President Davis resolved to send two more emissaries to London to plead with the British government once again to recognize the Confederate States as a sovereign nation. The men chosen were James Mason, former chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and John Slidell, a respected lawyer from New Orleans. Some considered Mason a curious envoy to send to England. The Virginian-born Mason was not a born diplomat, but he was a fierce proponent of slavery and a driving force behind the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, a bill that allowed slave owners to cross state lines in order to retrieve their goods.
On October 12, 1861, Slidell and Mason ran the Union blockade at Charleston, South Carolina, and reached Havana without incident. In the Cuban capital they boarded a British mail steamer, the Trent, bound for the English port of Southampton. The two diplomats traveled with secretaries, and Slidell was also accompanied by his wife, son and three daughters. As the purser of the Trent later related in a letter to the London Daily Telegraph, it wasn’t long after leaving Havana on November 8 that they observed ahead a large steamship in the narrowest part of the Bahama Channel. The vessel displayed no flag, explained the purser, and the first intimation of its nationality was “a round shot being fired across our bows and at the same moment by her showing American colours.” The British steamer held its course, and the next instant the American ship, the San Jacinto, “fired a shell from a swivel gun of large caliber on her forecastle, which passed within a few yards of the ship, bursting about a hundred yards to leeward.”
The Trent hove to, and within a few minutes “between twenty and thirty men, heavily armed, under the command of the first lieutenant,” boarded the ship. As Lieutenant Donald Fairfax stood on deck demanding to see the ship’s passenger list, he was confronted by the Trent’s skipper, Captain James Moir, who informed the American that this was a British vessel and his actions were tantamount to piracy. Fairfax eyed the captain and demanded a second time the manifest, saying he had reason to believe the ship carried two enemies of the U.S. government and his orders were to remove them. Moir again “indignantly refused” to cooperate, at which point, said the purser, “Mr. Slidell himself came forward … but appealed to the British flag, under which they were sailing, for protection.”
Fairfax ignored the petition and ordered the seizure of the two envoys and their secretaries. Slidell and Mason asked that they be permitted to pack a few belongings, a request that was granted. It was at the moment, related the purser, that “a most heart-rending scene took place between Mr. Slidell, his eldest daughter—a noble girl devoted to her father—and the lieutenant. It would require a far more able pen than mine to describe how with flashing eye and quivering lip she threw herself in the doorway of the cabin where her father was, resolved to defend him with her life, till on the order being given to the marines to advance, which they did with bayonets pointed at this poor defenceless girl, her father ended the painful scene by escaping from the cabin by a window, when he was immediately seized by the marines and hurried into the boat, calling out to Captain Moir, as he left, that he held him and his Government responsible for this outrage.”
Outrage was the word used in the Daily Telegraph’s headline of November 30 when it heard of the drama on the high seas. The Manchester Guardian declared that “the American government are determined to test to the utmost the truth of the adage that it takes two to make a quarrel,” and not one British newspaper deviated from the line that in boarding a British vessel, the American government had violated international law and abused Britain’s position of neutrality. The Northern newspapers saw it differently. Commodore Charles Wilkes, skipper of the San Jacinto, was a hero, a man to be exalted and promoted. Harper’s Weekly was of the opinion that “the arrest of the rebel Commissioners was fully justified … and that Commodore Wilkes would even have been justified in taking the Trent, and bringing her into the harbor of New York as a prize, for carrying rebel officers and dispatch.”
The New York Commercial Advertiser was one of the few Federal newspapers to quietly draw attention to the fact that “Wilkes has done the very thing in principle for which we went to war with England for doing. It is true that the right of search exists in a time of war, and rests in the belligerent; but this forcible seizure of political prisoners when under the protection of a neutral flag is unjustifiable and ought to be repudiated by the United States government.”
The “war” referred to by the Advertiser was the one of 1812 against Great Britain, a conflict in which the roots lay in part in America’s actions throughout the Napoleonic Wars. Britain had done its utmost to prevent all neutral countries trading with the French in the early years of the nineteenth century, issuing in 1807 an order compelling neutral vessels to submit to an inspection by its naval authorities. Any captain who failed to comply would have his vessel boarded and his cargo impounded. With its superior navy Britain was able to enforce the order, much to the fury of American seamen, who saw no reason why they could not continue to trade with France. But Britain justified its “Right of Search” on the fact that it was at war. To emphasize the point, the crew of a British naval vessel boarded the American ship Hercules in 1810 just before it left Sardinia for America, taking into captivity Lucien Bonaparte, younger brother of Napoleon. By 1812 the United States was unable to further tolerate British naval aggression. War was declared. Half a century later, another war appeared inevitable, though this time it was Britain complaining of American hostility.
On November 30 the British government sent Queen’s Messenger James Haworth-Leslie across the Atlantic to deliver Dispatch no. 444 to Lord Lyons in Washington. The dispatch contained the conditions Lyons was to set before the American government if it wished to avoid war. On the same day Britain began its preparations to send troops to Canada. The Blackburn Times reported that the Admiralty had telegrammed Portsmouth ordering “the fifty-one gun screw frigates Shannon and Euryalus, and the Stromboli, 6 guns, to be in readiness for immediate commission … an addition was made to the cargo of the transport Melbourne, viz., 2,500,000 rounds of small arms’ cartridges, 30,000 stand of arms, and accoutrements.”
A bellicose cartoon appeared in Punch on December 7 showing a burly but unarmed British sailor warning his pistol-toting American counterpart to “do what’s right, my son, or I’ll blow you out of the water.” But as the jingoism increased and the clamor for war intensified, one or two newspapers began to draw back. The Daily Telegraph, while it expressed outrage at the actions of the San Jacinto, also called on its compatriots for a period of reflection. “We are, indeed, too strong a nation to be hot-tempered … to draw that sword which cannot go up unbloody into its scabbard. All the horrors of war are aggravated when war is between men of one civilization and language … [and] let it be remembered that the officers of the San Jacinto must either have acted under orders from head-quarters or they officiously exceeded their orders, and in either case we must await explanation, if not repudiation.”
The Telegraph also probably knew what most informed members of the British establishment knew: that the British lion was a weary beast, weakened by recent conflicts in the Crimea and India. The roar was still there, and from a distance the lion looked as menacing as ever, but up close the coat had lost its shine and the claws their sharpness. The call to arms issued by the British government was a snarl, but in reality the wish was to resolve the crisis peacefully.
On the other side of the Atlantic similar moves were afoot to steer a way through the stormy diplomatic waters. President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward allowed passions to cool on both sides, and Charles Adams, the United States’ minister to Britain, blamed their silence on the paucity of communication links between the two countries, though some encouraging news came from Alexander Galt, Canada’s minister of finance, who was in Washington and secured an interview with Lincoln. Galt reported that the president assured him the United States had no intention of attacking Canada, and as for the Trent affair, his only comment had been “Oh, that’l
l be got along with.”
On December 18 Lord Lyons received the official dispatch from London sent nearly three weeks earlier. It was delivered by James Haworth-Leslie, who was in such haste to reach Washington that he hired a private train to bring him south from New York, having learned that the next regular service wasn’t until the following day. The dispatch instructed Lyons to obtain the release of the two Confederate envoys along with an apology from the U.S. government. He was to allow the Americans seven days’ grace. Also included in the instructions was an unofficial directive from Lord John Russell, Britain’s foreign secretary, explaining that while the freedom of Mason and Slidell was imperative, the apology was less so. In other words, America was being given a chance to save some face.
On December 19 Lyons met Seward and apprised him of the dispatch’s contents. Seward asked how long his government had to respond. Lyons concealed the seven-day deadline. On December 25 Lincoln and his cabinet agreed to release the two envoys and crafted a communiqué that was in places contradictory and disingenuous but defiant enough to please the American public. Though Commodore Wilkes had been justified in his actions, because the Confederates were contraband of war, he had broken international law by not bringing his booty into an American port for trial by a prize court. As a result, James Mason and John Slidell would be allowed to resume their passage to England. No apology was forthcoming.
The British were satisfied with the response, and Lyons commented that “the preparation for war … has prevented war.” With honor intact on both sides of the Atlantic, everyone was happy, except the Confederate States. A representative of Jefferson Davis’s government already in London, Henry Hotze, wrote that “the Trent affair has done us incalculable injury.” In particular, the revelation by the Trent’s purser that Slidell’s last words as he was taken from the ship were a reminder to Captain Moir that “he held him and his Government responsible for this outrage” proved to the British people that the two Confederates were agent provocateurs desirous of dragging Britain into their war. Hotze also reported the London Times’ view of Mason and Slidell (who finally reached the English capital on January 30) as “the most worthless booty it would be possible to extract from the jaws of the American lion … so we do sincerely hope that our countrymen will not give these fellows anything in the shape of an ovation.”
When news of the Trent’s violation had first reached Richmond, men and women from the grand drawing rooms of the palatial houses on Clay Street, to the barroom of the Monumental Hotel, eagerly anticipated the day, surely not far off, when Britain would declare war on the Union. Thus the news that a compromise had been reached distressed those in the Confederacy who had pinned their hopes on Britain. A front-page editorial in the Richmond Dispatch of March 12 declared that “Frenchmen fight for glory, Englishmen for gain. England will not recognize our independence or raise the blockade until it is in her interests so to do.” The paper returned to the attack on March 25, saying that the “controlling motive of the British government … through the abolition of slave labor in the south [is] to cripple and destroy the cotton culture in America as to make the world dependent for its manufactures upon the cotton productions of British colonies.”
Judah Benjamin was conscious of such Anglophobic sentiment; but he was also aware of the enduring resentment felt by many in the British Parliament toward the Federal government. In February the venerable Earl of Carnarvon had clashed with Lord Russell on the issue of the North’s attitude toward citizens of Great Britain. Carnarvon thought it preposterous that “three British subjects were at this moment detained in prison in the Federal States, where they had been between four and five months, on secret charges without a single allegation of any sort being made.” Russell countered that the U.S. government was engaged in a civil war and extreme measures were thus required, but he assured the Right Honorable Member that he would “always be ready to instruct Lord Lyons [the British ambassador to the United States] to bring the case under the consideration of the authorities of the United States Government.” The Earl of Carnarvon was not placated by Russell’s vapid statement. After all, they had been here before, had they not, only three months earlier, when two British subjects—a Mr. Patrick and a Mr. Rahming—had been held without charge for several weeks. In that instance, when Lord Lyons had complained to William Seward about the “irregular proceedings,” he had been informed that “the safety of the whole people has become, in the present emergency, the supreme law, and so long as the danger shall exist to all classes of society equally, the denizen and the citizen must cheerfully acquiesce in the measures which that law prescribes.”
Yet even if Benjamin saw the fate of Lewis and Scully as an opportunity to exploit British disquiet by contrasting Northern oppression with Southern goodwill, his overriding concern was whether correct legal procedure had been followed in the case of the two spies. For such a punctilious lawyer, this was the fundamental issue at stake, and it would govern his final recommendation to President Davis as to whether the men should live or die.
*The Principality of Hesse-Kassel (part of modern-day Germany) supplied many of its soldiers to King George III during the American War of Independence. Its ruler, Frederick II, was a cousin of the British monarch.
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - O N E
“I Have Made a Full Statement and Confessed Everything”
PRYCE LEWIS SAT in Castle Godwin’s “condemned cell” on April 3, waiting to die. He and Scully had been separated shortly after the visit of Frederick Cridland, and Lewis considered his new home a cruel place for a man to spend his last night on earth. It was windowless and lightless and practically airless; only “a hole cut in the door about five inches square” allowed Lewis to breathe. There was one bench and “the floor was wet … and smelt horribly.”
Lewis told his jailor, George Freeburger, that “there is no people in the world, civilized or savage, who would consign a condemned man to a room like this.” Freeburger looked around and agreed. He departed with a promise to cheer up the place and soon returned with two Negroes who between them carried a cot, blankets, a bucket, a chair and some candles. Freeburger had a pile of books under his arms. Father McMullen arrived and told Lewis that he had heard Scully’s final confession. Lewis did not reply. The Father asked if he could do anything for the Englishman, but the offer was rebuffed. McMullen expressed his sorrow for Lewis and implored him to confess his sins and prepare for the next life. Lewis shook his head and asked what was the point. Face it, Father, he said, “you know nothing beyond the grave more than I do. None of us know anything about it.”
McMullen was astounded by Lewis’s words. He asked if he could stay with him for a few minutes, if he promised not to preach. The pair sat in silence for a while, and the priest then left, saying he would return at dawn. Fine, replied Lewis, as long as he came as a man and not a priest.
After McMullen left, Lewis ate “an excellent supper, including roast chicken,” and spent the evening reading by candlelight. One of the books he found funny, a tale of an Irish schoolmaster who fell victim to a series of schoolboy pranks.
Lewis fell into a fitful sort of slumber but soon awoke and spent the rest of the night reviewing his life. He hadn’t lied to Father McMullen. He had no fear of death and considered “that the physical pain would not be greater than an instant’s sharp toothache.” And as for the hereafter Lewis “believed in a just God. I was in His power. If He were not just, I could not help it.”
At eight o’clock Captain Freeburger arrived with Lewis’s breakfast. He thanked the warden and asked if the hammering he could hear was the gallows being erected. No, Freeburger assured him, just some new bunks being installed in the guards’ room.
Not long after Lewis had finished his breakfast Father McMullen entered the cell. He said nothing but gazed at Lewis for a few seconds. Then, matter-of-factly, he conveyed the news that the execution had been respited. Lewis gave a small nod of his head. McMullen placed a couple of religious
volumes on the bench and walked out.
Judah Benjamin had granted the two men a “spontaneous” respite in the name of President Jefferson Davis. The first Frederick Cridland knew of the decision was when he read “in the public papers that the execution had been postponed to the 12th day of April.” Benjamin’s decision did little to endear him to his critics, particularly to the newspaper editors who were vexed at his show of mercy. “For reasons satisfactory to ourselves,” ran a report in the April 5 edition of the Richmond Dispatch, whose editor, James Cowardin, was personally acquainted with the two spies, “the principal one being the fact that the authorities were averse to any publicity being given to the affair, we have refrained for several days past from mentioning that two men, Pryce Lewis and John Scully, had been tried before the Court Martial now sitting in the City Hall, and condemned to be hung as spies. The execution was to have taken place yesterday at 11 o’clock, at the New Fair Grounds, the gallows having been erected there, and all needful preparation made for carrying into effect the sentence of the court. The execution has been postponed for a short time on a respite granted the parties by the president, but we are assured it will come off at an early day.”
There was a curious end to the Dispatch’s report, a twist that must have tantalized Richmond’s citizens as they sat at their breakfast tables drinking their coffee substitute. The newspaper revealed “that the condemned have made disclosures affecting the fidelity of several persons, one or more of whom have been apprehended. Rumor had it yesterday that one of the parties thus implicated was an officer holding a place under the Government. If rumor speaks the truth, he will find himself, no doubt, in an uncomfortably hot place.”
After Webster had spoken up for John Scully, the Confederates knew they had their man. The “style of his evidence,” and his avowal that Scully “was a good friend to the south” was a lie. It was arranged that William Campbell, the government contractor with whom Webster had journeyed to Nashville in January, should insist that the sick man finish his convalescence at his house. There would be less risk of him absconding from Richmond during the dead of night. Webster, who had celebrated his fortieth birthday earlier in the month, raised a feeble protest, but Campbell insisted and in late March Webster was moved from the Monumental Hotel.
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