The day after Rose’s departure, on February 7, Bulloch sent a letter to Bravay authorizing him to sell the Lairds rams as quickly as possible. (It took several months, but after considerable haggling the Admiralty bought the ships for £180,000.) Bulloch’s distress was not only for the loss of the rams; Slidell had decided that the ship construction operation was jeopardizing his relationship with the emperor and ordered Bulloch to sell the unfinished ironclads in Bordeaux. Determined not to be thwarted, Bulloch pretended to acquiesce while he sought a broker who would agree to buy the vessels on paper only.
Even legitimate Confederate enterprises were buckling under pressure. The price of the Confederate cotton bond had dropped precipitously, from £70 to £34, after Grant’s victory at the Battle of Chattanooga and now fluctuated around the £50 mark. The cost of shipping supplies to the Confederacy and the increasing likelihood of capture were wiping out the profits of blockade running.26 For the first time since the war, the survival of Fraser, Trenholm and Co.—the Southern shipping firm and financial clearinghouse for the Confederacy in Europe—appeared to be in doubt. “Every consignment to us is closely scrutinized and anything at all suspicious would be seized at once,” Charles Prioleau in Liverpool explained to a would-be arms supplier. Nor could he extend further credit to the Confederate government, not even to purchase replacement blockade runners for the Ordnance Department. Prioleau calculated that if every available cotton bale arrived at Liverpool, the company would still be owed £70,000.
Six months earlier, the Confederate propaganda agent Henry Hotze had suggested to Benjamin that Richmond should assume control of all the Confederacy’s international dealings, from arms supplying to blockade running. Now he begged the secretary of state to do it before the market damned the Confederacy for good. “Prohibit the exportation of cotton, except for Government account,” he wrote. “Prohibit the importation of luxuries on any pretence, and import shoes and clothes as well for the citizens as the Army.” Most important of all, he urged him to void all contracts that had not been negotiated by Colin McRae, the South’s official purchasing agent.27 With cotton selling for more than 23 shillings a pound (five years before, it had been worth only 7 pence), there were vast profits awaiting the Confederate government if it could put an effective export system in place.
Hotze also wanted to be rid of the South’s official financial agent, Liverpool businessman James Spence, whose support for the abolition of slavery had become a burden and an embarrassment for the Confederates in England. The ardent supporter of Southern independence was roaring up and down the country in preparation for the opening of Parliament in February. Spence had studied the methods of the antislavery societies and was imitating them to good effect: publishing pamphlets before each meeting, preparing fact sheets for the local press, circulating petitions during the meeting, and creating local affiliates of his Southern Independence association.28 The aim, he told Lord Wharncliffe, the head of the Manchester affiliate, was to make it seem as though pro-Southern feeling was increasing, since nothing should be allowed to dampen the already fragile spirits “of our people who of late have had much to dismay them.” But all the good work had been ruined, in Hotze’s opinion, by the Association’s antislavery manifesto, which stated explicitly: “The Association will also devote itself … to a revision of the system of servile Labour, unhappily bequeathed to them by England, in accordance with the spirit of the age, so as to combine the gradual extinction of slavery with … the true civilisation of the negro race.”29 This, Hotze believed, was unacceptable and far outweighed Spence’s success in attracting four peers and nine MPs to the committee.
James Mason hastily wrote to Benjamin from France that he had been unable to prevent the antislavery manifesto: the Southern Independence Association represented the “views of Englishmen addressed to English people … it was in vain to combat their ‘sentiment.’ The so-called ‘antislavery’ feeling seems to have become with them a ‘sentiment’ akin to patriotism.”30 Mason’s defense was not enough to save Spence’s position as financial agent, and his operations were transferred to Colin McRae. But Benjamin was so flattering and apologetic in his letter of dismissal on January 11 that the Confederacy was able to retain the Liverpudlian’s goodwill. “As a man of the world,” Benjamin wrote, “I would meet you on the most cordial terms without the slightest reference to your views on this subject; but … ‘as a member of a government,’ it would be impossible for me to engage you in its service after the publication of your opinions.”31 It helped that Benjamin agreed to reimburse Spence for the money he had expended on propping up the South’s declining bonds.
—
“It is a singular feature of this struggle in America that its merits should be debated at popular meetings held all over this kingdom,” Adams wrote to Seward shortly before the opening of Parliament. “The association of sympathizers with the Insurgents have of late been assiduously engaged in sending paid agents to deliver lectures in behalf of their cause at various places. This has given occasion to counter efforts. Frequently discussions are held by representatives of both sides. I very much doubt whether anything precisely similar ever took place before.”32
Adams knew that the Confederacy’s supporters were waiting for the new parliamentary session with great anticipation. The Liberal government appeared to be tottering toward collapse, and Palmerston had become mixed up in a bizarre divorce case.27.3 Seward had also contributed to the British government’s weakness. “That Solomon has … exercised his usual indiscretion,” raged Benjamin Moran on February 11, 1864, after Seward included in the official publication of the State Department’s correspondence for 1863 dispatches that were never sent to the Foreign Office, such as his provocative July letter on the Lairds rams.33 By playing fast and loose with the State Department record of official dispatches, Seward had made any British concession seem like weakness in the face of Northern threats.
Fortunately for the government, the Tories did not mind castigating Russell for his handling of the Northerners, but they had no desire to be seen as the defenders of slavery, or of rebellion.34 Nor were they by any means confident that their party had enough support in the House for a change of ministry.35 Confronted by the possibility of a change in government, Charles Francis Adams decided that he preferred Palmerston to survive. Adams still attended Lady Palmerston’s weekly parties with gritted teeth, but the sight of the eighty-year-old prime minister standing jauntily at the top of the grand staircase no longer oppressed him.
Adams’s usual cynicism about British politics was in partial abeyance owing to a happy family event. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., had at last taken his furlough and come to England. The term of the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry had expired at the end of 1863, but Charles had encouraged his company to follow his example and reenlist. “They seem to think that I am a devil of a fellow,” he wrote. “These men don’t care for me personally. They think me cold, reserved and formal. They feel no affection for me, but they do believe in me, they have faith in my power of accomplishing results and in my integrity.”36
Benjamin Moran envied Charles Francis Jr.’s assured deportment. “He is a sturdy weather tanned man of about 30 years—stout and strong with a bald head; and is a good deal taller than either his father or his brother Henry [and] is coming to Europe to dip into English society,” he wrote in his diary. Moran’s hope that it would only be a little dip was soon dashed. “Mr. Adams can’t introduce his secretaries to their rights,” he thundered, “but he and his wife go out of their way to stuff their son into every possible house in London, when he really has no business there.”37 At a party given by Lady de Grey, Moran sidled up to a crowd that included the poet Robert Browning and the artist John Everett Millais. “When, Lo! Mrs. Adams appeared forcing her way through followed by the Captain at her apron string. I was disgusted,” he wrote. “She was in her element and talked as loud and vulgarly as ever. Holding her finger up and shaking it towards him, she said, ‘here Charley,
here, here,’ and on his joining her presented him to Browning and Tom Hughes [the author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays]…. I got out of the way and went down stairs.”38
Moran was outraged when “the Captain” failed to pay a visit to the legation offices. “He is pure Adams,” Moran wrote spitefully. But his opportunity for revenge on the family came sooner than he expected. Charles Francis Adams wished to take both his sons to the Queen’s levee on March 2. “This morning,” wrote Moran on March 1, “Mr. H. B. Adams came into the Legation and rather insolently insisted that he was entitled to outrank us at Court.” Henry ought to have known that Moran would not allow a threat to his rank as assistant secretary to pass unchallenged. As a mere private secretary, Henry had no official rank.
“I even questioned the propriety of his going to Court at all—to say nothing about his right,” recorded Moran. With extraordinary timing, Sir Edward Cust, the Queen’s Master of Ceremonies, called at the legation at the height of the argument and confirmed that the right of attendance was extended only to daughters of ministers, not to sons or private secretaries. Naturally, exceptions were allowed, but unofficial private secretaries such as Henry Adams would certainly be ranked behind the last attaché or assistant secretary. Moran had been waiting to hear this ever since Henry’s arrival. The look of triumph on the secretary’s face was too much for Henry, and he swore never to go to court again. “I don’t think anyone will regret that decision,” wrote Moran smugly.39
Shortly after the altercation with Moran, Henry and Charles Francis Jr. left for Paris, “a city for pleasure,” wrote Charles Francis Jr.40 The brothers took every advantage of their freedom. Charles recorded that they spent their last night drinking a beautiful Burgundy “and started for London smiling and happy with wine.” He was sober, though a little jaded, for his presentation at court on March 12. During the carriage ride, Charles further annoyed Moran by grumbling about the occasion. “This cant is abominable,” wrote Moran afterward. “If he didn’t know what he was going for, why in the name of decency did he go?”41 Henry was still smarting from the argument and stayed at home.
—
Henry Hotze was pleased when he heard that the Reverend John Sella Martin and Andrew Jackson, both former slaves, had ended their lecture tours and were going home to America. Their presence had threatened to overshadow his successful infiltration of the down-market press. With sufficient funds, the South could be parlayed into a national cause, Hotze often told Benjamin:
The North has two papers, one 3-penny and one penny paper, which it subsidizes lavishly. We also have two, a 3-penny one and a penny one, and in respectability, standing, and influence no one would venture to institute even a comparison between the respective champions. We have moreover the advantage over the subsidized writers of the North that our cause is pleaded with the force of personal conviction and with the zeal of personal friendship and political sympathy.… In the neutral press, both daily and weekly, we have also important connections, equally honorable, while the North, beyond its own organs, has nothing. All this, I unhesitatingly declare, is due to the Index.42
Hotze was also looking for ways to dilute the impact of Henry Yates Thompson’s recent articles. Since his return from the battlefields of eastern Tennessee, Thompson had been writing for the Daily News and touring the country giving talks about his experiences in the North, somewhat to his family’s embarrassment. Leslie Stephen was another irritant, since he was unafraid to take on the South’s supporters at Cambridge and force them to defend their views on slavery. Neither man was an eccentric or a fanatic, and their opinions on the war could not easily be dismissed. Hotze hoped that Colonel Fremantle’s Three Months in the Southern States, which had been published just before Christmas, would become so popular that dissenting voices would be ignored.43 Still, even Fremantle’s book contained passages that upset Hotze. At James Mason’s request, Fremantle had removed passages that made the South seem foreign in English eyes, but he refused to take out his impressions of Southern slavery.44
Lawley’s arrival in England in February briefly revived Hotze’s hope of a propaganda coup. The journalist had been traveling for nearly three weeks, and the enforced rest had restored him to health. William Howard Russell saw him twice in the same week and noted that he was “in splendid fettle, grey but as clear and handsome as paint.” His eloquent reports of the Confederacy’s sufferings had won him a following of swooning females, but Russell was not deceived. Lawley, he wrote, was as “hard as nails.”45 However, Lawley could not afford to bring public attention to himself lest he alert his creditors. The best he could do for Hotze and the Confederates during the short time he dared spend in England was to speak privately to his former colleagues in Westminster. None of these meetings produced anything of substance, although his interview with Disraeli on February 19 had seemed promising at the time.46
At the beginning of March, Lawley passed through Paris on his way to Italy. Slidell reported to Benjamin that Lawley “had a long and very interesting interview with the Emperor. The Conversation turned entirely upon American affairs and was most satisfactory … the Emperor is prepared to take any action in our favor in concert with England, but adheres to his determination not to move without her cooperation.”47 The Times barely touched on American affairs while its special correspondent was away, and when it did, Hotze found the articles quite unsatisfactory. His impatience was shared by the managers of The Times. Mowbray Morris reluctantly granted Lawley an extra month’s vacation in return for his promise to be in Virginia before the start of the spring campaigns.48
On March 25, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., set sail back to the United States. The brothers had been surprised by how much they enjoyed each other’s company. Henry even accompanied him to Liverpool and waited on the tugboat as Charles Francis Jr.’s steamer pulled out of sight. “Henry nodded to me good-bye from the tug,” wrote Charles Francis Jr., “and I, with a bitter taste … in my mouth, was off for home.”49 His departure for America was followed a few days later by that of Rose Greenhow for France. Little Rose sobbed when her mother appeared at the convent. Her distress made Rose dread the inevitable parting. “I know I ought not to be miserable,” Rose wrote in her diary as she reflected on the decisions that had brought them to Europe, “and yet I am, and tears which I try to keep back flow down my cheek and blind me.”50 On April 2 she celebrated little Rose’s eleventh birthday with the one gift that her daughter craved above all: her undivided attention.
* * *
27.1 That same night, in the Kell household, far away in McIntosh County, Georgia, six-year-old Jonny Kell cried as his mother buried his little sister, Dot, near the house. Jonny’s younger brother, three-year-old Munroe, was too shocked to speak. Jonny frightened his mother by saying he wished to join “little Sissy” in heaven. Four days after her daughter’s death, Mrs. Kell was relieved to hear that Munroe had regained his words. “Jonny, you may have my marbles,” he said, “I don’t want them any more.” That evening he showed the classic signs of diphtheria. He was dead by the morning. “Oh God have mercy on my desolate broken heart,” wrote Lieutenant Kell’s despairing wife. “He has been gone so long, so long! Three long sad years.”9
27.2 Captain John Ancrum Winslow had been searching for James Morgan’s ship, the Georgia, when storm damage forced USS Kearsarge to put into Queenstown, Ireland, on November 3 for emergency repairs. While it was there, a local newspaper printed a story that the U.S. ship had come expressly to enlist volunteers. The following day the Kearsarge was surrounded by rowboats filled with men clamoring to be chosen. The Kearsarge set sail on November 5 with sixteen extra men. Winslow’s explanation of the incident failed to say how the sixteen climbed aboard unnoticed and managed to find such perfect hiding places on an unfamiliar ship.
27.3 The eighty-year-old premier had been cited as the guilty party in the divorce proceedings of Timothy O’Kane against his wife, Margaret, prompting the society joke: “She was Kane, but was he Able?” Benjam
in Disraeli grumpily predicted that the case—though spurious—would do wonders for Palmerston’s popularity and no doubt give him a sweeping victory at the next election.
TWENTY-EIGHT
A Great Slaughter
Grant takes command—A disastrous campaign—Lord Lyons labors on—The new volunteers—Return to the Wilderness—An unstoppable force
General Ulysses S. Grant arrived in Washington on March 8, 1864, to accept his promotion to lieutenant general. In giving him command of all the Union armies in the field, Lincoln promised that he would not interfere as long as the strategy remained one of relentless attack. They both knew that the South could not possibly compete with the North for manpower or resources.1 The Capitol’s gleaming new dome—finished on December 2, 1863—was a powerful advertisement for the healthy state of the U.S. Treasury, especially compared to the hyperinflation and financial chaos that were crippling the South.28.1
Yet the year had not begun well for the North: the Confederate cavalry under General Nathan Bedford Forrest had hampered Sherman’s attempts to wreck Mississippi’s rail system; a Union incursion into Florida was beaten back in late February; and in Charleston, the Federal navy encountered a new and potentially devastating weapon of war: the submarine. The experimental CSS H. L. Hunley—named after its inventor—sank the gunboat USS Housatonic during an evening attack on February 17. (All but five of the Federal crew survived, but the Hunley mysteriously sank during its return journey to Fort Moultrie, drowning the six sailors inside. The tragedy dissuaded the Confederates from building any more submarines.)
Grant had prepared a strategic plan for the next phase of the war: to subdue the western half of the Confederacy first before moving east to crush Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. But he discovered on his arrival in Washington that Lincoln’s promise not to meddle in military actions contained qualifications. Lincoln, along with General Henry Halleck (who had been relegated to the newly created administrative post of chief of staff), wanted a major push up the Red River into Texas.
A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War Page 70