by John Boyko
With the Americans heading toward war, the sad state of military preparedness in the Canadian and Maritime colonies worried the British government. Prime Minister Palmerston and Foreign Secretary Russell regarded North American events with the seriousness they deserved, but at the same time they were focused upon disturbing changes that were taking place in Europe. Prussian representative to the German Confederation, Otto von Bismarck, was building his personal power through his plans to unite Germanic states into a central-European powerhouse that could threaten the relative peace the continent had enjoyed since the 1815 Congress of Vienna. Palmerston and Russell were also dealing with France, and to a lesser extent with Spain, in their interventions in Mexico, which in October 1861 would lead to the Franco-Mexican War.
Palmerston and Russell both saw America and Americans in a negative light. Palmerston once said that Americans were, “totally unscrupulous and dishonest.”14 They were both attracted to the logic and romance of the Confederate experiment and agreed that Britain would be the beneficiary if the United States split into two or more republics. They also agreed on their assessment of Seward. In cabinet one day, Palmerston called him “a vapouring blustering ignorant man.”15
Further complicating the British government’s response to the Civil War and the dangers it posed to Canada were the growing divisions in political circles regarding the costs and benefits of maintaining such a far-flung empire. Palmerston’s chancellor of the exchequer was the politically powerful William Gladstone, who counted himself among the so-called Little Englanders, who used every new military expense demanded for or by Canada as another excuse to argue that colonies should support themselves. The Duke of Newcastle, secretary of state for the colonies, shared Gladstone’s concerns and publicly wondered whether Canada should not be asked to do more for its own defence before Britain offered another farthing.16
Palmerston wrote a long and thoughtful letter in an attempt to maintain Newcastle’s support. In it, the prime minister reiterated his anti-Americanism and, despite Gladstone’s objections, his support for Canada’s defence: “Peace with men who have no Honour and are swayed by the passions of irresponsible masses, and by a reckless desire to hold their position by all and any means consists in being strong by sea on their coasts and respectable in our military force in our Provinces.… If in consequence of over hesitation, we should expose our Provinces to insult and disaster we should justly incur reproaches from which no defence could be pleaded.”17
Palmerston and Russell believed that Canada’s weakness was too tempting for Seward to resist, and so stood opposed to the Little Englanders and ordered a regiment of British regulars to be sent to Canada. Palmerston made clear that he wanted them fully armed with the most modern weapons, so as to demonstrate to the Americans the seriousness of British intentions. The British fleet in the Caribbean and along America’s coast was also reinforced.
THE WAR BEGINS
It was April 12, 1861. With a thundering boom at four thirty in the morning, a shell tore into the dark sky above the Charleston harbour. It seemed to hang there—mysteriously suspended in time. In those few seconds, in that illusion of stillness, lay America’s final moments of peace.
Lincoln had been elected president of the United States the previous November. In the three months that followed, South Carolina and then Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and finally Texas had declared his election the final insult, secession their only option, and had left those United States. In selecting Mississippi senator Jefferson Davis as president, and with his forming a government in the temporary capital of Montgomery, Alabama, those states insisted that a new country had been born. The Confederate States of America then did as all countries do and sought to express its sovereignty by securing its borders and the land and property within them. It took possession of all federal property and military installations. The only exceptions were three Florida forts and, most significantly, the one at Charleston, South Carolina.
In December, six days after South Carolina seceded, that garrison’s commander, Major Robert Anderson, grew concerned about the possibility of an attack on his eighty-two men and so moved them from Fort Moultrie to the much stronger Fort Sumter, a mile from shore. South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens ordered him gone, but he refused to leave. With access to the city denied, Anderson needed to be resupplied with men, ammunition, and food. Those provisions could come only from Washington. Upon Lincoln’s decision to withdraw or support Fort Sumter would hang the future of the United States.
In his March inauguration speech, Lincoln had not mentioned the Confederacy. He never would. He was conveying his belief that, because the Constitution was silent on the issue, secession was illegal. There was no Confederate States of America; there were only American states in rebellion. There were no Confederates, only disloyal Americans. Lincoln said to the thousands gathered around the Capitol’s sun-dappled east portico that he would do his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution by seeing that all the laws of the United States were carried out and, most provocatively given Major Anderson’s precarious position, that all government property would be held, occupied, and possessed. In his high-pitched Midwestern twang, he addressed himself directly to the people of the South, saying, “The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressor.”18 But to Southern minds, with Lincoln’s determination to stop the expansion of slavery, his stubborn refusal to recognize their Confederacy, and now his promise to take back what they considered their property, they had already been assailed. To Southerners, Lincoln was promising not peace but to become the aggressor in what for them would be a defensive war.
Two weeks earlier, Jefferson Davis had delivered his own inaugural address, in which he had assumed the Confederate States of America to be an established fact. He had expressed the goals of the new country with clarity but summed it all up succinctly in a phrase that he would repeat many times—we wish to be left alone. But Davis clearly saw the fire storm on the horizon. The Confederate Congress passed the Army Act, asking that states provide one hundred thousand men to create an army all assumed would soon be needed.
The vexing question of what to do about Major Anderson and his men at Fort Sumter remained open and critical. As secretary of state, Seward needed to advise the president as to the answer. However, even though Seward would eventually concede Lincoln’s strengths, at the moment he was finding it difficult to work as the president’s subordinate. Seward sincerely believed that, with his much greater experience, he would be the real power behind a weak president. Even before he was officially appointed, Seward had worked through his old friend and political advisor Thurlow Weed to have an article placed in the Albany Evening Journal stating that he would act, using British parlance, as Lincoln’s “premier.”19
Shortly after the president was sworn in, and with the decision about Sumter’s resupply in the balance, Seward wrote a memo to Lincoln that he entitled “Some Thoughts for the President’s Consideration.” It was not done in an emotion-filled rush, for he had Weed look it over, his son rewrite it in a neater script, and then let a friend at the New York Times know that, after approval by the president, he would be forwarding a piece for publication.20
The memo was as insulting as it was inappropriate. It stated as fact that the administration had no domestic or foreign policies, and that the president was spending far too much time on trivial matters. He recommended the evacuation of Sumter and the reinforcement of the Florida forts. Further, Lincoln should immediately demand explanations from France and Spain as to recent activities in Mexico and the Caribbean, which had all the appearances of Europe’s intention to return to the western hemisphere. Further, Russia and Britain should account for their mild reactions to the South’s declaration of independence, which hinted at official recognition and perhaps even support. If any of the responses were unsatisfactory, the memo argued, Lincoln should ask Congress to declare war. He repeated the belief he had a
sserted to British officials that if the United States were to enter a foreign war then Southerners would rally to the flag, forget secession, and the country would be saved. Seward concluded that whatever policy was adopted, the president needed either to step up and carry it out or delegate responsibility for its execution to a member of his cabinet—supposedly Seward himself.
Demonstrating the patience, intellect and skill with people for which he would become known, Lincoln sat with his secretary of state. He asked for neither apology nor resignation. Seward left that April 1 meeting with the clear understanding that Lincoln was in command and would act as such with policies he had enunciated. The episode showed that Lincoln wanted no war with any foreign power. It also proved that Lincoln would play a bigger foreign policy role than many believed, even though Seward would still be its voice. However, at the time no one knew about the memo or the meeting, and so from the British and Canadian points of view the ambitious and aggressive secretary of state remained powerful and dangerous.
Despite the unfortunate memo and other bumps in the road, Lincoln and Seward actually became quite close. Seward moved to a spacious three-storey red brick house overlooking Lafayette Park, a short walk from the White House. Lincoln often strolled over and the two enjoyed intense political conversations and shared laughter over ribald stories. While disagreements over tactics sometimes led to tense conversations and even offers of resignation, he and Lincoln agreed on all the big matters and grand strategies. Other cabinet secretaries, in fact, expressed disdain that the two became so close that they often discussed issues fully before bringing them to cabinet.21 When special meetings were necessary, it was nearly always Seward who summoned the others. The enormous influence of Seward’s office, coupled with his special relationship with the president, meant that the man who dreamt of someday seeing Canada absorbed into the American republic was that republic’s second most-powerful man.
Meanwhile, Seward, Lincoln and others had worked through every option regarding the resupply of Fort Sumter and a decision was finally made. On April 6, a message was sent to South Carolina’s governor. It warned him that provisions would soon be sent to the fort. Six days later, in Charleston’s cool early morning sky, the seconds ticked by with that shell seeming to hang there, suspended in time. And then it fell.
The shell dropped directly into the centre of the fort. More than four thousand shells then screamed back and forth until, two days later, on a bright Sunday afternoon, Major Anderson surrendered. He was permitted to fire a fifty-gun salute to his flag, lower it, and then bring it with him as his men were brought ashore. They were allowed to march proudly beneath their colours and with shouldered muskets to ships waiting to transport them home with Southern troops at attention in respectful silence. The ceremony was a nod to chivalrous ways of old at the outset of a new and thoroughly modern war.
On the afternoon of Sumter’s fall, Lincoln sent a message to governors asking for 75,000 troops to be mustered and sent to Washington. The recruits were to volunteer for three months of service. He also announced that all southern ports would be immediately blockaded.
Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina and Virginia promptly seceded. But nothing was clearcut or clean. The northwest portion of Virginia broke away and formed its own state, which remained loyal to the Union. Missouri’s governor declared for the Confederacy, but his legislature was not in session so the declaration was not ratified. Kentucky’s governor also announced that his state would join the Confederacy but his legislature voted to remain in the Union.
Days after the thunder of Sumter’s guns, the highly respected general Robert E. Lee refused an offer to lead the Northern armies. With Virginia’s secession he sent a polite one-sentence letter of resignation to Secretary of War Simon Cameron. Lee packed a few belongings and left his Arlington estate with his wife, Mary Anna Custis Lee—the daughter of George Washington’s adopted son—and headed south. He offered his services to Jefferson Davis, who accepted without hesitation. Lee later famously explained his decision to serve Virginia: “I did only what my duty demanded. I could have taken no other course without dishonor.”22
Each of the approximately 16,000 officers and men who comprised the standing army of the United States had to make the same decision as Lee. Many felt the same way, being swayed by their passion and loyalty for their state rather than their country. Of the 1,108 officers in the army before the war began, 387 resigned to join the Confederacy.23 In the border states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, Northern and Southern recruiters often worked side by side. In the summer of 1861, one Union regiment in Louisville was marching to catch an eastbound train while a Confederate regiment marched the opposite way down the other side of the street. Lincoln had brothers-in-law in the Confederate army, while Davis had a brother-in-law fighting for the Union.
The city of Washington sat defenceless. It was a southern city. It was surrounded by Virginia to the south and west, and slave-holding Maryland to the north with slave state Delaware not far beyond. Windows were boarded up and sandbags and flour sacks piled to protect entrance ways. People wearing yellow badges declaring themselves for the Confederacy walked the city’s muddy streets. A worried president stared out White House windows and wondered aloud when his army would arrive.
The Massachusetts 6th Regiment had quickly heeded Lincoln’s call and was making its way south. As the young soldiers were changing trains in Baltimore, a rock-throwing mob descended upon them. The raw Massachusetts boys formed a firing line. Shots rang out from both sides and left twelve civilians and four soldiers dead.* Baltimore’s mayor called on the people of his city to do all they could to stop these and other Union troops. He demanded that the governor declare the state for the Confederacy. Rail lines were sabotaged, mail was stopped and telegraph cables were severed. For six days Washington was cut off from the world.
The Massachusetts men marched the rest of the way, often pelted with rocks and taunts. Lincoln was relieved to see them, but unnerved by the fact that no other troops followed. He stood on the roof of the White House and through a telescope saw Confederate tents amassing across the Potomac on the towering hills of Lee’s Arlington estate. He gazed southward and could see Confederate flags snapping on Alexandria’s rooftops. After a number of tense days and nights, regiments from New York and more from Massachusetts made it to Washington. Their arrival provided a welcome respite from his anxieties, but Lincoln still awaited his army.
As for Seward, although his enthusiasm and ambition often caused him to overstep his responsibilities, his primary job was to deal with foreign governments. Nonetheless, his most urgent task became stopping Jefferson Davis from achieving his ultimate goal—independence. If Davis’s newly established country were to survive and thrive, he would need Lincoln to allow the Confederacy to stand; but with little hope of that, and with war coming, he needed official recognition from other countries, most importantly from Britain and France. He addressed the Confederate Congress on April 29, two weeks after Fort Sumter’s fall, and noted that he had sent commissioners to negotiate a process of peaceful separation with Seward and Lincoln but that they had been lied to and rebuffed. Davis then spoke of three commissioners who were at that point en route to negotiate with European leaders, seeking official recognition of the Confederacy. He said he expected recognition to come quickly, and concluded with his belief in the rightness of the South’s cause: “With a firm reliance on that Divine Power which covers with its protection the just cause, we will continue to struggle for our inherent right to freedom, independence, and self-government.”24
There were valid arguments for international recognition. The Confederacy had a functioning government, a constitution, an army, and about nine million people, if one included the approximately three and a half million slaves, all spread over 750,000 square miles of definable, defensible territory. If recognition came, the Confederacy could legally negotiate loans, buy arms from neutral countries, and put ships on the ocean with
the right to search and seize enemy craft. Further, recognition would destroy Lincoln’s insistence that there was no Confederacy and thereby weaken the foundation upon which he hoped first to fight and then to re-unify and rebuild. Davis had to have recognition, and Lincoln and Seward could not let it happen. It was in that struggle to stop the recognition of the Confederacy that Seward’s desire to save the Union met his long-held beliefs in America’s commercial expansionism, and at that intersection of dreams, goals and strategic planning lay Canada.
Davis could count. He realized that the North’s vast superiority in population, gold, and industrial capacity meant that the Confederacy needed help. His bargaining chip was cotton. While France and others purchased southern cotton, fully one-sixth of Britain’s working population was tied to the textile industry. By 1860, 85 percent of the cotton upon which that industry relied came from the American south.25 The three-man commission that Jefferson had sent to Europe under the leadership of William Yancey focused on Britain, France and Russia, and offered an uninterrupted cotton supply in return for official recognition of the Confederate States of America.
Neither Seward nor Davis would learn until long after the war that Britain, and to a lesser extent other European powers, had taken actions to protect themselves from being cut off from supplies of southern cotton. Britain stockpiled it, rebuilt many of its looms to use a different type of fibre, bought cotton from other sources, and then during the war managed to sneak an estimated one- to one-and-a-half million bales of cotton through the Northern blockade, a good deal of it through Halifax.26 While the British economy was hurt and thousands suffered unemployment and hardship as a result of the slowing and closure of many mills, it was not crushed. The British government was certainly influenced, but not blinded, by a desire to renew a steady flow of Southern cotton. So-called King Cotton was important, but not to the extent Davis hoped or Seward feared.
