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

by Amanda Foreman

  7. http://oha.alexandriava.gov/fortward/special-sections/voices/, testimony of William Wallace, 3rd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry.

  8. W. C. Ford (ed.), A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861–1865, 2 vols. (Boston, 1920), vol. 1, p. 206, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to mother, December 21, 1862.

  9. Wyndham was always a favorite with the press, and his side was taken by Dawson’s Daily Times and Union, a popular Indiana newspaper, which declared that the resignation had been a matter of principle since he held Colonel Butler in such low esteem.

  10. NARA, CB MID64, roll 66, Report by General Heintzelman, January 20, 1863.

  11. BL Add. MS 415670, ff. 242–43, Herbert to Jack, January 28, 1863.

  12. New-York Historical Society, Narrative of Ebenezer Wells (c. 1881), January 1863.

  13. BL Add. MS 415670, ff. 242–43, Herbert to Jack, January 28, 1863.

  14. Ford (ed.), A Cycle of Adams Letters, vol. 1, p. 250, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to Henry Adams, January 30, 1863.

  15. Ibid., p. 264, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to Charles Francis Adams, March 8, 1863.

  16. Galton (ed.), Vacation Tourists, p. 401.

  17. Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (eds.), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 3 vols. (Secaucus, N.J., 1985), vol. 3, p. 150.

  18. Ibid.

  19. The Memoirs of Colonel John S. Mosby, ed. Charles W. Russell (Boston, 1917), p. 175.

  20. Jeffry D. Wert, Mosby’s Rangers (New York, 1990), p. 48.

  21. Duke University, Malet family MSS, Malet to father, January 19, 1863.

  22. Henry Vane, Affair of State (London, 2004), p. 62.

  23. Devonshire MSS, Chatsworth, 2nd series (340.184), Hartington to 7th Duke, January 21, 1863.

  24. University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Ga., mss 340, A. Trevor-Batyre, “A Noble Englishman, Being Chapters in the Life of Henry Wemyss Feilden,” p. 6.

  25. Their romanticized portrayal of the Confederacy inspired fiction writers to develop the theme. In 1862 the pulp writer William Stephens Hayward began his series about Captain George, a dashing English adventurer who travels to the South to fight for its cause. The popularity of the series prompted a host of imitations, all based in the South.

  26. The Charleston Chamber of Commerce and the Society of St. George both held farewell dinners for Mr. Bunch.

  27. South Carolina Historical Society, Feilden-Smythe MSS, Feilden to aunt, March 4, 1863.

  28. Ibid.

  Chapter 18: Faltering Steps of a Counterrevolution

  1. Illustrated London News, May 16, 1863. Vizetelly sometimes shocked his Confederate friends by his casual attitude toward strict accuracy. See G. Moxley Sorrel, Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer (Lincoln, Nebr., 1999), p. 205.

  2. Francis Galton (ed.), Vacation Tourists, 1862–1863 (London, 1864), p. 399.

  3. Robert N. Rosen, Confederate Charleston (Columbia, SC, 1994), p. 99.

  4. South Carolina Historical Society, Feilden-Smythe MSS, Feilden to Phil, April 16, 1863. Illustrated London News, May 16, 1863.

  5. Diary of Gideon Welles, 3 vols. (Boston, 1911), vol. 1, p. 276, April 20, 1863.

  6. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals (New York, 2005), p. 511. Albert E. H. Johnson, “Reminiscences of the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society (1910), p. 80.

  7. NARA, T.168, roll 31, vol. 31, doc. 3, Morse to Seward, January 3, 1863.

  8. Russell was pleased by his success but annoyed with his publishers. They had cut out 186 pages, he told the U.S. consul in Paris, John Bigelow. The book accurately reflected his feelings, except “I must own I felt more hurt than I can or cared well to say at being refused leave to go with McClellan, as I was most anxious to show it was not my fault that Bull Run No. 1 ended with a panic.… I believe in my heart, however, that I do not entertain the smallest unkindly feeling towards a single citizen of the United States.” John Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, Part I, 1817–1863, 5 vols. (New York, 1909), vol. 1, pp. 605–6, Russell to Bigelow, February 25, 1863.

  9. Sarah Agnes Wallace and Frances Elma Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1948, 1949), vol. 2, p. 1106, January 14, 1863.

  10. Ibid., p. 1110, January 21, 1863.

  11. NARA, T. 168, roll 31, vol. 31, doc. 3, Morse to Seward, January 3, 1863.

  12. Illustrated London News, February 7, 1863.

  13. Philip Van Doren Stern, When the Guns Roared: World Aspects of the American Civil War (New York, 1965), p. 177.

  14. Wallace and Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran, vol. 2, p. 1108, January 16, 1863.

  15. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, ed. Ernest Samuels (repr. Boston, 1973), pp. 142–43.

  16. Wallace and Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran, vol. 2, p. 1121, February 14, 1863.

  17. Outraged by the plight of two British subjects imprisoned for alleged desertion, the British consul in Philadelphia sent an unofficial protest to the State Department. William Seward thought that the letter had to be an exaggeration, at least he hoped so, but he was sufficiently disturbed to write to the secretary of war, Edwin Stanton: “The granite walls of the dungeons are represented to be wet with moisture, the stone floor damp and cold, the air impure and deathly, no bed or couches to lie upon and offensive vermin crawling in every direction. It is also represented that the prisoners are allowed no water with which to wash themselves or change of clothing and are on every side surrounded by filth and vermin.” OR, ser. 2, vol. 5, p. 118, Seward to Stanton, January 27, 1863.

  18. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, February 9, 1863.

  19. Ibid., February 11, 1863.

  20. Ibid., February 25, 1863.

  21. Ibid., February 28, 1863.

  22. Wallace and Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran, vol. 2, p. 1136, March 18, 1863.

  23. Virginia Mason (ed.), The Public Life and Diplomatic Correspondence of James M. Mason (New York, 1906), pp. 387–92.

  24. Spencer, The Confederate Navy in Europe (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1983), pp. 135–36, January 21 and January 20, 1863.

  25. Ibid., p. 131.

  26. James M. Morgan, Recollections of a Rebel Reefer (Boston, 1917), pp. 96–97.

  27. James D. Bulloch, The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, 2 vols. (New York, 1884), vol. 1, p. 272.

  28. Ibid., p. 270.

  29. Ibid., p. 273, February 3, 1863.

  30. There appears to be a great deal of confusion over which Emile Erlanger—the father or son—Mathilda actually married. Charles M. Hubbard, The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy (Knoxville, Tenn., 1998), p. 207, says the father, which the family website confirms: http://www.hydethomson.com/familytree/default.htm

  31. Judith Fenner Gentry, “A Confederate Success in Europe: The Erlanger Loan,” Journal of Southern History (1970), pp. 158–88. Spence always claimed that Erlanger took advantage of the Confederacy but subsequent studies have showed that the terms of the loan were comparable to, if not more favorable than, those offered to other governments with more grounds for legitimacy.

  32. H. B. Wilson was a Canadian who had worked in the shipping industry. He did not arouse the Confederates’ suspicion and, within a few weeks of introducing himself, had become a regular at their meetings and dinners. His success opened the doors to other U.S. agents.

  33. ORN, ser. 1, vol. 13, p. 640, January 9, 1863. Excerpts of these reports were distributed to the navy, for example: “Liverpool. January 10 1863: The steamer Pet has just cleared and will go to sea this day.… The steamer Banshee has gone to-day on a trial trip.… It will not be very many days before she leaves for the South.… The Peterhoff went to sea yesterday. I herewith forward an invoice of her cargo, also an invoice and description of the Sterlingshire, a sailing bark in the Confederate service. From all I can learn the two steamers may attempt to get into Charleston. They are new, or nearly so, and would make good transport ships.”

 
34. Frances Leigh Williams, Matthew Fonatine Maury (Piscataway, N.J., 1963), p. 403.

  35. NARA, T.168, roll 31, vol. 31, doc.29, Morse to Seward, February 20, 1863.

  36. Bulloch, The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe, vol. 1, p. 395, February 3, 1863.

  37. ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, pp. 712–16, Mason to Benjamin, March 19, 1863.

  38. Stephen Wise, Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War (Columbia, S.C., 1988), p. 94.

  39. Van Doren Stern, When the Guns Roared, p. 194.

  40. Hubbard, The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy, pp. 132–33.

  41. E. D. Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War, 2 vols. in 1 (New York, 1958), vol. 2, p. 130.

  42. Beverly Wilson Palmer (ed.), Selected Letters of Charles Sumner, 2 vols. (Boston, 1990), vol. 1, p. 154, Sumner to John Bright, April 7, 1863.

  43. Lord Newton (ed.), Lord Lyons: A Record of British Diplomacy, 2 vols. (London, 1914), vol. 1, pp. 99–100, Russell to Lyons, March 28, 1863.

  44. Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War, vol. 2, p. 131.

  45. NARA, T. 168, roll 31, vol. 31, doc. 41, Morse to Seward, March 27, 1863.

  46. Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War, vol. 2, p. 134.

  47. Brooks Adams, “The Seizure of the Laird Rams,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 45 (1911–12), p. 248.

  48. “We have had—I have had—some Experience of what any attempt of that sort may be expected to lead to,” Palmerston told the House. He was referring to the collapse of his previous premiership in 1859, when MPs punished him for truckling to French demands to curb the freedoms of political refugees living in Britain. Spencer, The Confederate Navy in Europe, p. 99.

  49. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, March 28, 1863.

  50. Morgan, Recollections of a Rebel Reefer, p. 114.

  51. Frank J. Merli, Great Britain and the Confederate Navy (Bloomington, Ind., 1965), p. 129.

  52. The officer from the Galatea was singing the “Bonnie Blue Flag,” which went: “Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights hurrah! Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag.… ” BDOFA, ser. 1, vol. 6, doc. 193, pp. 146–47, Commodore Dunlop to Admiral Milne, February 7, 1863. In the Caribbean there was also an incident involving HMS Greyhound, when her band played “Dixie’s Land” within earshot of a U.S. naval vessel. Commander Hickley immediately raced over to the players and made them follow up with “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” but the damage was already done.

  53. “Here we are amongst the rebels enjoying ourselves very much,” wrote Henry Gawne to his mother, a week after arriving at the port. “Everyone here is very hospitable. As much hunting as ever you please and of all descriptions, deer, foxes etc. Several of our officers are away now for four days in the Country hunting. I went out riding last Friday with a Col Browne of the Artillery.” Buckinghamshire RO, Gawne MSS, D115/20 (1), Henry Gawne to Edward Moore Gawne and mother, January 6, 1863.

  54. Regis Courtemanche, No Need of Glory: The British Navy in American Waters (Annapolis, Md., 1977), p. 117.

  55. Newton (ed.), Lord Lyons, vol. 1, p. 100, Lord Russell to Lord Lyons, March 28, 1863.

  56. PRO 30/22/37, f. 43, Lyons to Russell, April 13, 1863.

  57. PRO 30/22/37, ff. 57–60, Lyons to Russell, May 5, 1863.

  58. Adams, Britain and the American Civil War, vol. 2, p. 140.

  Chapter 19: Prophecies of Blood and Suffering

  1. The Private Journal of Georgiana Gholson Walker, ed. Dwight Franklin Henderson, Confederate Centennial Studies, 25 (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1963), p. 13.

  2. Kenneth Blume, “The Mid-Atlantic Arena: The United States, the Confederacy, and the British West Indies, 1861–1865,” Ph.D thesis, SUNY Binghamton, 1984, p. 257.

  3. James M. Morgan, Recollections of a Rebel Reefer (Boston, 1917), pp. 103–5.

  4. PRO FO115/361, f. 3, Stanton to Seward, May 15, 1863. Montreal, where Abinger was stationed, was teeming with Confederate refugees, which further solidified his pro-Southern stand. On his return to Montreal, he married Helen Magruder, the daughter and niece of renowned Confederates.

  5. George Alfred Lawrence, Border and Bastille (New York, 1864), p. 190.

  6. James H. Wilkins (ed.), The Great Diamond Hoax and Other Stirring Episodes in the Life of Asbury Harpending (San Francisco, 1915), pp. 66, 74–76.

  7. Ibid.

  8. PRO FO5/1280, Consul Booker to Russell, June 29, 1863.

  9. PRO FO5/1280, Scholefield to Austen M. Layard, May 1, 1863.

  10. “Bright-Sumner Letters, 1861–1872,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 46 (1912), pp. 120–22, John Bright to Sumner, June 27, 1863.

  11. “John Wilkes Booth: An Interview with the Press with Sir Charles Wyndham,” New York Herald, quoted in Gordon Samples, Lust for Fame (New York, 1998), p. 113.

  12. James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes (eds.), Private and Confidential: Letters from British in Washington to Foreign Secretaries (Selinsgrove, Pa., 1993), p. 320, Lyons to Russell, April 13, 1863, and p. 322, May 5, 1863. The most controversial revelation in the Blue Book was Lord Lyons’s private meeting with New York Democrats in November 1862. The Republican administration put the worst possible interpretation on it, even though Lyons was not doing anything wrong or unusual for a diplomat by talking to the opposition party. “The Despatches of Lord Lyons prove how difficult it is to become familiar with the public spirit in this country, even for a cautious, discreet diplomat and an Englishman,” wrote Adam Gurowski. “I am at a loss to understand why Earl Russell divulged the above mentioned correspondence, thus putting Lord Lyons into a false and unpleasant position with the party in power.” Diary from November 18, 1862–October 18, 1863 (New York, 1864), p. 182.

  13. Diary of Gideon Welles, 3 vols. (Boston, 1911), vol. 2, p. 250, April 1, 1863. It was no help to Lyons that Welles vehemently opposed Seward on the letters of marque question. His chief objection stemmed from the fact that it would remain the purview of the State Department rather than his own.

  14. Sumner calmed down a little, but remained adamant that the Peterhoff’s mails should have been dealt with by the prize court. Ironically, when the British cabinet had a chance to consider the Peterhoff affair rationally, it too reached the same conclusion. The Lord Chancellor asked: “What will be most [helpful] for our interest as a future belligerent?” The answer, obviously, was the right to seize the enemy’s letters from neutral ships.

  15. PRO 30/22/37, Frf. 42–43, Lyons to Russell, April 7, 1863.

  16. PRO FO115/394, f. 35, B. Lowry to Lyons, May 28, 1863.

  17. Richmond Enquirer, October 3, 1863.

  18. Emory University, Gregory MSS, Lawley to Gregory, March 26, 1863.

  19. Ibid.

  20. BL Add. MS 41567, ff. 246–47, George Henry Herbert to mother, March 31, 1863.

  21. Matthew John Graham, The Ninth Regiment New York Volunteers (Lancaster, Ohio, 1997), p. 420.

  22. Bruce Catton, The Civil War (New York, 2004), p. 130.

  Chapter 20: The Key Is in the Lock

  1. Bernard Price, Sussex: People, Places, Things (London, 1975), p. 149.

  2. Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (eds.), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 4 vols. (Secaucus, N.J., 1985), vol. 3, p. 161.

  3. The Times, June 11, 1863.

  4. William C. Davis (ed.), The Civil War: A Historical Account of America’s War of Secession (New York, 1996), p. 114.

  5. Jeffry D. Wert, The Sword of Lincoln (New York, 2006), p. 246.

  6. Henry Hore identified the raiders as belonging to Mosby’s Raiders, and, while there is no reason to doubt his word, it is worth noting that Mosby was at Warrenton Junction, Virginia, on May 3. See Jeffry D. Wert, Mosby’s Rangers (New York, 1990), pp. 57–58.

  7. Price, Sussex, p. 150.

  8. Geoffrey C. Ward, Ric Burns, and Ken Burns, The Civil War (New York, 1990), p. 210.

  9. W. C. Ford (ed.), A Cycle of Adams Letters,
1861–1865, 2 vols. (Boston, 1920), vol. 1, p. 294, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to Charles Francis Adams, May 8, 1863.

  10. Hore returned to England after the war. He joined the Capital and Counties Bank in Chichester, eventually rising to bank manager. He died in 1887. Price, Sussex, p. 145.

  11. David Saville Muzzey, The United States of America: Through the Civil War (New York, 1931), p. 575.

  12. Allan Nevins, The War for the Union, 4 vols.; vol. 2: War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863 (New York, 1960), p. 453.

  13. The Times, June 16, 1863.

  14. Winston S. Churchill, The American Civil War (New York, 1985), p. 100

  15. Ian F. W. Beckett, The War Correspondents: The American Civil War (London, 1997), p. 102.

  16. Illustrated London News, August 8, 1863.

  17. Ibid., August 29, 1863.

  18. William L. Shea and Terrence J. Winschel, Vicksburg Is the Key (Lincoln, Nebr., 2003), p. 151.

  19. Illustrated London News, August 29, 1863.

  20. Philip Tucker, “Confederate Secret Agent in Ireland: Father John B. Bannon and His Irish Mission, 1863–1864,” Journal of Confederate History, 5 (1990), p. 55.

  21. Francis Galton (ed.), Vacation Tourists, 1862–1863 (London, 1864), p. 412.

  22. Ibid., p. 410.

  23. PRO FO 115/394, ff. 305–7, Mayo to Lyons, June 26, 1863.

  24. James G. Hollandsorth, Pretense of Glory (Baton Rouge, La., 1998), p. 120.

  25. Huguenot Historical Society, LeFevre/DuBois/Eltin Family Papers/NYUL58T-320–0057, Assistant Surgeon S. E. Hasbrouck to Sol, 133rd New York Volunteers, June 16, 1863.

  26. Arthur J. L. Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States (Lincoln, Nebr., 1991), p. 120.

  27. Ibid., p. 7.

  28. Raphael Semmes, Service Afloat: A Personal Memoir of My Cruises and Services (1868; repr. Baltimore, 1987), p. 314.

  29. Fremantle, Three Months in the Southern States, p. 108.

  30. Ibid., p. 117.

  31. Frank L. Klement, The Limits of Dissent (New York, 1998), p. 168.

  32. The details of Colonel Grenfell’s life are taken from Stephen Z. Starr, Colonel Grenfell’s Wars (Baton Rouge, La., 1971), a brilliant piece of detective work on an extremely elusive figure.