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

by Amanda Foreman

  Since Banks could not approach Port Hudson from the Mississippi, he wondered if he could bypass the area altogether by finding a way through the mazelike bayous and lesser tributaries that fed the river. Currie’s regiment was sent on a two-week trek through densely wooded swamps and across alligator-infested rivers. They were prey not only to the wildlife but also to local Confederates who lay in wait for them. One private was killed and two others were snatched during an ambush. The men returned at the end of February, nervous and physical wrecks. They were “used up,” in Currie’s words: “In my opinion the country is impracticable for all arms of the service.”24

  There was no alternative but to face Port Hudson’s batteries. General Banks invited his naval counterpart, Admiral Farragut, to his headquarters at the palatial St. Charles Hotel to discuss a joint assault. The general knew that his troops were no match for a seasoned Confederate army, but they could provide cover for Farragut’s warships. Banks would attack Port Hudson from the land, hopefully causing enough confusion to allow the navy to steam up the river. The great question hung on Banks’s ability to deliver a solid enough diversion.25

  Just how green some of his troops were had been demonstrated on February 20 when a small detachment sent to the levee to oversee the departure of Confederate prisoners bound for Baton Rouge was responsible for a disgraceful incident. As word spread through the city that rebel officers were being escorted onto steamboats, thousands of well-wishers, most of them women and children, ran down to see them off. Mary Sophia Hill was among them. Weeping and cheering, they waved red handkerchiefs in mass defiance of the order against displays of Confederate sympathy. The Union troops soon lost control of the crowd, which heaved and swayed with emotion. Panicking, the Federal officer in charge sent an urgent request for more troops, who arrived with bayonets fixed. They came “at a canter,” recalled Mary. “The guns were rammed and pointed at this helpless mass of weakness.” The women were literally beaten back from the levee. “As I never yet ran from an enemy,” she continued, “but always faced them, I walked backwards, with others, to some warehouses, where we were again chased by Federal officials in uniform.”26

  No one was killed, but there were cuts and broken bones; and with every retelling the officers became more brutal and the danger more desperate. Once again the Northern occupiers had succeeded in presenting themselves in the worst light. Southern newspapers sarcastically labeled the affair “la bataille des mouchoirs” (the battle of the handkerchiefs). Banks’s reputation plunged: “Some say Banks never saw a battle, as he was always running; but he did, he won this, which is well remembered,” wrote Mary scornfully.27

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  The navy was also contributing its share of frustration and disappointment to Lincoln. On January 11, 1863, CSS Alabama attacked the U.S. blockade at Galveston, Texas. Once a forsaken collection of wooden buildings along a dreary sandbar that stretched for twenty-seven miles, Galveston had become a boomtown in recent years, sporting large modern warehouses and New Orleans–style mansions. Profits from shipping cotton—three-quarters of Texas’s produce passed through the seaport—had paid for colonnades of palm trees and lush oleanders to line streets that had formerly been mud tracks in the grass. The U.S. Navy had begun blockading Galveston in July 1861, and a Federal force had briefly held the port until Confederate general John Magruder (nicknamed “Prince John” by his enemies on account of his flashy behavior in front of ladies) recaptured the town on New Year’s Day 1863. Reinforcements to the naval blockade had just arrived when Captain Raphael Semmes and the Alabama cautiously approached the Union fleet.

  Ill.31 “Scene on the Levee at New Orleans on the Departure of the Paroled Rebel Prisoners,” February 1863.

  In only six months the Alabama had become the most famous ship afloat. The entire English-speaking world knew her history, beginning with her audacious escape from under the noses of the British authorities. In addition to her aura of daring, she was beautiful to behold. The fifty-four-year-old Semmes had loved the Alabama from the moment he first saw her. During his thirty-seven years in the navy, he had never sailed on such a well-crafted vessel. “Her model was of the most perfect symmetry,” he wrote, “and she sat upon the water with the lightness and grace of a swan.”28 The Confederate navy agent James Bulloch had asked Lairds to build him a ship that could survive the harshest of conditions for months on end. He knew that the Alabama would never have a home port or a regular source of supply.29 The result was a 230-foot vessel with three masts, built for roving and raiding, capable of sail and steam power, equipped with two engines, a liftable screw propeller, and eight powerful guns. Her cabins could comfortably accommodate 24 officers and a crew of 120.

  Semmes had been in command of CSS Sumter until the vessel required such extensive repairs that in the summer of 1862 he was forced to sell her in Gibraltar. When he and his second in command, Lieutenant John Kell, arrived in England, Bulloch realized that they were the obvious choice to take command of the Alabama. The new crew soon nicknamed their captain “Old Beeswax” on account of his highly waxed mustache. The sharpened tips—which looked both debonair and dangerous—were symbolic of the divergent nature of his character: Semmes was always perfectly correct and mild-mannered in his demeanor, but behind the mask was a stern and relentless fighter. He had strong literary and intellectual tastes, and, in contrast to many of his peers in the navy, he had no trouble adapting to home life when on furlough. During the long gaps between his deployments at sea, Semmes had established his own law practice. He was also a gifted writer, having published two well-received memoirs of his experiences during the Mexican War.

  Despite frequent buffetings from rough weather and unruly sailors, Semmes soon imposed his will on the ship. The seamen were almost all British, “picked up, promiscuously,” wrote Semmes, “about the streets of Liverpool … they looked as little like the crew of a man-of-war, as one can well conceive. Still, there was some physique among these fellows, and soap, and water, and clean shirts would make a wonderful difference in appearance.”30 The officers, on the other hand, were mostly Southerners, the notable exceptions being the master’s mate, twenty-one-year-old George Townley Fullam from Hull, and the assistant surgeon, David Herbert Llewellyn, a vicar’s son who had recently completed his residency at Charing Cross hospital.31 Semmes considered the Alabama to be a ship of war rather than a privateer, and he demanded navy-style obedience from the men. “My code was like that of the Medes and Persians—it was never relaxed,” he wrote. “I had around me a staff of excellent officers, who always wore their side arms, and pistols, when on duty, and from this time onward we never had any trouble about keeping the most desperate and turbulent characters in subjection.”32 The highest wages of any fleet and the promise of fantastic amounts of prize money also helped to maintain discipline.

  The Alabama scored its first capture on September 5, an unarmed whaler, which was raided for supplies and then set afire. The merchant crew was allowed to go ashore in its whaleboats. Those men were lucky; other crews were held prisoner belowdecks until Semmes could unload them at a neutral port. By Christmas, the Alabama had successfully pounced on ten U.S. ships.33 One capture often led to another, since Semmes would use the information gleaned from logbooks and timetables to chase after sister ships. But at Galveston, Semmes was offered a different opportunity—to prove to the world that the Alabama was capable of much more than merely preying on civilian ships. For the first time, she was meeting adversaries of her own class.34

  As soon as Semmes caught sight of the five blockading ships in front of Galveston, he ordered the Alabama to retreat slowly, hoping to entice one of the vessels into a chase. The Federal captain of the Hatteras took the bait, believing that he had caught a blockade runner in the act, and hardly noticed that Galveston was becoming smaller and smaller in the distance. “At length,” recounted Semmes, “when I judged that I had drawn the stranger out about 20 miles from his fleet, I furled my sails, beat to quarters, prepared my
ship for action, and wheeled to meet him.”35 The ships faced each other nose to nose, a mere hundred yards apart and yet only partially visible in the clear, moonless night. Using a bullhorn, the warship challenged first, ordering the unknown vessel to identify herself. Semmes cheekily shouted back, “This is her Britannic Majesty’s steamer Petrel.” There followed an awkward pause while the captain of the Hatteras pondered his next move. He had no wish to provoke the Royal Navy, but there was something suspicious about the ship floating before him. After some rapid calculation of consequences, he announced he was sending over a boarding party. Semmes called back that he was delighted, thus buying the Alabama a few precious minutes to load her guns. They heard orders being shouted and the creaking sound of a boat being lowered into the water. This was the signal for First Lieutenant Kell to cry out, “This is the Confederate States Steamer Alabama!” followed by a broadside from the cannons. The captain of the Hatteras quickly returned fire. Each time the Alabama landed a shell on her adversary, one of the sailors was heard to shout, “That’s from the ‘scum of England’!”36 In less than fifteen minutes the Hatteras was completely disabled and starting to sink. The survivors from the warship were picked up and held in the brig until the Alabama docked at Port Royal in Jamaica on January 20.

  If that were not enough to shake the U.S. Navy’s morale, a week later the blockading fleet at Mobile Bay in Alabama failed to stop the midnight escape of the infamous CSS Florida, the ship originally known as the Oreto. After her hurried exit from Liverpool in March 1862, the vessel had suffered one setback after another. The British authorities in Nassau detained her for nearly four months, although the courts there finally determined that she was not in defiance of the Foreign Enlistment Act. But once free, Captain Maffitt lost half his crew to yellow fever, including his own stepson. Even when the Florida eventually sailed into Mobile in September, she continued to be dogged by misfortune. It took three months to complete the repairs to her damaged hull. Finally, on January 17, 1863, nine months after leaving Liverpool, the Florida began its long-delayed career as a Confederate commerce raider. Two days later, Captain Maffitt captured his first prize, a cargo ship bound for New York.

  The Confederate gains at sea were taking place at a sensitive time for Anglo-U.S. relations. For the past two months, a group of twelve New York businessmen calling themselves the New York International Relief Committee had been soliciting donations for Lancashire’s suffering cotton workers.37 On January 9, the George Griswold set sail carrying a large cargo of provisions that included 13,000 barrels of flour and 500 bushels of corn, all paid for by the committee. The ship was bedecked with symbols of Anglo-American friendship, including the flags and pennants of the two nations. As the Griswold was towed out of New York Harbor, she received salutes from the British vessels that had gathered to see her off. Four more ships soon followed the Griswold; the irony that they could be captured and destroyed by the Alabama was not lost on the Northern press, nor on Seward.16.5 38

  The secretary of state used the public’s resentment over the Alabama and the Florida to his advantage. Over the New Year, he had met with Senator James Grimes, chairman of the Naval Affairs Committee, and persuaded him to propose an armed response against Britain. There was nothing anti-British in Seward’s motives. His only concern was how to shore up his weak position among Republicans; with any luck, Sumner would oppose Grimes’s measures and look like an apologist for England, costing him popularity in the press. After the Galveston attack by CSS Alabama, Grimes announced that he was reviving the bill to allow President Lincoln to issue letters of marque. Arming civilian privateers was necessary, he argued, because the Confederates were building their own fleet in England. Lincoln should have the power “to let slip the dogs of war” against them.39

  As Seward had hoped, Charles Sumner could not resist attacking such a poorly conceived idea. “This revival of Letters of Marque is [Seward’s] work. I have protested to the President against their issue, but I fear that I shall not entirely succeed,” he complained to John Bright. “There is not a Senator—not one—who is [Seward’s] friend politically, the larger part are positively, and some even bitterly against him.… In the House of Reps., he has no friends; nor among his colleagues of the cabinet.” Lord Lyons was crestfallen once he realized that Seward had resorted to the same anti-British line that had made the first year of the war so acrimonious and difficult. “It looks like a return to the old bluster,” he wrote sadly. “Whether he does it to recover his position with the Radical party and with the people at large … or … he really thinks he can frighten England and France with his privateers, I can not say. He is more cordial than ever with me personally, and I do my best to prevent his getting into hot water either with France or with me.”40

  Sumner was speaking the truth, however, when he warned Bright that the Confederate navy program had to be stopped. “The feeling towards England runs high and I hear it constantly said that war is inevitable unless those ships now building are kept from preying on our commerce.”41 Northern newspapers were blaming the Alabama and the Florida for the precipitous decline of U.S. shipping (rather than the lack of Northern investment in the merchant marine).42 “England will be hated for it, till the last American now on the stage goes to his grave,” threatened the New York Times.43

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  16.1 Confederate president Jefferson Davis also had emotional ties to Vicksburg. His family home, Brierfield plantation, was only twenty miles south of the town along a part of the river known as Davis Bend. He described Vicksburg as the “nail-head that held the South’s two halves together.”

  16.2 The phrase referred to the Great Siege of Gibraltar during the American War of Independence. Though vastly outnumbered and outgunned, the besieged British forces on the Rock had defied a combined Spanish and French invasion fleet for three years and seven months, one of the longest sieges in history.

  16.3 Grant apparently believed that “Jewish peddlers” were to blame for the army’s supply problems.

  16.4 During the Crimean War, the 19th Regiment of Foot was sent to the evocatively named Calamity Bay, where it took part in the bungled fight against the Russians for the Alma Heights. Currie was brought down by a bullet that tore a large hole through his left foot. He was rescued from the field, conscious, and therefore able to prevent the regimental surgeon from amputating his foot. For several months Currie lay festering in the notorious Scutari hospital until he was rescued by his brother, who brought him home on a stretcher. Currie made it his mission to walk again. Through sheer force of will he dragged himself on crutches to his medal ceremony at Buckingham Palace on May 19, 1855. His ashen countenance so alarmed Queen Victoria that she asked to be kept informed of his recovery.

  16.5 Lord Lyons naturally took heart from the Griswold, perhaps far too much. The ship was proof, he told Russell, that Americans liked to complain about Britain, but behind the posturing “there lies a deeper and more enduring feeling of good will and kindly affection, which will be a lasting bond of feeling between the two kindred nations.”

  SEVENTEEN

  “The Tinsel Has Worn Off”

  Democrats versus Republicans—Burnside in the Virginia mud—Arrival of General Hooker—Mosby’s Raid—A crisis of conscience—Volunteering for the South—An encounter with Stonewall Jackson

  Lincoln’s troubles made the Democrats bolder in their denunciation of Republican “fanaticism” for persisting with the war. “You have not conquered the South,” thundered Clement Vallandigham in the House on January 14, 1863. “You never will.”1 The Ohio congressman and leader of the Peace Democrats had been unseated by the Republicans in the congressional elections, and this was his farewell speech. Though far from being an Anglophile, Vallandigham was deliberately echoing the Earl of Chatham’s warning to the House of Commons during the American War of Independence: “My Lords, you cannot conquer America!” Although Vallandigham had been defeated in the violent and expensive contest, he was confident that his op
position to the war—and to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—would win him the governorship of Ohio in ten months’ time. “Sir,” he concluded, “there is fifty-fold less of anti-slavery sentiment to-day in the West than there was two years ago; and if this war be continued, there will be still less a year hence.”17.1

  Vallandigham’s “make peace now” speech was received by a public still trying to comprehend the staggering death toll from Fredericksburg, Chickasaw Bluffs, and Murfreesboro. Discontent with the war, wrote Lyons on February 10, “is undoubtedly increasing, and if we have no success before the Spring … it will be impossible to keep up the numbers of the Army.”17.2 One hundred and thirty regiments were about to reach the end of their term of enlistment, George Herbert’s among them. “I am waiting as impatiently as you can for 4th of May,” he wrote to his mother. Like most of his comrades, he had no intention of reenlisting: “The tinsel has worn off the thing,” he admitted.2 Congress, aware that it faced a potentially crippling manpower shortage, was preparing a bill for a national draft.

  The recent spate of defeats was not the only reason for the lack of enthusiasm for volunteering. The War Department’s mishandling of wounded soldiers had become a national scandal. Dr. Mayo never saw the gross abuses of the system, since he was caring for officers who were well enough to recuperate in private establishments, but another English doctor, twenty-five-year-old Charles Culverwell, was a reluctant witness to the neglect suffered by soldiers who were sent to the convalescent hospitals.3 Ironically, Culverwell had never wanted to be a doctor. He was addicted to the theater, but his father had pleaded and “reasoned with me, until at last he suggested a compromise. ‘Get your diplomas; get a means of livelihood at your fingers’ ends, and then you may do whatever you like.’ ”4 Culverwell dutifully qualified, married in 1860, became a father himself, and set out to support his family as a doctor by day while acting at night under the stage name Charles Wyndham. The public was unconvinced by either role. “No patient darkened my door,” he wrote, and the theater company went bankrupt in August 1862. There are conflicting accounts as to why he enlisted as a surgeon in the Federal army.5 But regardless of whether he went freely or was pushed by his family, Culverwell later claimed that he relished the prospect of adventure: “I was bound for America, the land of freedom where equality was adored, favoritism abhorred.… I was convinced that on my arrival there I had only to hold up my little finger and every State in the Union would rush at me with a commission.” He arrived in America in October 1862 with just $45. The rest of the family’s savings was left with his wife, Emma, who remained in London, pregnant with their second child. They had agreed she would come out as soon as he was financially secure.