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

by Amanda Foreman

  Colonel Fremantle, on the other hand, was delighted to meet his compatriot. “Ever since I landed in America, I had heard of the exploits of an Englishman called Colonel St. Leger Grenfell,” he wrote on May 30, two days after his arrival at Bragg’s headquarters. “This afternoon I made his acquaintance, and I consider him one of the most extraordinary characters I ever met. Although he is a member of a well-known English family, he seems to have devoted his whole life to the exciting career of a soldier of fortune.” Grenfell was Bragg’s inspector general of cavalry, having left the raiding outfit led by the Confederate guerrilla John Hunt Morgan the previous Christmas. Fremantle was surprised to learn that Grenfell was fifty-five years old and that he had a wife (who had thrown up her hands some years before and was running a successful girls’ school in Paris) and two grown-up daughters.32 Grenfell told Fremantle that he had fought the Barbary pirates in Morocco, followed Garibaldi in South America, and joined the Turks against the Russians in the Crimea. The last was undoubtedly true, as he had been Colonel De Courcy’s brigade major in the Turkish contingent.33 Neither Grenfell nor De Courcy ever knew that their paths had again crossed during the Federal occupation of the Cumberland Gap.

  “Even in this army,” wrote Fremantle,

  which abounds with foolhardy and desperate characters: [Grenfell] has acquired the admiration of all ranks by his reckless daring and gallantry in the field. Both Generals Polk and Bragg spoke to me of him as a most excellent and useful officer, besides being a man who never lost an opportunity of trying to throw his life away. He is just the sort of a man to succeed in this army, and among the soldiers his fame for bravery has outweighed his unpopularity as a rigid disciplinarian. He is the terror of all absentees, stragglers and deserters, and of all commanding officers who are unable to produce for his inspection the number of horses they have been drawing forage for.34

  Grenfell always wore a red cap, which made him conspicuous in battle and therefore more esteemed among the officers.

  Grenfell took Fremantle on a tour of the outposts. During the ride he was frank about the army’s deficiencies, as well as his own troubles: “He told me he was in desperate hot water with the civil authorities of the State, who had accused him of illegally impressing and appropriating horses, and also of conniving at the escape of a negro from his lawful owner, and he said that the military authorities were afraid or unable to give him proper protection.” Three days later, on June 3, “Grenfell came to see me in a towering rage,” wrote Fremantle. He had been arrested. “General Bragg himself had stood bail for him, but Grenfell was naturally furious at the indignity. But, even according to his own account, he seems to have acted indiscreetly in the affair of the Negro, and he will have to appear before the civil court next October. General Polk and his officers were all much vexed at the occurrence.35 Bragg’s surety was misspent. A week later, Grenfell packed his bags and disappeared. No one heard anything of him for three months.

  By then, Fremantle had already left for the east. After another tortuous train ride, which had the single distinguishing feature of a female soldier in their midst, he arrived at Charleston.20.3 One of the first people to greet him was Captain Henry Feilden. Fremantle was amazed to come across another English volunteer. “A Captain Feilden came to call upon me at 9 A.M.,” he wrote in his diary. “I remember his brother quite well at Sandhurst.”36 The younger Feilden seemed entranced with the South. Naturally, Fremantle could not know of the momentous event that had taken place in Feilden’s life that week: Miss Julia McCord of Greenville, South Carolina, had visited the office, seeking a military pass to visit her brother.

  * * *

  20.1 Mrs. Chancellor and her six daughters were rescued by one of Hooker’s aides, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Dickinson. He disobeyed orders and remained with the women until they were safely across the Rappahannock, earning their eternal friendship and gratitude.

  20.2 In his history of the Civil War, Winston Churchill wrote: “Chancellorsville was the finest battle which Lee and Jackson fought together. Their combination had become perfect.”14

  20.3 While Fremantle was in Charleston, the local newspapers reported: “The Western army correspondent of the ‘Mobile Register’ writes as follows:—‘The famous Colonel St. Leger Grenfell, who served with Morgan last summer, and since that time has been Assistant Inspector-general of General Bragg, was arrested a few days since by the civil authorities.… If the charges against him are proven true, then there is no doubt that the course of General Bragg will be to dismiss him from his Staff; but if, on the contrary, malicious slanders are defaming this ally, he is Hercules enough and brave enough to punish them. His bravery and gallantry were conspicuous throughout the Kentucky campaign, and it is hoped that this late tarnish on his fame will be removed; or if it be not, that he will.’ ”

  TWENTY-ONE

  The Eve of Battle

  A message to the shipbuilders—British reaction to Jackson’s death—Henry Hotze resurgent—All eyes on Lee—Sir Percy Wyndham finds glory at Brandy Station—A lost boy

  “My father heard about your going out to America to see me,” the Marquis of Hartington wrote to Skittles after his return to London in early spring. “He has been told all about the whole thing, which he had no notion of before [and] is in a terrible state about it.” He added disingenuously: “I told him you had given me up and he knows that I am very unhappy.” The truth, as they both knew, was that he was gently putting his mistress aside, or at least was trying to, with so far limited success.1 Yet Hartington would not have the luxury of dithering for much longer; he had received an invitation from Lord Palmerston to join the government, which would mean assuming greater responsibilities while enjoying fewer of life’s pleasures. “I think it would be a most horrible nuisance,” he wrote.2 On April 13, 1863, however, the decision was made for Hartington by the unexpected death of George Cornewall Lewis, the secretary for war.21.1 Earl de Grey was promoted from undersecretary to secretary, and Hartington was offered de Grey’s former position, an honor not even he could refuse.3

  Ill.39 A certificate for the 7 Per Cent Cotton Loan, signed by Emile Erlanger and J. Henry Schroeder, and by Colin McRace and John Slidell for the Confederacy.

  The Confederates in England had reviled Lewis ever since his speech against recognition the previous November. They were not sure what de Grey or Hartington might achieve for their cause, but the simple fact of there being two more known supporters in positions of power was enough to rescue the Confederates from their gloom. Nothing had gone right for them since the launch of the Erlanger-sponsored cotton bonds in March, and even these had ultimately proven to be a disappointment. Rumors spread by Federal agents that Jefferson Davis intended to default on the bonds had caused the price to plummet. Only secret buying on a massive scale by the Confederates was keeping them at a reasonable level.

  The secret ship-construction program had also suffered a spate of reversals. A week after the Georgia’s escape on April 1, Matthew Fontaine Maury learned that John, his eldest son, was missing at Vicksburg and presumed dead. “Oh my dear, dear wife,” he wrote, “my heart is gone from me.”21.2 Maury’s only mementoes of his lost son John were a short letter and his old winter coat, which had been shortened to fit his twelve-year-old-son Brave; this at least “has its memories,” he wrote.4 Heartbroken, Maury abandoned London and went with Brave to live in Bowdon, on the outskirts of Manchester, refusing to see anyone except his closest friends. Almost simultaneously, the government impounded the Alexandra in Liverpool, which Fraser, Trenholm had intended to donate to the Confederate navy; and James Bulloch heard that the former paymaster of the Alabama, a man named Clarence Yonge, was exacting revenge for his dismissal by telling both the Federals and the British government everything he knew about the Confederates’ operations.

  Bulloch tried to guess what his enemies would learn from Yonge. The Lairds rams currently under construction would be safe, he thought, since Yonge had left England the previous July: “I d
o not think he was ever in the Birkenhead works, or that he has any personal knowledge of what is going on there. He surely can have no knowledge of the Alexandra.”5 But the government’s evident willingness to use Yonge to build its case against the Alexandra made Bulloch fearful that the era of legal loopholes and fly-by-night escapes had passed. He became convinced of this toward the end of April, after Charles Francis Adams was allowed to commit a serious diplomatic blunder without incurring any official sanction.

  Shortly after the seizure of the Alexandra, Adams had written in his diary, “The course of the government has raised the whole hive of sympathizers, as it was never stirred before. What with the case of the Alexandra, and that of the Peterhoff … the effect is to stimulate ill temper. The greater the necessity of keeping as quiet and calm as possible.”6 But instead of heeding his own advice, Adams became entangled in a blockade-running scandal involving two American gunrunners who were shipping arms to Mexico. Admiral Wilkes’s capture of the Peterhoff had made insurance for sailing in Mexican waters prohibitive for small firms. The gunrunners, General Juan Napoleon Zerman and Colonel Bertram B. Howell, asked Adams to provide them with an affidavit stating they were aiding the Mexicans and not the South. This, they hoped, would lower their insurance premium, since their ship would no longer be at risk of capture by the U.S. Navy. In spite of Moran’s warnings, Adams not only provided Howell and Zerman with a letter of indemnity, but also embellished it with pointed jabs at Lloyds for underwriting “dishonest enterprises” such as blockade running.7 As is so often the case with compromising letters, one copy became several. The letter went from Lloyds to the owners of the Peterhoff, thence to the Foreign Office, and finally to The Times.

  The press called Adams a hypocrite for protesting against British arms sales to the South while secretly helping Americans to supply Mexico. One newspaper wondered if he was selling protection; another accused him of plotting to drive British shipping from the Americas. The Times returned to its favorite theme of Northern hypocrisy. The paper often reminded its readers of the example set during the Crimean War, when President Franklin Pierce had rebuffed Britain’s protests over the shipments of American-made weapons to the Russians with the retort: “Americans sold munitions of war to all buyers without troubling themselves about the ports to which the goods would be consigned, or the purposes to which they would be put.”

  The French also issued a strong protest to the U.S. minister in Paris. The Foreign Office was incensed with Adams and thought “his explanation of it … very lame.” The embarrassed ministry desperately tried to stave off a debate on the subject but finally yielded on April 23. Aided by the Tories, pro-Southern MPs excoriated the government for allowing the North’s envoy to become “the Minister for Commerce in England.” One sarcastically remarked that Adams’s notion “of honesty and neutrality is remarkable. Every thing is honest to suit his own purposes.” Some of the speeches that followed were so insulting toward the North that the speaker of the House later apologized to Adams. Calm was restored only after Palmerston and Russell assured their respective listeners in the Commons and the Lords that Seward would disavow Adams’s “extraordinary” and “unwarrantable” act.

  The government had to work hard to stifle the controversy, muzzling its party members and planting stories in the press that the Foreign Office was satisfied with Adams’s protestations of innocence. Palmerston twisted Delane’s arm into having The Times imply that Howell and Zerman had tricked Adams. But none of these efforts to protect Adams diminished his sense of grievance. He remained convinced that his behavior had been above reproof, and for weeks afterward he badgered Lord Russell to retract his speech in the Lords. Henry Adams loyally supported his father, telling his brother Charles Francis Jr., “When the whole Peterhoff story is told, we shall reverse everything and overwhelm these liars.”8 Nevertheless, he could see that his father was floundering and was relieved when the prominent New York lawyer William M. Evarts arrived on May 1. Evarts, one of Seward’s closest political confidants, had been sent by him to liaise with the Crown prosecution lawyers in the Alexandra trial. But instead of bolstering Charles Francis Adams’s confidence, Evarts’s arrival had sent him into further decline. Evarts was the fourth U.S. agent to arrive that spring. Henry could joke about having a “complete Cabinet of Ministerial advisers and assistants,” but he was not the one whose competence appeared to be in doubt.

  —

  Hartington’s maiden speech as the new undersecretary for war took place on May 14, 1863. He managed to arrive late for the debate—regarding a bill to regulate the country’s volunteer militias—and without his papers, but the House appeared to accept his apology once he demonstrated a sound grasp of the subject. The Confederate sympathizers in the Commons held their breath, waiting to see whether he might use the opportunity to praise the South; finally, after keeping them in suspense until the end of his speech, Hartington fulfilled their hopes by making a long and favorable comparison between English volunteer soldiers and the brave fighting men he had recently seen in the Confederacy. By itself, Hartington’s speech was a minor event, but its timing turned out to be extremely fortunate for the South, coming as it did four days before the news of Lee’s victory at Chancellorsville. James Mason’s supporters in Parliament were so elated that they immediately laid plans to rattle the government again about Admiral Wilkes and Northern interference with British ships in the West Indies. In France, a friendly meeting with the Spanish ambassador lifted Commissioner Slidell’s spirits.

  It was the news of Stonewall Jackson’s death, however, that made the Confederates spring into action. They were amazed and delighted by the spontaneous outpouring of public grief in England. Newspapers carried long eulogies to the fallen hero; The Times even compared Jackson’s death to Admiral Nelson’s at Trafalgar. Flags flew at half-mast at many cotton mills. Public expressions of sympathy were hastily drawn up for Jackson’s widow. The unexpected intensity of the reaction delivered the Confederates from their despair even as it threw the U.S. legation and its supporters into deeper vexation. The querulous Liberal MP John Roebuck, whose youthful affection for America had changed in his old age to a blazing dislike, held a mass meeting in Sheffield that voted to recognize the Confederacy. A few days later, on June 1, the pro-Confederate owner of the Saturday Review, Alexander Beresford Hope, formed a committee calling itself the “British Jackson Monumental Fund.” Beresford Hope, whose vociferous support for the Confederacy stemmed from a misguided belief that its political system was more aristocratic than the North’s, announced that the fund was going to commission the Irish sculptor John Foley, designer of the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, to make a statue of Stonewall Jackson that would be presented to the people of Virginia upon completion.21.3 Not to be outdone, publishing houses hastily called for biographies about the general. The race was won by the English governess stranded in Richmond during Lord Edward St. Maur’s visit, Catherine Hopley, who pipped the competition with her Stonewall Jackson, published in August.10

  The Confederates also regarded it as a good sign that the newest of their three cruisers, the Georgia, had made contact with the Alabama in Brazil. The vessels had met in the harbor of Bahia quite by chance. “Day broke and we found ourselves very near two men-of-war,” wrote James Morgan.

  What was their nationality? It seemed an age before the hour for colors arrived, but when it did, to our great delight, the most rakish-looking of the two warships broke out the Stars and Bars! “It is the Alabama!” we gasped, and commenced to dance with delight. The officers hugged one another, each embracing a man of his own rank, except the captain and myself. Like the commander, I was the only one of my rank aboard, so I hugged myself.11

  The shipping magnate William Schaw Lindsay had succeeded William Gregory as the Confederacy’s chief political lobbyist in the Commons. He was a safer choice than Roebuck, less volatile and more popular among his fellow MPs. Lindsay was elated by the commotion over Jackson’s death, believing it mean
t the country was ready to recognize Southern independence. He invited Mason and Roebuck down to his estate in Surrey for a concentrated weekend of plotting. After the meeting, Roebuck wasted little time. In the first week of June he met with Benjamin Disraeli, who said all the things that an opposition leader would when offered the chance of attacking the government without actually committing himself or his party to a change in their policy of noninterference in the American war. But this was encouragement enough for Roebuck, who gave notice in the House of his intention to revisit the question of Southern recognition. The debate was slated for the end of June. The Confederates took the news with a degree of caution. Roebuck was an asset to the extent that the MP represented himself as a man of the people, but (in the words of one observer) vanity was “written all over his face when you came near it.” They trembled at the idea of letting Roebuck loose in the Commons without an explicit move by the French beforehand. John Slidell drew up a memorandum for Emperor Napoleon’s attention, which outlined all the reasons why an independent South suited French interests, and requested an interview.

  When Mason returned to England, he found Waterloo Station placarded with posters depicting the British Union Jack crossed with the Confederate flag. Hackney cab drivers were displaying the emblems in miniature. Hotze was working at a feverish pace, distributing posters, placards, and circulars up and down the country. The Morning Herald and the Standard agreed to print editorials demanding recognition every other day until the debate. Spence was also in his element. During the past two years he had changed from being a businessman of no great talent or success into a canny political operator respected by the Southerners in England and feared by the Northern lobby. For the new push in Parliament, Spence formed two separate organizations. One was a respectable club, called the Manchester Southern Club, whose purpose was to distribute Confederate material in the north of England; the other was his own private army of agitators. The group successfully broke up an abolitionist meeting at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. “These parties are not the rich spinners but young men of energy with a taste for agitation but little money,” Spence wrote to Mason.