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

by Amanda Foreman

  31. “It does seem strange,” he wrote on January 4, 1865, in a letter to William Porcher Miles, the chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee. He had served three different generals and been recommended for promotion on three separate occasions, without success. “I expect I know more of the localities and the organization of the troops than any other AA general in the office.” NARA, Feilden military records, Feilden to Porcher Miles, January 4, 1865.

  32. South Carolina Historical Society, Feilden-Smythe MSS, Feilden to Julia Feilden, January 5, 1865.

  33. James Ford Rhodes, “Who Burned Columbia?,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 35 (1901), p. 268.

  34. South Carolina Historical Society, Feilden-Smythe MSS, Feilden to Julia Feilden, January 5, 1865.

  35. The Hon. Maurice Berkeley Portman, third son of Viscount Portman, and an old friend of Lord Wharncliffe’s, had recently arrived from Canada to serve under General Wade Hampton. He told Wharncliffe that the wife of one acquaintance had allegedly been bayoneted to the wall and her house set on fire, another had been “violated,” and a third stripped and forced to dance for the soldiers. Sheffield Archives, WHM 461 (18), identified by the author as Maurice B. Portman, January 10, 1865. Portman’s judgment of the situation was utterly absurd. Despite having witnessed the first battle for Fort Fisher, and visited Lee’s headquarters in Petersburg, he still wrote as though the South was going to win.

  36. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, p. 485, January 23, 1865.

  37. Bauer, “The Last Effort,” p. 80.

  38. National Archives of Canada, Burley, Extradition MSS, Sec. C-1, RG 13, vol. 987, Robert Harrison to John Macdonald, February 4, 1865.

  39. Stephen Z. Starr, Colonel Grenfell’s Wars (Baton Rouge, La., 1971), p. 210.

  40. See ibid., p. 212, and PRO FO, 5/1155, on the Grenfell correspondence.

  41. Starr, Colonel Grenfell’s Wars, p. 212.

  42. Buckinghamshire, D11/1/3.c, memorandum by Joseph Wheeler.

  43. Diary of Gideon Welles, 3 vols. (Boston, 1911), vol. 2, p. 229, January 21, 1865. The source for the footnote is OR, ser. 1, vol. 46, 3, p. 38, Grant to Seward, March 19, 1864.

  44. “Bright-Sumner Letters,” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 46 (1913), p. 132, Bright to Sumner, January 26, 1865.

  45. Bauer, “The Last Effort,” p. 86.

  Chapter 36: “Richmond Tomorrow”

  1. West Sussex RO, Lyons MSS, box 299, Malet to Lyons, February 24, 1865.

  2. PRO 30/22/38, Lyons to Russell, December 27, 1864.

  3. Arthur Irwin Dasent, John Thadeus Delane, Editor of “The Times,” 2 vols. (London, 1908), vol. 2, p. 135, Delane to Dasent, December 25, 1864; p. 136, Delane to Dasent, December 26, 1864.

  4. Sheffield, WHM461/6, Spence to Wharncliffe, January 5, 1865.

  5. The controversy rescued the year-old London branch from its torpid existence. New York Public Library, U.S. Sanitary Commission MSS, Box 339/120, C.S.P. Bowles to E. C. Fisher, January 2, 1865.

  6. W. C. Ford (ed.), A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861–1865, 2 vols. (Boston, 1920), vol. 2, p. 244, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to Abigail Adams, January 8, 1865.

  7. A recent traveler to America suggested to Wharncliffe that they donate the money to the U.S. Sanitary Commission. “I witnessed there on many and various occasions the untiring efforts of this Commission who took care of the sick, wounded and PRISONERS on each side,” the correspondent asserted. Sheffield Archives, WHM461/15, Bower Wood to Wharncliffe, January 3, 1865. The sources for the quotations in the footnote are Sheffield Archives, WHM461/16, PC Joseph Taylor to Wharncliffe, January 5, 1865, and Sheffield Archives, WHM461/24, Captain Hampson, late 13th Louisiana Regiment, to Wharncliffe, January 17, 1865.

  8. Timothy Holmes (ed.), David Livingstone: Letters and Documents, 1861–1872 (London, 1990), p. 102, Livingstone to James Young, January 4, 1865.

  9. NARA RG94/skm/414, Smelt to Lincoln, March 17, 1865. Smelt stated that he had written twelve months previously to get his son discharged on grounds of youth and inability; “I have today a letter from him, he having been exchanged [from a Confederate prison] and is now at Annapolis—He was wounded in 3 places … and lay for two days uncared for on the field of battle, yet singular to relate—lives!” (see also Chapter 28, n. 29).

  10. Sheffield Archives, WHM461/23, Spence to Wharncliffe, January 16, 1865.

  11. Not even the knowledge that every dispatch since July 1863 had been lost or captured diminished Bulloch’s belief that seapower could save the South. ORN, ser. 2, vol. 2, p. 787, Bulloch to Mallory, December 24, 1864.

  12. Ibid., Bulloch to Low, January 8, 1865.

  13. “If you approve this suggestion, you will please give me the earliest possible intimation of your views,” he wrote to Mallory. ORN, ser. 1, vol. 3, p. 722, Bulloch to Mallory, January 10, 1865.

  14. Library of Congress, Hotze MSS, private letterbook, Hotze to Bulloch, January 25, 1865.

  15. Two British officers were allowed on board. They were amazed that such a large ship could be managed by so small a crew. The governor of Australia was perplexed by the Shenandoah’s arrival and unsure whether to apply the usual belligerent rules or act on his own initiative. He decided to be safe and ordered her departure after recoaling and carrying out emergency repairs.

  16. “Diary of John R. Thompson,” Confederate Veteran, 37 (1929), p. 99, January 27, 1865.

  17. Sheffield Archives, WHM461/25, Collie to Wharncliffe, January 23, 1864.

  18. ORN, ser. 1, vol. 3, p. 736, Bulloch to Mallory, February 11, 1865.

  19. ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 1260, Mason to Benjamin, c. February 1865.

  20. Economist, February 5, 1865.

  21. Stephen Wise, Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War (Columbia, S.C., 1988), p. 266, and David Surdam, Northern Naval Superiority and the Economics of the American Blockade (Columbia, S.C., 2001), p. 87.

  22. Lance Davis and Stanley L. Engerman, Naval Blockades in Peace and War (Cambridge, 2006), p. 154.

  23. See, e.g., Surdam, Northern Naval Supremacy, pp. 207–9.

  24. Sarah Agnes Wallace and Frances Elma Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran 1857–1865, 2 vols. (Chicago, Ill., 1948, 1949), vol. 2, pp. 1371, 1373, 1382, February 1, 1865, February 6, 1865, and February 23, 1865.

  25. ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 1260, Mason to Benjamin, c. February 1865.

  26. PRFA, part 1 (1866), p. 131, Adams to Seward, February 9, 1865.

  27. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, December 28, 1864.

  28. G. P. Gooch (ed.), The Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, 1840–1878, 2 vols. (London, 1925), vol. 2, p. 336, February 7, 1865. As late as January 15, Palmerston was still arguing with the Duke of Somerset that Quebec, Montreal, Halifax, and Bermuda must all be fortified. “The warnings of eventual hostility on the part of the United States are not to be disregarded, and the Irish Fenians in North America would give us trouble in Ireland if we had war with America.”

  29. Kenneth Bourne, Britain and the Balance of Power (Berkeley, 1967), p. 271. The source for the footnote is Somerset RO, Somerset MSS, d/RA/A/2a/270/13, Donald McKay to Rear Admiral Robinson, February 14, 1864.

  30. Dean Mahin, One War at a Time (Dulles, Va., 1999), p. 226.

  31. Scott Thomas Cairns, “Lord Lyons and Anglo-American Diplomacy During the American Civil War,” Ph.D. thesis, London School of Economics, 2004, p. 362, Journal of Queen Victoria, March 10, 1865.

  32. PRFA, part 1 (1866), pp. 69–71, Adams to Seward, December 30, 1864.

  33. Ibid., p.176, Russell to Mason, Slidell, and Mann, February 13, 1865. Brian Jenkins, Britain and the War for the Union, 2 vols. (Montreal, 1974, 1980), vol. 2, p. 366. The Queen thought it was somewhat undignified to ask for Seward’s help in delivering the letter. But Russell replied that if the only reason against sending the letter was “because we do not like to be thought afraid,” he was prepared to suffer that consequence “for t
he humanity of the country.”

  34. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, February 14, 1865, and PRFA, part 1 (1866), p. 165, Adams to Seward, February 16, 1865.

  35. Ibid., p.183, Adams to Seward, February 23, 1865.

  36. The situation in France also worried Adams after hearing in confidence from General McClellan’s former military adviser the Prince de Joinville that the emperor was building a large fleet at Cherbourg which he would be prepared to employ on behalf of the Confederates if Seward showed the slightest inclination to meddle in Mexico.

  37. Fitzgerald Ross, Cities and Camps of the Confederate States, ed. Richard Barksdale Harwell (Champaign, Ill., 1997), p. xix, Ross to Blackwood, March 24, 1865.

  38. Library of Congress digital online MSS, Lincoln MS, Belle Boyd to Lincoln, January 24, 1864. Sala had a robust view of sex and extramarital relations and Belle was not in a position to dictate their relationship. Sala’s contribution to the development of Victorian pornography is well documented, not least his co-authorship of the underground magazine the Pearl. After helping Belle, Sala became the ghostwriter for Lieutenant Colonel Heros von Borcke, Jeb Stuart’s staff officer, who published his memoir in 1866.

  39. See Louis A. Sigaud, Belle Boyd—Confederate Spy (Richmond, Va., 1944), pp. 185–87. Sigaud ponders the various rumors and half-truths concerning Hardinge and Grace.

  40. “We all agree, however,” wrote Slidell, “that the letter of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs is extremely insolent and offensive.” ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 1263, Slidell to Benjamin, February 24, 1864. Shortly after Kenner’s arrival in France, another emissary arrived: the French volunteer in the Confederate army Prince Camille de Polignac, who reached Paris on March 21, 1865, hoping to persuade the emperor that giving aid to the Confederacy would be beneficial to his long-term plans for Mexico. “When I left the country on what I expected to be a six month’s absence, I was unaware of the hopeless conditions of the affairs in the east,” he wrote subsequently. Jeff Kinaird, Lafayette of the South (College Station, Tex., 2001), p. 184.

  41. “The rumors lately prevalent coming from the South … [have] attracted much attention in England,” Mason wrote to Benjamin. “Many enquiries have been made of me by our well-wishers whether I thought it would be done. It is considered by them with much favor as a measure … whilst in their opinion it would be a first step toward emancipation.” Mason reassured Benjamin that he had disabused them of the idea. ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 1258, Mason to Benjamin, January 21, 1865.

  42. Robert W. Young, Senator James Murray Mason (Knoxville, Tenn., 1998), p. 180.

  43. Craig A. Bauer, “The Last Effort: The Secret Mission of the Confederate Diplomat, Duncan F. Kenner,” Louisiana History, 22 (1981), pp. 67–95.

  44. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, 2 vols. (Nashville, 1905), vol. 2, p. 717, Mason to Benjamin, March 26, 1865.

  45. “Diary of John R. Thompson,” p. 99.

  46. Wallace and Gillespie (eds.), Journal of Benjamin Moran, vol. 2, p. 1393, March 14, 1865.

  47. Sheffield Archives, WHM 461 (31), Hill to Wharncliffe, February 17, 1865.

  48. PRO FO5/128, Hill to Russell, February 18, 1865.

  49. PRO FO 83/2223, Roundell Palmer to Russell, March 18, 1865.

  50. PRO FO5/1101, ff. 23–25, Robert Dalglish to Mr. Layard, February 24, 1865.

  51. PRO FO 5/1101, ff. 53–56, Robert Burley to Russell, March 25, 1865.

  52. Lord Lyons: A Record of British Diplomacy, 2 vols. (London, 1914), vol. 1, pp. 139–41.

  53. PRO FO5/1009, d. 112, Russell to Bruce, March 24, 1865.

  54. PRO FO5/1009, d. 112, Lord Russell to Sir Frederick Bruce, March 24, 1865.

  55. Wallace and Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran, vol. 2, p. 1398, March 24, 1865.

  56. Ford (ed.), A Cycle of Adams Letters, vol. 2, p. 258, Charles Francis Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., March 24, 1865.

  57. Ibid., p. 259, Charles Francis Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., March 24, 1865.

  Chapter 37: Fire, Fire

  1. South Carolina Historical Society, Feilden-Smythe MSS (41), Feilden to Julia, February 14, 1865.

  2. E. Milby Burton, The Siege of Charleston (Columbia, S.C., 1982), p. 321.

  3. Walker defended himself to the Foreign Office: “I have endeavoured, as I had done previously, to perform my consular duties with the utmost strictness and impartiality.” PRO FO5/1015, f. 287, Pinckney Walker to Mr. Burnley, February 20, 1865.

  4. South Carolina Historical Society, Feilden-Smythe MSS (40), Feilden to Julia, February 28, 1865.

  5. Nathaniel Cheairs Hughes, Jr., Bentonville: The Final Battle of Sherman and Johnston (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2006), p. 32.

  6. Nelson D. Lankford, An Irishman in Dixie (Columbia, S.C., 1988), p. 25.

  7. Ibid., p. 32, March 4, 1865.

  8. Ibid., p. 39, March 9, 1865.

  9. Ibid., p. 42, March 10, 1865. Mrs. Brown, according to Lankford, was one of the couriers who carried messages between Richmond and the Confederates in Canada.

  10. Ibid., p. 48, March 13, 1865.

  11. John B. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary at the Confederate States Capital, ed. Earl Schenk Miers (Urbana, Ill., 1958), p. 517, March 14, 1865.

  12. Conolly whiled away the time before dinner visiting other camps. At General Heath’s, he was surprised to meet Captain Sydney Herbert Davis, the British volunteer who had come to the Confederacy in 1863.

  13. At his hotel, Conolly bumped into the Hon. Maurice Berkeley Portman, whose own optimism about the war had been shaken by an encounter with Sheridan’s bummers.

  14. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, p. 520, March 19, 1865.

  15. South Carolina Historical Society, Feilden-Smythe MSS (45), Feilden to Julia, March 13, 1865.

  16. Ibid., (46), Feilden to Julia, March 25, 1865.

  17. The Saundersons of Saunderson Castle, County Cavan, were an old Anglo-Irish family with a large fortune to spend. Twenty-four-year-old Welly was the youngest of five brothers, three of whom belonged to the same regiment. “The trio were not without notoriety and were generally known as Rats No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3,” wrote a historian of the family: “They were always doing something dangerous.” Conolly was deeply impressed when Welly told him that he had even sold his commission in order to fight with Lee, unaware that the British Army officer had something to prove. Welly was desperately in love with Lady Rachel Clonmell, but her father thought he was a wastrel and had refused him permission to set foot in the house, let alone propose marriage. A. Lucas, Colonel Saunderson: A Memoir (London, 1908), p. 14. I am indebted to Derek Mayhew for this information.

  18. James M. Morgan, Recollections of a Rebel Reefer (Boston, 1917), p. 232.

  19. Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 4 (Richmond, Va., 1877), ed. Revd. J. W. Jones, p. 22, fn.

  20. Virginia Historical Society, Diary of Llewellyn Saunderson, MSS5:1Sa877:1, March 31, 1865.

  21. Francis Dawson, Reminiscences of Confederate Service 1861–1865, ed. Bell I. Wiley (Baton Rouge, La., 1980) pp. 142–43.

  22. Virginia Historical Society, Diary of Llewellyn Saunderson, April 1, 1865.

  23. The Times, April 25, 1865.

  24. Jones, A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, p. 528, April 2, 1865.

  25. The Times, April 25, 1865.

  26. Edward M. Boykin, The Falling Flag: Evacuation of Richmond (New York, 1874), pp. 12–13.

  27. Sallie A. Brock, Richmond During the War: Four Years of Personal Recollections (repr. Lincoln, Nebr., 1996), p. 367.

  28. W. C. Ford (ed.), A Cycle of Adams Letters (Boston, 1920), vol. 2, p. 263, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., to Charles Francis Adams, April 10, 1865.

  29. Lincoln and Grant had some memorable conversations during the president’s stay on the River Queen. Grant asked Lincoln about the Trent affair. Lincoln answered, “Yes, Seward studied up all the works ever written on international law, and came to cabinet meetings loaded to the muzzle wit
h the subject. We gave due consideration to the case, but at that critical period of the war it was soon decided to deliver up the prisoners. It was a pretty bitter pill to swallow, but I contented myself with believing that England’s triumph in the matter would be short-lived, and that after ending our war successfully we would be so powerful that we could call her to account for all the embarrassment she had inflicted upon us.” Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals (New York, 2005), p. 711.

  30. A. S. Lewis (ed.), My Dear Parents (New York, 1982), p. 131, Horrocks to brother Joseph, April 8, 1865.

  Chapter 38: “A True-Born King of Men”

  1. Illustrated London News, May 20, 1865.

  2. Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 2008), vol. 2, p. 793.

  3. John Hay and John G. Nicolay (eds.), Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, 2 vols. (New York, 1922), vol. 2, p. 669, Lincoln to Grant, April 6, 1865.

  4. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (New York, 2003), p. 593.

  5. The Times, April 25, 1865.

  6. Brian Holden Reid, Robert E. Lee (London, 2005), p. 237.

  7. Virginia Historical Society, Diary of Llewellyn Saunderson, MSS5:1Sa877:1, April 6, 1865.

  8. PRO FO115/448, f. 402, Henry O’Brien to Sir Frederick Bruce, June 14, 1865.

  9. Francis Lawley, “The Last Six Days of Secessia,” Fortnightly Review, 2 (June 1865), pp. 1–10, at p. 7.

  10. General Fitz Lee had taken a liking to Welly—because he behaved “admirably under fire” and “was bold, bright, and witty of course.” Fitzhugh Lee, General Lee (New York, 1925), p. 387.

  11. Burke Davis, To Appomattox: Nine April Days, 1865 (New York, 1959), p. 282.

  12. Virginia Historical Society, Diary of Llewellyn Saunderson, April 8, 1865.

  13. James Ford Rhodes, History of the Civil War, 1861–1865 (New York, 1917), p. 434.

  14. Frederick Maurice (ed.), An Aide de Camp of Robert E. Lee (New York, 1927), p. 273.

  15. Grant, Memoirs, p. 629.

  16. Lawley, “The Last Six Days of Secessia,” p. 9.

  17. Jay Winik, April 1865 (New York, 2001), p. 197.

  18. Duke University, Francis Dawson MSS, no. 27, Dawson to mother, April 7, 1865; Francis W. Dawson, Reminiscences of Confederate Service, 1861–1865, ed. Bell I. Wiley (Baton Rouge, La., 1980), p. 146.