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

by Amanda Foreman

  The city organized a parade and an elaborate banquet in honor of the Russian visitors. In the midst of the excitement, the arrival of Admiral Milne on the flagship HMS Nile was hardly reported in the press. It was the first visit by a British admiral since the War of 1812, and a genuine gesture of goodwill that Milne and Lyons had been planning for several weeks. But the Russian presence crushed their hopes of making a strong impression on the American public. In contrast to the throngs who visited the Russian ships, not a single vessel approached the Nile. The closest Milne came to a public honor was a dinner party given for him and his wife at Cyrus Field’s house in Gramercy Park. The admiral did not mind the indifference shown to his visit, though Lyons was disappointed, given the multiple occasions on which Milne had restrained his officers and punished those who displayed less than strict neutrality in the conflict. Milne instinctively warmed to the energy and spirit of the North.36

  Before the end of Milne’s visit, the commander of the Brooklyn Navy Yard came to his senses and invited the admiral for a tour. Milne was introduced to Major General Irvin McDowell of Bull Run fame and other official dignitaries. “Although on our arrival there was evidently much coolness,” Milne reported to the Duke of Somerset, “yet before we left the tide in our favour had evidently turned.” As Lyons had discovered for himself during their first meeting in Canada, it was impossible not to like and respect the admiral.

  Washington was more welcoming toward Admiral Milne. Seward once again set aside his work for the mixed pleasure of escort duty, and Gideon Welles suspended his loathing of Britain for the hour he sat next to Milne at a dinner at Willard’s. The navy secretary had a good memory for courtesies as well as slights: the previous July, HMS Phaeton had happened to sail past the U.S. Virgin Islands on Independence Day. Mindful of Milne’s order to show respect when in American waters, the captain had surprised the Federal warship moored in the harbor by hoisting the U.S. flag and firing a twenty-one-gun salute.

  Admiral and Lady Milne sailed back to Canada on October 12. “I believe my visit has done much good in many ways, and I would strongly recommend that such visits should be repeated,” he wrote to the Duke of Somerset.37 The British weekly newspaper in New York, the Albion, thought Milne deserved official praise for his courage in forcing the issue. “And now that the ice is broken, we trust that hereafter and in happier times, the British Admiral commanding … may make frequent visits to this port.”38 He could see that Americans cared about British opinion to an astonishing degree. Yet this vital part of diplomatic relations was left solely to the whim of the press. If nothing else came from Milne’s visit, his sober assessment of Britain’s unpopularity gave credibility to Lyons’s repeated warnings to the Foreign Office. As if to underline the point, the treasury secretary, Salmon Chase, made a bizarre speech in Ohio shortly after Milne’s visit about wanting to seize “Old Mother England by the hair” and give her a good shaking.

  Lyons and, lately, the Foreign Office had come to believe that Seward was Britain’s best hope for keeping relations level between the two countries, and both were rooting for him in his ongoing battles with Gideon Welles and Charles Sumner.39 (No one outside the British government knew that Seward was giving Lyons off-the-record advice on how to forestall some of the congressional attacks on British interests.)40 Contemplating the immediate future, Lyons saw only dangerous corners and looming obstacles now that he knew for certain “that Mr. Sumner and the ultras will make another onslaught on Mr. Seward when Congress opens.”41 Worse still was Baron Mercier’s revelation that he had requested a leave of absence. His wife had put up with Washington for his sake, Mercier explained to Lyons, but she could stand it no longer. Lyons could not help himself, but he hoped that the French Foreign Ministry would share his anxiety and consider Mercier too important to be replaced.

  When trouble for Lord Lyons did come, it was from the South rather than the North. On October 23, he read in the National Intelligencer that the four remaining British consuls had been ordered to leave the Confederacy in retaliation for Britain’s alleged support for the North.42 The consuls’ unceasing efforts on behalf of conscripted Britons had been an irritant to the Confederate State Department for more than a year, and they made convenient scapegoats that Judah Benjamin had no scruple about using. Acting consul Allan Fullarton in Savannah had provided the excuse when on October 3 he sent to Richmond a belligerent protest on behalf of six drafted British subjects. Four days later, on October 7, Benjamin convened a special cabinet session to discuss the consuls. Jefferson Davis was conveniently in Tennessee with General Bragg and therefore protected from any international outcry that might follow. The decision to expel them was apparently unanimous.43 If Benjamin did not gain any popularity by the move, at least he did not lose any, and he doubted that the Confederacy would suffer, either.

  —

  The troubles endured by the Scotsman William Watson showed the importance of the consuls to the British community. Tired of struggling to find work in the South after leaving the Confederate army, Watson had decided to try his hand at blockade running. During the summer he sailed from New Orleans to Belize. There, fear of the Confederate commerce raiders had led to a glut of cheap U.S.-owned ships for sale. He bought a flat-bottomed vessel, christened her Rob Roy, and headed for the Gulf of Mexico. When Watson eventually reached Galveston, he discovered that the city was barely functioning. “It was now virtually in ruins, and the grass was growing in the streets,” he wrote. Anarchy and martial law ruled simultaneously.

  Watson was powerless to prevent a local commander from impounding the Rob Roy for defense duty. But he had faith in Consul Arthur Lynn. “When I saw that gentleman and reported the matter he was a little surprised, but said he would scarcely be much astonished at anything these people—the Confederates—would do. They were now desperate, and would not let any regard for international law or individual rights interfere with any project they meant to carry out.”44 In the face of Consul Lynn’s protests, Confederate general John B. Magruder promised that he would release the Rob Roy if an alternative vessel could be found.45 Naturally disappointed by this response, Watson went to Magruder’s headquarters himself. The officers were sarcastic toward him until he was recognized by a former member of the 2nd Texas Regiment. “I was quite astonished at the great effect which this little incident had upon the demeanor of the officials towards me,” wrote Watson. The Rob Roy was returned, and Watson was again free to face the ordinary hazards of blockade running.46

  Several weeks passed before Consul Lynn learned of Benjamin’s order for the British consuls to leave, and when he read the order itself, he noticed that his name had been left off the list. He decided to remain at his post until circumstances changed. Consul Frederick Cridland in Mobile had also escaped Richmond’s notice and was determined to stay. Every white male between the ages of sixteen and sixty was being conscripted. “Letters are received and applications are made to me daily by British subjects to interfere and prevent their being forced into military service, but I cannot assist them,” he wrote on November 14. Yet he hoped that his presence still retained some moderating effect. Cridland’s letter caused much indignation in the Foreign Office over the plight of Britons in the South; it sickened Lord Lyons each time a letter appeared from the Confederacy pleading for help that he was unable to give.25.2 47

  Most Southerners did not believe that British residents were suffering at all. Southern newspapers rarely, if ever, reported when Britons were chained to wagons and dragged through towns to encourage “volunteering,” or hung upside down and repeatedly dunked in water, or threatened with being shot through the knees.48

  * * *

  25.1 The Confederates loved this song, which Vizetelly composed himself: “ ’Twas in the Atlantic Ocean in the equinoctial gales; / A sailor he fell overboard, amid the sharks and whales. / And in the midnight watch his ghost appeared unto me; / Saying I’m married to a mermaid in the bottom of the sea. CHORUS: Singing Rule Britannia! Britann
ia rule the waves. / Britons never, never, never will be slaves.”

  25.2 When HMS Virago eventually made it through to Mobile in January 1864, Consul Cridland told the captain that he had not heard from the Foreign Office for six months. Later, in April, a pathetic message from Consul Lynn miraculously arrived in Washington, begging for guidance: “If I am however, to remain at my post it would afford me sincere gratification if Your Lordship would direct me what course to pursue.” The consuls in the South could not know of the extraordinary efforts made by the Foreign Office in trying to reach them. Lyons pleaded unsuccessfully with Seward to allow a special envoy through the blockade so that Britain could make a direct protest to the Confederate government.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Can the Nation Endure?

  Jefferson Davis’s choice—Saved by the “Cracker Line”—Lincoln addresses the country—Fighting in the clouds—The center breaks—The South holds

  Francis Lawley had been so sure that Jefferson Davis would dismiss General Bragg that in his Times dispatch on October 8, 1863, he wrote as though an announcement was imminent. Yet Bragg’s removal was not preordained. The Battle of Chickamauga had been a stunning victory for the South—the only one since Chancellorsville in May. Longstreet had complained to the secretary of war, James Seddon, “that nothing but the hand of God can help as long as we have our present commander,” without reflecting how his doom-laden letter would appear to the world beyond Tennessee and Georgia. To Davis, the charge seemed self-serving and melodramatic; he agreed with Bragg that it would have been impossible for his shattered army to chase after Union general William Rosecrans even for the ten miles to Chattanooga. Furthermore, aside from the obvious dangers presented by the Confederates’ internal disputes, the Army of Tennessee looked not only secure but on the verge of another success.

  Chattanooga was not quite a one-horse town, but with few more than two thousand residents it certainly did not have the resources to feed and shelter an army of more than fifty thousand. The Tennessee River looped the town in a U-bend on three sides, with the fourth, which faced south, overlooked by an undulating chain of mountains. At the southwestern end rose Lookout Mountain, which towered two thousand feet above the town; toward the northeastern end, the six-mile-long Missionary Ridge gently curved around like a natural amphitheater. Since Bragg held both these high points and the railroads in the valley, the Federals’ only safe supply route was a single road through the backcountry that eventually reached Chattanooga via the far side of the Tennessee River. During the rainy season, which was just beginning, the road was expected to become an impassable mud track, leading to inevitable starvation for the Federals.

  President Davis had already demonstrated his willingness to be firm with generals who opposed him. Despite public criticism he had shunted aside both Joe Johnston and Pierre Beauregard. But with Braxton Bragg, a man he liked and trusted, Davis was strangely protective. Not even the shocking number of Confederate casualties at Chickamauga—higher than those suffered by Lee at Gettysburg and far higher than those suffered by Rosecrans—shook Davis’s faith in him. After allowing the unhappy generals to air their objections for a couple of days, Davis climbed atop the appropriately named “Pulpit Rock” on Lookout Mountain and made a brief but spirited defense of Bragg to the Confederate troops assembled below, warning his listeners that “he who sows the seeds of discontent and distrust prepares for the harvest of slaughter and defeat.” Davis may have felt that there was no other credible alternative to General Bragg, but the Army of Tennessee disagreed. When Davis boarded his return train on October 14, 1863, much of the army’s will to fight went with him. Instead of giving him three cheers, soldiers shouted, “Send us something to eat, Massa Jeff! I’m hungry! I’m hungry!” (Bragg’s ability to manage the supply operations for the army was no better than his skills as a leader of men.) The news of Davis’s decision spread so quickly that two days later, Consul Cridland wrote to Lord Russell from Mobile, Alabama, that everyone was in despair because President Davis was “retaining General Bragg in command against all opposition.”1 Bragg’s retribution was swift. The leading rebels found themselves sidelined or dismissed; Longstreet’s command was reduced to the fifteen thousand soldiers who had accompanied him from Virginia, and he was sent to guard Lookout Mountain, as far away from Bragg as possible.

  Lawley, Vizetelly, and Ross stayed with Longstreet for another week, loyally enduring the short rations and incessant rain until they could stand it no longer. Vizetelly completed a couple more sketches and Lawley one more dispatch, this time not even trying to sugar over his contempt for Bragg. There was no compelling reason for them to remain, but leaving proved more difficult than they expected, as the few trains running from Chickamauga were reserved for the sick and wounded. Ross solved their problems by making friends with the stationmaster, who retained a proud memory of being inspected by Lord John Russell at the beginning of the war. At first “I tried to explain that he might be mistaken,” wrote Ross, who realized that the man had confused Lord Russell with William Howard Russell. Since the stationmaster found them room in a covered wagon (which let in the rain only at the corners), he decided to drop the point.2

  Ill.47 Chattanooga and the Federal lines from the lower ridge of Lookout Mountain, by Frank Vizetelly.

  They arrived back in Augusta, Georgia, two days later, on October 24. To their relief, the Planters Hotel had rooms for all of them. “A clean bed with actual sheets,” exclaimed Lawley, “plenty of water to wash in, decent food, a table to write on, candles”—these were luxuries to a man “who has long floundered in the mud of General Bragg’s camp.”3 The weather was less harsh, too, and a gentle autumn wind replaced the cruel downpours of Tennessee. The men passed the afternoons on their hotel balcony in shirtsleeves, smoking and chatting. They tried out the local theater and discovered it to be quite passable. Vizetelly’s only complaint was the tea served at the Planters, which was so weak he wondered how it managed to reach the spout.4

  Little news filtered down to Augusta from Bragg’s camp, and certainly none from the besieged Federals in Chattanooga. The three friends were unaware that Washington had sent 23,000 troops from the Army of the Potomac to reinforce Rosecrans. Lincoln had acted decisively; there was only one general he truly believed in, and he called upon him now. Ulysses S. Grant was summoned from his headquarters in Cairo, Illinois, and ordered to Chattanooga. Lincoln had written to Grant after Vicksburg, “When you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right and I was wrong.”5 The president showed his newfound faith in Grant by placing him in overall command of the three main Federal armies in the west.

  Lincoln was taking a risk by interfering with the Army of the Cumberland. “Old Rosy,” as the soldiers called Rosecrans, remained beloved by the men; he had meticulously looked after their welfare, and many of them were sorry to see him dismissed. “Worst of all,” wrote the English volunteer Robert Neve of the 5th Kentucky Volunteers, worse than the short rations, lack of blankets, and leaking tents, “was the order for General Rosecrans to be relieved. It was read to us on parade.”6 Rosecrans’s popularity with the soldiers was the chief reason why Lincoln waited until after the election for state governor in Ohio on October 13 to dismiss him, fearing that to do otherwise could push the soldier vote toward Vallandigham (who lost by a wide margin). But once the election was out of the way, he agreed that General Rosecrans could be replaced by the “Rock of Chickamauga,” General George Thomas, who had prevented a complete Federal rout at that battle.

  The Confederate siege of Chattanooga was so tight that after a mere three weeks, sutlers in the town were charging six cents for a mouthful of bread—the usual price for two loaves. In the animal pens, the horses and mules were staggering in the last throes of starvation. Every building in the town had been transformed into makeshift hospitals, except for the Catholic church where Rosecrans worshipped. Grant arrived at Chattanoo
ga on October 23, still using crutches after a fall from his horse in August. But the painful injury had not affected his vigor or determination. The 23,000 reinforcements from Virginia had arrived, led by a chastened “Fighting Joe” Hooker. General Sherman’s corps was coming from Mississippi. Grant was confident he could best his opponent; the real enemy he feared was Tennessee’s geography. Somehow he had to ferry food and grain to Chattanooga before the entire Army of the Cumberland collapsed or surrendered.

  If Rosecrans had at least been able to hold on to Lookout Mountain, the situation facing the Federals would not have been so dire. With the Confederates now in possession of it, all the southern routes into the town, including the river, roads, and railway, were exposed to enemy fire. But the engineers of the Army of the Cumberland had come up with a plan. It required a furtive night expedition along the Tennessee River, beneath the Confederate guns on Lookout Mountain. If successful, they would be able to build a pontoon bridge two miles upriver, where a bend in the river would put the Federal forces beyond the reach of artillery fire.

  At 3:00 A.M. on October 27, fifty pontoon boats, each carrying twenty-four soldiers and two rowers, silently paddled past the Confederates. Robert Neve was in the fourth boat. “It was a fine moonlit night and very still,” he wrote. “We passed down very quiet and could even see the Rebel pickets standing before their fires. It did not create any alarm.”7 They seized the landing with relative ease, driving back a small Confederate counterattack with few losses. “The next job was to cut down all trees … all day long we had to work felling trees and making small breastworks. Here we were all but starving. Rations were very short.” A Confederate attack was expected, and it came at midnight on the twenty-eighth. This should have been Longstreet’s second triumph at Chattanooga, his opportunity to defeat Grant without having to engage in a major battle. But Longstreet had not been paying attention to the Federal inroads along the southern end of the valley, and he made a serious mistake now by sending only four brigades against the attack force. The Confederates were easily overwhelmed and had to retreat back up Lookout Mountain.