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

by Amanda Foreman

  Although many newspapers accepted the organizers’ claim that the bazaar was an exercise in charity rather than political propaganda, Northern supporters were not deceived. Benjamin Moran prayed to heaven that retribution would fall upon the English. “When the day of reckoning comes,” he wrote to Dudley on November 1, “I hope I shall be oblivious of mercy towards this government.”17 Moran’s desire to be merciless was granted a week later when Samuel Hardinge, Belle Boyd’s new husband, paid an unexpected visit to the legation. He came “begging for a loan today,” Moran recorded in his diary on November 7, 1864. “He looks like a traitor—is tall and about 21 years of age. He professes to be loyal.” Moran triumphantly turned him away, but Hardinge returned the next morning, offering to spy for the Federals. Moran was supercilious: “I gave him no encouragement. He is evidently in very straightened [sic] circumstances, and wants money. After associating with rebels and marrying a spy, it is rather cool impudence in him to come here to beg. His coming here is proof to me that the rebels are in very great pecuniary troubles in London.”18 Hardinge returned to America shortly afterward—without Belle. He was arrested on his arrival in the North and taken to the Old Capitol prison, where he was told he would remain at the discretion of Edwin Stanton, the secretary of war.

  The irony for the Confederates was that the bazaar had been too successful. The outpouring of support for the South by the British public would make it impossible for the U.S. government—had Seward been so inclined—to allow the distribution of the fund to Confederate prisoners without suffering a loss of face. “It would be a great relief to us if we could get permission to act openly,” Spence wrote to Lord Wharncliffe on November 2, after he realized that the fund was in danger of turning into a thankless burden.34.4 19 He suggested that they write a letter to Charles Francis Adams asking leave to send “an accredited agent” on a tour of Northern prisons. At the very least it would demonstrate the organizers’ good faith to the British public. The bazaar committee had already purchased two thousand blankets, ten thousand socks, and five thousand shirts, which were boxed and ready to be shipped. Wharncliffe duly wrote to Adams on November 9 begging him to show pity on “the suffering of American citizens, whatever their State or opinions.”20 Adams tersely replied that the matter was for the State Department to decide, not the legation, and he refused to answer any further correspondence on the subject. (Adams did not feel the least guilty about turning away the pro-Southern supporters; he had his hands full with cases he considered to be far more deserving.)

  Henry Hotze was too absorbed by his own troubles to help Spence. His plan to step back from the day-to-day running of the Index had backfired in spectacular fashion.34.5 The staff had revolted against John Witt, the new editor, imperiling Hotze’s plan to expand his operations.22 Nor had anything come of his attempt to create a recruiting scandal in Ireland. Hotze had in fact discovered a genuine fraud in England involving three con artists from New York who enticed several hundred workers over to America on a false glass-manufacturing contract. But the press had shown only perfunctory interest in the case. The Tories were content to let it alone as well; Lord Derby ordered the party “to sit still” and allow the government to tear itself apart.23

  Palmerston was not in the least interested in petty recruiting scandals, except as a counterargument to Northern complaints about the Alabama; he was only concerned with the Civil War insofar as it revealed a new military threat to Britain. “If the Americans go to war with us,” Palmerston wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Duke of Somerset, “they will send out a swarm of fast steamers … sturdy enough to escape from our cruisers, and strong enough to capture any merchantman.”24 When Russell received Seward’s protest about the Confederates’ use of Canada on November 10, Palmerston reacted as though it was only a matter of time before the U.S. Navy’s new Monitor-class gunboats seized control of the Great Lakes. Worried that the Americans could close off access to the St. Lawrence River, which connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic, he suggested to the war secretary, Lord de Grey, that the river be protected by “floating batteries and heavy guns” powerful enough to “smash and sink monitors.”25 “Any Reduction of our real Naval Force,” Palmerston warned Somerset, “in the face of all the warnings we have of contingent hostility on the part of the Federal States of North America would be taking upon ourselves a very dangerous responsibility.”26

  Adams, too, was worried by the aggressive language in Seward’s protest to Lord Lyons. He knew the foreign secretary well enough now to be certain that the dispatch would be counterproductive. Unaware that Russell had already received an unofficial copy of the protest via Lord Lyons, Adams decided to rephrase Seward’s letter before delivering it to the Foreign Office.

  Adams was still struggling to find the right tone for the “improved” dispatch when the Canada arrived on November 21, bringing the results of the presidential election. Lincoln had carried all but two states, though a few went Republican by the slimmest of margins, including New York State by less than 1 percent of the popular vote. “Thus has the country passed safely through the most grave of its trials since the first outbreak of the war,” wrote Adams with relief in his diary.27 The British press concentrated on Lincoln’s victory and ignored the Confederate government’s latest message to Europe, which came in the form of a manifesto demanding immediate recognition. The South’s request for “justice” from Great Britain, while it was deploying guerrillas and agents provocateurs in Canada, received a cold response from Lord Russell.28 Under the circumstances, James Mason was fortunate to have any response at all. France, Sweden, and the Papal States were the only other countries to acknowledge receipt of the manifesto.29

  Adams felt liberated. For the past three years, his life had been blighted by fear and anxiety. Lincoln’s reelection—which would not have happened if the war were still going badly—seemed to herald the end of perpetual crisis. “The responsibility attending this post declines steadily with the progress of the war,” Adams wrote in his diary. He felt that the change justified his asking Seward “about the possibility of my being relieved in the spring.” When Henry Adams heard the news of the election, he feared his father would be too reticent in his request, and asked Charles Francis Jr., “Should you go to Washington, try and have a talk with Seward about our affairs.”30

  Adams delivered his amended version of Seward’s protest on Confederate Canadian operations to Lord Russell on November 25. His lingering misgivings about deserting the legation fell away once he learned that Russell had not only received Seward’s protest via Lord Lyons but also had already replied. “Mr. Adams is very angry with Mr. Seward about his conduct,” reported Benjamin Moran. “His labor was all thrown away and he is made to look like a fool. It was a trick that no man but Seward could have played with Mr. Adams.”31

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  “This election has relieved us of the fire in the rear,” Charles Francis Jr. wrote to Henry Adams on November 14, “and now we can devote an undivided attention to the remnants of the Confederacy.”32 The Democrats’ hopes of winning the White House had been upended by the twin victories of Sherman at Atlanta and Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. Grant’s tenacity had made the Copperheads appear defeatist, if not unpatriotic, and the same message of “peace now” that had been so popular during the summer had alienated all but the Democrats’ core supporters in the autumn. Ordinary Federal soldiers shared Charles Francis Jr.’s determination to finish the war; 78 percent had voted for Lincoln. The Democratic candidate, General McClellan, had counted on the army without considering the psychological cost to men who were fighting for victory rather than for peace. Even many Federal prisoners of war “voted” for Lincoln. James Pendlebury had been a prisoner at Andersonville, considered to be the worst of the Confederacy’s prisons, since his capture in June. Unable to cope with the sheer number of prisoners, the commandant of Andersonville, Henry Wirz, had allowed a small delegation to travel to Washington with a petition to resume the ex
change system.33 The failure to gain a response led to a second prison being built nearby to take some of the overflow. “We moved to Millen and while there I voted for Abraham Lincoln,” Pendlebury wrote in his memoirs. “Our Captains allowed us to as they were anxious to carry McLennon [sic] because Abe Lincoln was a Republican and McLennon a Democrat. Now 19 out of every 20 voted for Lincoln so we were all ‘docked’ rations.”34.6 The defiance shown by Pendlebury was all the more remarkable given that the Federal soldiers knew Lincoln had refused to resume prisoner exchanges until the Confederates treated white and black prisoners on an equal basis. On some days, there were more than 150 burials at the prison: “We would fight like wild beasts that we might carry out the body of a fellow prisoner, because on those occasions we would get into the woods and come back with a supply of firewood with which to do our cooking.”35 After the prisoners were forbidden to go into the woods, they fought for the “privilege” of taking the bodies to the carts, since it was their only opportunity to scavenge for clothing.

  Ill.57 The Federal Phoenix rises again, according to Punch, from the flames of states’ rights, free press, and the Constitution.

  The needless suffering of prisoners was a frequent accusation hurled at both administrations. But Lincoln and Grant were also blamed for deliberately sacrificing thousands of Northern soldiers in order to prevent the South from replenishing its empty ranks. The Regius Professor of History at Oxford University, Goldwin Smith, was on a lecture tour of the United States and took the opportunity to visit a Union-run prison camp in Chicago and a prison hospital in Baltimore. He thought neither unduly harsh, whereas the sight of returning Federal prisoners from Andersonville made him shudder: “I put my finger and thumb round the upper part of a large man’s arm,” he wrote. “It must be said that Grant was partly responsible, if, as was understood, he refused to exchange prisoners. No laws of war surely can warrant the retention of prisoners whom a captor cannot feed.”34.7 36

  Goldwin Smith’s popularity in the United States was second only to John Bright’s on account of his vigorous pamphleteering in support of the North, and he was entertained during his tour by a plethora of senators and generals.37 Before the election, he stayed with Charles Sumner, who ranted so obsessively about Seward’s blunders as secretary of state that Smith was glad to escape. Afterward, when Smith was in Washington, he stayed with Seward and realized that not all of Sumner’s criticisms were unfair. Seward had fallen into the old habit of drinking and talking too much; he is “the least cautious of diplomatists,” recorded Smith. With regard to Lincoln, Smith noted that the English perception of the president as an “ungainly and grotesque” figure was largely correct, “but on the face instead of levity, sat melancholy and care.”38

  The escalating tension along the Canadian border was a significant factor in Seward’s return to bad habits. He needed to talk to Lord Lyons and was frustrated by his mysterious illness. In the beginning he had heard that it was typhoid; then the diagnosis changed to neuralgia or dyspepsia or a combination of both. Whatever it was, the minister was unable to leave his room or receive visitors. Seward had taken Lyons for granted for so long that he was shocked to discover how quickly matters could deteriorate when the British minister was absent. Seward broke protocol by writing directly to Lord Monck, rather than via the British legation in Washington, urging him to act swiftly and publicly before John Yates Beall’s latest Lake Erie venture—known to be centered on an armed and reinforced steamship—created a mini-war on the Great Lakes.39 Monck did not appreciate being accused of dilatoriness when he was devoting the greater part of his day to thwarting the Confederates (he even sent a chronology to Lyons showing how and when he had responded to each event), but he was not as attuned to Northern public opinion as Seward. The secretary of state knew there was trouble brewing long before The New York Times came out in favor of a retaliatory war: “Let it come,” declared the newspaper. “We were never in better condition for a war with England.”40 Seward could only hope that his letters were being put into Lord Lyons’s hands.41

  Seward could at least take satisfaction from the growing dissension within the Confederate Congress over the war; calls for peace were appearing in the Southern press with increasing frequency. He was heartened, he wrote to his wife, “in the discovery that division is at last breaking out among the rebels.”42 Davis had been traveling through the remnants of the Confederacy giving speeches to the public and meeting with state governors in private, several of whom were on the verge of withdrawing their cooperation. Desertion was endemic, yet 85 percent of Mississippi’s white adult male population was in the army, which made a mockery of Davis’s exhortation to Confederate women in his speech to the congress on November 7 to “use your influence to send all to the front.”43 Varina Davis discerned a greater willingness in Richmond to cabal against her husband. “The temper of Congress is less vicious,” she wrote, “but more concerted in its hostile action.”44 The Confederate Congress had reacted angrily as a body to Davis’s proposal to appropriate forty thousand slaves as a supplement to the army. They would be diggers, cooks, and porters rather than soldiers, but their contribution would be significant enough to earn them their freedom after the war. The War Department clerk John Jones took Davis’s proposal as a sign that normal life in the Confederacy was disintegrating.45 Wood was $100 a cord and coal cost $90 a load, both beyond the means of a civil servant. When Confederate soldiers received their pay, which was not often, they encountered the same frustrating experiences as Jones. Captain Francis Dawson’s monthly salary of $150 allowed him to purchase new trousers for $100, but not a new pair of boots, which cost $350. Dawson prayed that his current boots would see him through the final weeks of the autumn campaign. “After the 15th November, Richmond is safe,” he informed his mother, for then the weather would be the Confederacy’s best defense.

  The Army of Northern Virginia was stretched like an elastic band along mile after mile of trenches and fortifications. Lee had already moved his headquarters to be closer to Petersburg, where Grant had made the greatest gains in territory. Dawson’s prophecy was accurate almost to the day. The Federals settled into their winter dugouts during the second week of November. Private James Horrocks and the 5th Battery, New Jersey actually built little wooden cabins, complete with windows and brick chimneys.

  Thank goodness I have a nice, warm log shanty to live in [he wrote to his parents]. Already the winter of Virginia begins to commence. This season is characterized chiefly by perpetual rain, and penetrating cold that pierces through one’s clothing and makes one shiver. Mud of a sticky character takes one up to the knees and it is no rare occurrence to get up to the middle in it.… The state of the ground renders the movement of Artillery almost impossible.46

  General Longstreet occasionally ordered a round of artillery fire to keep the Federals on their toes, but his batteries were no less mudbound than those of his opponents. The relative quiet enabled him to reorganize his staff. There were several promotions and requests for transfers, including one by Francis Dawson. Longstreet had never shown the least interest in the Englishman, but he was suddenly indignant when Dawson was appointed chief ordnance officer on General Fitzhugh Lee’s staff. “General Fitz Lee heard of me through some of our mutual English friends and made application for me,” Dawson explained to his mother. Dawson was delighted to be able to say goodbye to his uncongenial messmates. “Although I have suffered but little,” he wrote to his mother on November 24, “it is useless to deny that there is considerable jealousy displayed towards an Englishman.”47

  Dawson felt welcomed by his new mess officers from the beginning. “A better set of fellows on Fitz Lee’s staff it would have been difficult to find,” he wrote. “There was no bickering, no jealousy, no antagonism.” The camaraderie he had craved—“we lived together as though we were near relatives”—made up for the hardship of his new post. Dawson had to work twice as hard with a smaller staff and no logistical support: “I found that it was no
joke to organize the Ordnance Department of a couple of Divisions of Confederate Cavalry, but I adapted myself to circumstances.”48

  Lee had sent his nephew to reinforce Jubal Early’s shattered army in the Shenandoah Valley, where there was clearly going to be no winter lull. General Sheridan’s reputation so terrified civilians that the women of Harrisonburg had petitioned the government for the right to organize themselves into a regiment for local defense.49 Their bravery inspired Dawson to chide his mother for complaining about his father’s debts: “Tell him for me to keep a stout breast,” he wrote. “Only think of the misery and desolation of this fair land and all will seem light by comparison.”50