59. Dr. Charles Culverwell (1837–1919), British volunteer surgeon in the Union army, who yearned to become an actor and between campaigns appeared several times on the stage, including with John Wilkes Booth in Hamlet at Grover’s Theater. “They would rave of him, his voice, his hair, and his eyes. Small wonder for he was fascinating … Poor sad, mad, bad John Wilkes Booth.” After the war, Culverwell became Sir Charles Wyndham, one of the most successful actors of his generation.
60. Battle of Gettysburg, July 1–3, 1863. The bloodiest battle of the Civil War resulted in more than 43,000 casualties. Confederate General Robert E. Lee withdrew first, giving the psychological edge to U.S. General George Meade.
61. Little Round Top, Gettysburg. U.S. Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his 20th Maine held Little Round Top for Meade, depriving Lee of the high ground that the Confederate General needed in order to seize control of the battle. Chamberlain later received the surrender of Lee’s army in 1865.
62. U.S. Secretary of State William Seward taking a party of diplomats to see Trenton Falls in New York on August 18, 1863. (left to right) William Seward, Russian Minister Baron Stoeckl, Nicaraguan Minister Luis Molina, British Minister Lord Lyons, French Minister M. Mercier, German Minister Rudolph Schleiden, Bertinatti (Italian legation), Swedish Minister Count Piper, M. Bodisco (Russian legation), George Sheffield (British legation), and Mr. Donaldson (U.S. State Department).
63. Rose Greenhow (1817–64), Confederate spy and envoy, with her daughter Little Rose, in a photograph taken in Federal prison. Jefferson Davis sent her to England in 1863 in the hope that she would persuade either Lord Palmerston or Emperor Napoleon III to recognize Confederate independence.
64. Belle Boyd (1844–1900), Confederate heroine, spy, prisoner, and dispatch carrier for the Confederate government. Belle’s attempt to run the blockade out of Wilmington in 1864 was foiled by the Federal blockade. She fell in love with her captor and they were married in St. James’s Church, Piccadilly.
65. General Braxton Bragg (1817–76), Confederate commander of the Army of Tennessee and the most unpopular general in the South. His subordinates wrote to Richmond in October 1863, after the Battle of Chickamauga, asking for a different leader, but Davis insisted that Bragg stay.
66. Civilians hunting for souvenirs the day after the Battle of Chattanooga on November 25, 1864. General Bragg had to retreat, throwing away the victory of Chickamauga in September and opening the way for a Federal invasion of the Deep South.
67. Jacob Thompson (1810–85), Confederate commissioner in Canada. Jefferson Davis gave him $1 million in gold to fund secret operations against Northern targets, both civilian and military. Thompson’s plots became increasingly destructive and terror-driven as the war progressed.
68. Clement C. Clay (1816–82), Confederate commissioner in Canada. Clay was sent out at the same time as Jacob Thompson, but they were temperamentally unsuited to working together and operated out of different cities.
69. Confederate plotters meeting on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, July 1864. (left to right) George N. Sanders, Captain John B. Castleman, Colonel George St. Leger Grenfell, British volunteer in the Confederate army, and Captain Thomas H. Hines. Together they hatched a plot to take Chicago and liberate Confederate prisoners in the surrounding camps. Castleman and Grenfell were captured, but only Grenfell was sentenced to death. He drowned while trying to escape the harshest Federal prison in the U.S., Fort Jefferson, on the Dry Tortugas in the Gulf of Mexico.
Among the innovations of the American Civil War was the use of observation balloons, heavier and more accurate artillery, and the reliance on railways to mass-transport troops and arms.
70. Mounted cannon—the “Dictator,” most powerful mortar in the war, so heavy it had to be fitted to a specially reinforced railway car.
71. Massed field artillery.
72. A Federal observation balloon.
73. U.S. Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant (1822–85), center, whose victories in the Western theater of the Civil War led to President Lincoln appointing him general-in-chief in March 1864. Grant was relentless in war and magnanimous in victory.
74. Battle of Cold Harbor, May 31–June 3, 1864. The fourth phase of U.S. General Grant’s campaign against Confederate General Lee ended in defeat for the Union. Grant was labeled “Butcher Grant” because of the high number of Federal casualties. The fighting took place over the same area as the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863, and soldiers could not help treading on human remains.
75. CSS Alabama. In twenty-two months the Confederate commerce raider covered more than 75,000 miles, captured or sank sixty-five Northern merchant ships, destroyed $5 million worth of Northern goods, and caused a massive sell-off of U.S. merchant marine.
76. CSS Stonewall. A Confederate ironclad ram, she was commissioned by James Bulloch in England and built in France, though delays prevented her from reaching the South before the end of the war.
77. The crew of USS Kearsarge. The sloop-of-war, commanded by Captain John Winslow, defeated CSS Alabama in an extraordinary duel in the English Channel on June 19, 1864.
78. Fort Sedgwick, the bomb-proof Union quarters at Petersburg, called “Fort Hell” by its occupants. Opposite was Fort Mahone, known as “Fort Damnation.” The siege of Petersburg cost the lives of 70,000 in nineteen separate battles.
79. The trenches of Petersburg. Between June 1864 and April 1865 the two armies were spread out in a maze of trenches stretching more than thirty miles. “All day long,” wrote a British observer, “the men sat in their fetid dugouts, sweltering in the heat, until the night shift relieved them.… Soldiers talked about fearful slaughtering they had witnessed in vague tones, as if they wished to forget it.”
80. Charleston at the end of the war. Charleston was regarded with special hatred by Union forces because it was here that the war began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate General Beauregard fired on the Federal-held Fort Sumter, forcing its surrender. “If there is any city deserving of holocaustic infamy, it is Charleston,” declared the New York Herald Tribune.
81. Richmond after its fall on April 3, 1865. Fire threatened to engulf the entire city and the Federal invaders became firefighters, saving what they could. Fifty-five blocks, the entire business district, went up in flames.
82. and 83. Victory parade of the U.S. Army down Pennsylvania Avenue and the front of the Capitol on May 24, 1865. More than 620,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians died in the war. At least a further 470,000 soldiers were wounded or maimed, including 50,000 amputees. The North lost 10 percent of its white males ages 20 to 45; the South lost 30 percent.
84. Lincoln Memorial, old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh. On the west side, the inscription reads: “Unveiled 21st August 1893. This plot of ground given by the Lord Provost, Town Council of Edinburgh to Wallace Bruce, US. Consul as a burial place for Scottish soldiers of the American Civil War 1861–5.” On the east: “To preserve the jewel of liberty in the framework of peace. Abraham Lincoln.” Around the base: “Suffrage—Union—Education—Emancipation.”
85. The British Stonewall Jackson Memorial, Richmond, Virginia. The inscription on the plaque reads: “Presented by English gentlemen, as a tribute of admiration for the soldier and patriot, Thomas J. Jackson, and gratefully accepted by Virginia in the name of the Southern people. Done A.D. 1875, in the hundredth year of the commonwealth. ‘Look! There is Jackson, Standing like a Stone-Wall.’ ”
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for sending me their ancestors’ papers: John Knight, Derrick Mayhew, and Iris Diggle; as well as John Hailey, Bill Torrens, and Beata Duncan for their help.
I have been greatly aided over the years by my assistants, who have done everything from photocopying archives to picking up the children from school: Heather Nedwell, Jay Knowlton, Lorena Crackett, Christina Galbraith, Elizabeth Uzelac, and Olivia Taylor. I also thank all those at Penguin and Random House who have worked on the book.
Th
e following people and libraries provided invaluable material: Library of Congress; U.S. National Archives; U.K. National Archives; Massachusetts Historical Society; South Carolina Historical Society; Museum of the Confederacy; British Library; British Newspaper Library; Royal Museum of Central Africa; Ms. Sam Collenette—Bolton Archives and Local Studies; Roger Bettridge, Linda Haynes, and Bill Torrens—Buckinghamshire Record Office; Kate Fellows and Rachel MacGregor—Birmingham City Archives; John Hopkins and Esther Williams—Cheshire Record Office; Sam Johnston and David Thomas—Cornwall Record Office; Susan Worrall—Coventry Archives; Rachel M. Rowe—Smuts Librarian in South Asian and Commonwealth Studies, University of Cambridge; Diana Chardin—Trinity College Library, Cambridge University; Martin Beckett—State Library of New South Wales; David M. Bowcock—Cumbria Record Office; John Brunton, Susan Laithwaite, Janice Wood, and Tim Wormleighton—Devon Record Office; Jennifer Gill—Durham Record Office; Jane Hogan and Elizabeth Rainey—Archives and Special Collections, Durham University Library; Hugh Jaques and Deborah Stevenson—Dorset Record Office; Sarah Chubb—Dundee University Archives; Ian Flett—Dundee City Archives; Michael Read—Welsh College of Music and Drama; Marion M. Stewart—Dumfries and Galloway Archives; Robert Craigie; Philip Bye—East Sussex Records Office; Dr. Annette Hagan and Hazel Robertson—Special Collections, Edinburgh University Library; Elizabeth Pettitt—Flintshire Records Office; Karan Robson—Southampton University Library; Mr. P. R. Evans—Gloucestershire County Record Office; Pauline Kane—Glasgow Public Library; Lynne Dent, Niki Pollock, and Moira Rankin—Special Collections, Glasgow University Library; Elizabeth Ball—Glasgow University Archive; Steffan ab Owain and J. Dilwyn Williams—Caernarfon Record Office; Martin Taylor—Hull City Archives; Elizabeth Kirwan—Department of Manuscripts, National Library of Ireland; Helen Burton—Special Collections and Archives, Keele University; Bruce Jackson and Neil Sayer—Lancashire Record Office; Dr. Margaret Bonney—Leicestershire Record Office; Adrian Wilkinson—Lincolnshire Archives; Ruth Hobbins, Roger Hull, and Liz Williams—Liverpool Record Office; Stephen Freeth and James R. Sewell—Guildhall Library, Corporation of London; Susan Stead—Special Collections, University College London; Malcolm C. Davis, Paul Howell, and Gillian Moran—Special Collections, Leeds University Library; Gwen McGinty and Dr. Maureen M. Watry—Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool; Dr. John Nicholls—London City Mission; Robert Gerrelli; Stephen M. Dixon—Medway Archives and Local Studies Center; Dawn Littler—Merseyside Maritime Museum; John Hodgson and Peter McNiven—John Rylands University Library; Edith Philip—National War Museum of Scotland; Alastair Carroll, Anne Craig, and Michelle Kelly—Public Record Office of Northern Ireland; Helen Sellars—Florence Nightingale Museum Trust; Richard Aspin, Douglas Knock, Nyree Morrison, and Helen Wakely—Wellcome Library for the History and Understanding of Medicine; Helen Arkwright and Lesley Gordon—Special Collections, Robinson Library, University of Newcastle; Caroline Kelly and Elizabeth Tebbutt—Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections, Hallward Library, University of Nottingham; Jill Davies, Duncan Hartwig, and Kiri Ross-Jones—Manuscripts Department, National Maritime Museum; Tim Hughes; Mrs. S. Wood—Northumberland Record Office; Adrian Henstock—Nottinghamshire Archives; Caroline Dalton—New College Library, Oxford; Clare Brown and Melissa Dalziel—Special Collections and Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford; Marie Lewis—Pembrokeshire Record Office; Steve Connelly—Perth and Kinross Council Archive; Josef Keith—Library, Friends House, London; Susan McGann—Royal College of Nursing Archives and U.K. Centre for the History of Nursing; Barbara Mortimer—Queen Margaret University College; Alan Readman—West Sussex Record Office; Angus Johnson and Brian Smith—Shetland Archives; Margaret Myerscough—Stockport Central Library; Di Tapley—Surrey History Centre; Len Reilly—Local Studies Library, Southwark; Robert Fotheringham, John McLintock, and Dr. Alison Rosie—National Archives of Scotland; Daniella Shippey; Dr. Iain G. Brown—National Library of Scotland; Alison Healey—Shropshire Records and Research Center; Christopher Lloyd—Tower Hamlets Local History, Bancroft Library; Rhys M. Jones and Meriel Ralphs—National Library of Wales; Steve Hobbs—Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office; Jeanette Grisold—Warwickshire Record Office; Dr. David Wykes—Dr. Williams’s Library; Elen Wyn Hughes—University of Wales, Bangor; Lyons Papers, courtesy of His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, Arundel Castle; Bob Hale and Lyn Morgan—Sheffield Archives and Conservation Unit; Mrs. C. Boddington—East Riding of Yorkshire Archive; Judith A. Smeaton—North Yorkshire County Record Office; Andrew George, Paul Harris, Ruth Harris, Barbara Hick, and Jayne Rhodes-Gifford—West Yorkshire Police; Elizabeth Briggs—West Yorkshire Archive; Marvel Manning—Hoole Special Collections, University of Alabama; Jim Pate—Birmingham Public Library; Charlotte Chamberlain—Mobile Public Library; Barry Crompton—Archer Memorial Civil War Library; Laura Madokoro—National Archives of Canada; John Rhodehamel—Huntington Library; Richard A. Hanks—A.K. Smiley Public Library; Kathleen Burns—San Diego Public Library; Bonnie Linck—Connecticut State Library; Martha L. Bennett—Fort Delaware Society; Marjorie G. McNinch—Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington; Lynn Conway—Georgetown University Library; Patrick Kerwin and Albert E. Smith—Library of Congress; Tony Gonzalez—National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections; Faye Haskins—Washingtoniana Division, D.C. Public Library; Amy Elizabeth Burton—United States Senate Office; Glovenia E. Snead; Sydney Herbert Davis; C.F. Henningsen; Jim Taylor; Susan Watson—Hazel Braugh Records Center and Archives for the American Red Cross; Trevor Plante—National Archives; Alicia Clarke—Sanford Museum Archive; Anne Thompson—Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University; John Phillip Albert—Georgia Historical Society; Melissa Bush—Hagrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Georgia; E. Cheryl Schnirring—Illinois State Historical Library; Olivia Chen—Chicago Historical Society; Andrea Telli—Chicago Public Library, Special Collections and Preservation Division; Kathy J. Koch—Archive, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists; Lori O’Connor—Kentucky Historical Society; Elizabeth Tunis—National Library of Medicine; Anne Sauer—Tisch Library, Tufts University; Pat Boulos—Boston Athenaeum; Diane Gallagher—History of Nursing Archives, Boston University; Alex Rankin—Boston University; Nicholas Graham—Massachusetts Historical Society; Barbara DeWolfe—William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor; Michael Hennen—Mississippi Department of Archives and History; Steve Zerbe; Megan Hahn Fraser—New-York Historical Society; Sha Fagan—Sarah Lawrence College; Jim Moske—New York Public Library; Nancy Martin—Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester; Sarah DeSanctis; Fred Bassett—New York State Library; Mitch Frass—Duke University Library; North Carolina State Archives; Anne Skilton—Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Connie Cedoz—Port Clinton Public Library; Jim Duffey; Nan Card—Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center; Albert Hallenberg—Public Library of Cincinnati; John E. Hass—Ohio Historical Society; Karen Drickamer—Musselman Library, Gettysburg College; John Heiser—historian, Gettysburg National Military Park; Molly Dohrmann—Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University; Mary Jo Fairchild, Jackie McCall, Carey Lucas Nikonchuk, and Peter L. Wilkerson—South Carolina Historical Society; Ann Drury Wellford—Museum of the Confederacy; and Gregory Stoner—Virginia Historical Society.
Notes
To read the comprehensive bibliography for A World on Fire, please visit www.amanda-foreman.com.
ABBREVIATIONS
BL British Library
BDOFA British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, ed. Kenneth Bourne and D. Cameron Watt (Frederick, Md., 1986–)
MHS Massachusetts Historical Society
MPUS Message of the President of the United States, 37th Congress (Washington, D.C., 1862)
NARA National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.
ORN Official Navy Records
OR Official Records
PRFA Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs Accompanying the Annual Messag
e of the President of the United States
PRO Public Record Office
Prologue
1. Virginia Clay-Copton and Ada Sterling, A Belle of the Fifties: The Memoirs of Mrs. Clay of Alabama (New York, 1904), pp. 116, 118.
2. New York Times, February 19, 1859.
3. Mrs. Roger A. Pryor, Reminiscences of Peace and War (New York, 1905), p. 57.
4. C. Vann Woodward (ed.), Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (New Haven, 1981), p. 367.
5. Lyons nevertheless understood the importance of providing excellent food and wine at the legation dinners. Hence the chef was from Paris and the wine from his own family cellars. Source: Brian Jenkins.
6. James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes (eds.), Private and Confidential: Letters from British Ministers in Washington to the Foreign Secretaries (Selinsgrove, Pa., 1993), p. 213, Lyons to Lord Malmesbury, April 12, 1859.
7. Raymond A. Jones, The British Diplomatic Service (London, 1983), p. 99.
8. Calvin D. Davis, “A British Diplomat and the American Civil War: Edward Malet in the United States,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 77/2 (1978), p.166.
A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War Page 97
