members went off for a drink until he had finished. Moran seethed as he listened to the debate, forgetting that politicians generally consider foreign countries to be fair game. No speaker challenged Lindsay’s assertion that slavery was not the cause of the war or that the North was fighting out of greed and a desire for power. At half past one in the morning, Lord Palmerston rose slowly from his seat and the boisterous House of Commons fell silent. The seventy-eight-year-old politician surveyed his listeners with a grandfatherly air. He reminded the House that a report of the debate would be read in America and would probably offend both sides. But, more important, there had never been “a contest of such magnitude between two different sections of the same people.” Recognition or mediation was not something to be considered lightly. It was for the government alone to decide “what can be done, when it can be done, and how it can be done.” The House burst into applause. “As I came away,” recorded Moran with satisfaction, “I met Mason alone, looking sullen and dejected.”57

  With remarkable persistence, James Mason presented the Foreign Office a week later with a formal demand for recognition of the Confederacy. The document was accepted without comment. Yet the debate had helped to shape public opinion in a way that was advantageous to the South. First, as Adams complained to Seward, the Confederates had succeeded in positioning themselves as the underdogs and victims in the war.58 Second, and more dangerous still, they had made the idea of British mediation seem like a humanitarian duty to end the bloodshed. Make the war about slavery, Adams urged Seward, otherwise the British government could end up caving in to pressure.59 After the debate, Lord Russell admitted to Lyons that he was astonished by the passions it had stirred. “The great majority are in favour of the South,” he concluded. Furthermore, “nearly our whole people are of [the] opinion that separation wd be [of] benefit both to North and South.”60

  Russell’s concern about national sentiment may have blinded him to more practical and immediate issues such as the Confederates’ violations of the Foreign Enlistment Act. Charles Francis Adams had repeatedly asked him to investigate reports of a formidable cruiser that was under construction at Lairds shipyard. His consul in Liverpool, Thomas Haines Dudley, had amassed such damning evidence that only an outright partisan—as the customs collector of Liverpool happened to be—could claim with a straight face that the mysterious No. 290 at Lairds was simply a merchant ship of unusual design.61 The vessel was ready to depart before Russell finally realized the danger, and he ordered all the relevant documents to be delivered immediately to the law officers. This was on July 23. Over the next six days a tragicomedy unfurled without anyone realizing its true importance until it was too late. The papers arrived at the house of the Queen’s Advocate, Sir John Harding, on the day he suffered an irreversible nervous breakdown. Meanwhile, an anonymous Confederate sympathizer in the Foreign Office alerted James Bulloch that his ship was about to be seized. Harding’s illness created a bureaucratic vacuum; in the ensuing muddle of confused responsibilities and departmental paper shuffling, the Confederates bribed a local customs official and quietly sneaked No. 290 out of Liverpool. By the time the telegram ordering her arrest reached Liverpool on July 31, the steamer was on her way to the Azores. There she would receive her guns, a new captain, and a new name: CSS Alabama. Northern shipping was about to face its greatest threat since the War of 1812.

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  Lord Russell still thought the best hope for ending slavery was for the North and South to separate.62 Like many Englishmen, he assumed that the effect of international moral pressure and enlightened domestic opinion would eventually force Southern leaders to abolish slavery, just as Czar Alexander II had abolished serfdom in 1861. Gladstone shared his view; he was one of the few members of the British cabinet who had actually read James Spence’s The American Union, and the debate on July 18 sent him spinning further into the Confederates’ arms. Gladstone had fallen in love with the humanitarian argument. “It is indeed much to be desired,” he wrote to a friend on July 26, “that this bloody and purposeless conflict should cease.” Four days later, a mutual acquaintance succeeded in placing Henry Hotze next to him at dinner. The evening passed like a dream for Hotze; Gladstone hung on his every word. By the end of the night they were discussing where the boundary ought to lie between the two Americas, and whether it would be better to divide the border states in half.63

  Gladstone would not be the first English politician or the last to fall under the spell of a foreign agent, but the way Henry Hotze played him was especially masterful. In his report after their “chance” meeting, Hotze described to Judah Benjamin how he carefully drove the conversation to make it seem as though Gladstone was in control. “I purposely abstained from introducing any topic,” he wrote on August 6; he allowed Gladstone to waffle on about “supposed difficulties” over the Confederacy’s border. Then, when he thought the moment was right, Hotze casually referred to the South’s (nonexistent) intention to revalue its currency to make it more favorable for the pound, “a prospect which I knew would be peculiarly agreeable to him.” Over the next few days he commissioned sympathizers to write articles that discussed the South’s economic policies, hoping that they would keep Gladstone’s interest alive. This was Hotze’s usual tactic. “Thanks to friends,” he continued, he knew which arguments appealed to individual cabinet members, “and to these from week to week I devoted myself.” The results appeared to be promising. “Just as I close this,” finished Hotze, “a reliable friend steps in to inform me that there have been three successive cabinet meetings … and that each time the cabinet was evenly divided, Mr. Gladstone leading the party in favor of recognition.”64

  Hotze’s “reliable friend” had given him an accurate report of the state of opinion in the cabinet. Leading the faction against immediate recognition was the pugnacious Duke of Argyll, who resented Gladstone’s attempt to browbeat them with fallacious moral arguments. “I retain my opinion unchanged,” wrote the duke after a bruising correspondence with Gladstone; no war “has been more just or more necessary.… It is not inconsistent to sympathize with revolts which are just, and to fight against other revolts which are unjust.” In his usual blunt way, Argyll informed Gladstone that he was deceiving himself if he believed that separation was good for the “anti-slavery cause.”65

  Argyll’s reproach stung Gladstone, but the latter was mollified by his success with Palmerston, who “has come exactly to my mind,” he told his wife after the final cabinet meeting of the session.66 Palmerston did not in fact share Gladstone’s moral qualms, and he certainly did not wish to fight a war on behalf of the South. But if the Confederates continued their run of victories, and the North proved obdurate, he could see no reason why the question should not be considered. The French had been advocating October—when the cotton season was normally in full swing—as the time for Europe to decide, which seemed reasonable to Palmerston.67 Gladstone had also succeeded in pricking Russell’s conscience. Though he saw the complications and subtleties of the question that the crusading chancellor of the exchequer conveniently ignored, Russell was also becoming bewitched by the siren call of the humanitarian argument. On August 6, Russell suggested to Palmerston that they try to bring the opposing sides to an armistice. But, he asked on reflection, “On what basis are we to negotiate?” It seemed to him there was l
ittle hope that Lincoln “and his Democracy will listen to reason.”68

  The deliberations in the cabinet soon leaked out; The New York Times reported that the Great Powers were contemplating mediation. France and Russia were said to be keen; England was apparently undecided.69 Without Lord Lyons to reassure him, Seward assumed the worst. Senator Orville Browning bumped into him at Lincoln’s office and asked him point-blank “if there was any danger of intervention in our affairs by England and France. He said there was,” recorded Browning, “unless volunteering went on rapidly, and our army was greatly increased.”70 Seward sent one of his wrap-the-world-in-flames dispatches to Adams, hoping that it would scare the British into inaction. He also rather cleverly sent out a circular on August 8 to all consuls in Europe offering inducements to immigrants seeking work opportunities in America.

  The circular, No. 19, seemed innocent enough, but it was actually a back-door route for army recruitment. Consulates were encouraged to display information on the cash bounties awarded to volunteers. Seward knew the game he was playing. “Nobody is authorized to do anything or pay anything, for once entering into this kind of business there would be no end of trouble,” he warned his consul in Paris, since official recruitment was illegal; but “to some extent this civil war must be a trial between the two parties to exhaust each other. The immigration of a large mass from Europe would of itself decide it.”71