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

by Amanda Foreman

  11. Frederick W. Seward (ed.), Seward at Washington (New York, 1891), p. 487.

  12. Ernest Samuels (ed.), Henry Adams: Selected Letters (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), p. 32, Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., December 9, 1860.

  13. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Charles Francis Adams, 1835–1915: An Autobiography with a Memorial Address (Boston, 1916), p. 82.

  14. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., “The British Proclamation of May, 1861,” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 48 (1915), pp. 190–241, at p. 216, Lord Lyons to Lord John Russell, February 4, 1861.

  15. PRO Kew, 30/22/35, ff. 16–19, Lyons to Lord John Russell, February 12, 1861. Lord Newton (ed.), Lord Lyons: A Record of British Diplomacy, ed. Lord Newton, 2 vols. (London, 1914), vol. 1, p. 30, Lord Lyons to Lord John Russell, January 7, 1861.

  16. BDOFA, part I, ser. C, vol., 5, p. 181, Russell to Lord Lyons, February 20, 1861.

  17. Charles M. Hubbard, The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy (Knoxville, Tenn., 1998), p. 27.

  18. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals (New York, 2005), p. 316.

  19. Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 2008), vol. 2, p. 98.

  20. Diary of Gideon Welles, 3 vols. (Boston, 1911), vol. 1, pp. 134–40.

  21. BDOFA, part I, ser. C, vol. 5, Lyons to Russell, March 18, 1861.

  22. Lynn M. Case and Warren F. Spence, The United States and France: Civil War Diplomacy (Philadelphia, Pa., 1970), p. 130. Norman Ferris maintained that the various accounts of the dinner by the foreign ministers were too dissimilar to be trustworthy. I believe that the sense in all of them is the same: Seward did not like their answers and became aggressive. Norman B. Ferris, “Lincoln and Seward in Civil War Diplomacy: Their Relationship at the Outset Reexamined,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 12 (1991), p. 21.

  23. Newton (ed.), Lord Lyons, vol. 1, pp. 31–34, Lyons to Russell, March 26, 1861. Norman Ferris disputes Lyons’s account but his argument is not persuasive.

  24. David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York, 1961), p. 383.

  25. Adams, Charles Francis Adams, 1835–1915, p. 108.

  26. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, March 28, 1861.

  27. David H. Donald, Lincoln (New York, 1995), p. 285.

  28. Interestingly, Jack Shepherd, The Adams Chronicles (New York, 1975), p. 358, Martin Duberman, Charles Francis Adams (New York, 1961), p. 257, Philip Van Doren Stern, When the Guns Roared: World Aspects of the American Civil War (New York, 1965), p. 35, and Donald, Lincoln, p. 321, take the account from Charles Francis Adams, Jr.’s biography of his father, but it differs in minor but significant aspects from Adams’s diary.

  29. Alan Hankinson, Man of Wars: William Howard Russell of “The Times,” 1820–1907 (London, 1982), p. 152.

  30. C. Vann Woodward (ed.), Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (New Haven, 1981), p. 67, June 4–10, 1861.

  31. Hankinson, Man of Wars, p. 157, Mowbray Morris to Russell, April 4, 1861.

  32. Wiltshire and Swindon RO, 2536/10, Edward Best to Aunt Sophia, May 10, 1861.

  33. William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, ed. Eugene H. Berwanger (New York, 1988), p. 42, March 26, 1861; dashes added for clarity.

  34. Ibid., p. 47, March 28, 1861.

  35. Ibid.

  36. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, March 31, 1861.

  37. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., Charles Francis Adams, 1835–1915: An Autobiography (Boston, 1916), pp. 112–13.

  38. Van Deusen, William Henry Seward, p. 270.

  39. Edward L. Pierce (ed.), Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, 4 vols. (Boston, 1894), vol. 4: 1860–1870, p. 29.

  40. The crux of his proposal was America’s engagement with Europe. Seward stated that he “would demand explanation from Spain and France, categorically, at once. I would seek explanations from Great Britain and Russia, and send agents into Canada, Mexico and Central America, to rouse a vigorous continental spirit of independence on this continent against European intervention. And if satisfactory explanations are not received from Spain and France, would convene Congress and declare war against them.” This was a scatter-gun approach, indicative of Seward’s state of mind. At least regarding Spain, he did have a valid issue. With extraordinary timing, Spain had just annexed Santo Domingo—a direct snub to the Monroe Doctrine. But the others were mere wishful thinking.

  41. Patrick Sowle, “A Reappraisal of Seward’s Memorandum of April 1, 1861, to Lincoln,” Journal of Southern History, 33/2 (May 1967), pp. 234–39.

  42. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 66, April 9, 1861.

  43. Ibid., p. 77, April 15, 1861.

  44. Martin Crawford (ed.), William Howard Russell’s Civil War: Private Diary and Letters, 1861–1862 (Athens, Ga., 1992), p. 43, William Howard Russell to Lord Lyons, April 19, 1861.

  45. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 92, April 18, 1861.

  46. Ibid., p. 95, April 20, 1861.

  47. There is still a lively debate as to whether the United States was right to have chosen a blockade over port closures. As Howard Jones has noted, the U.S. Constitution deemed that all ports must be treated on an equal basis. Lincoln did not have the legal power to close only the Southern ports and leave the Northern ones open. He would either have to shut every port in the country, or declare that Northern ports were exempt from closure since they were not part of the United States, which would have been absurd. Jones, Blue and Gray Diplomacy (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2009), p. 56.

  48. A letter of marque (marque meaning “frontier”) was a cheap way for countries without a navy to wage war against an enemy’s shipping. By international law, any captain with a vessel could become a privateer if issued with one. Thus shielded by the law, he could roam the sea, seizing enemy ships and taking them before an admiralty court. There it would be decided whether or not the ship was a legal prize and not, for example, the property of a neutral state. If judged a legal prize, the ship would be condemned and captain and crew entitled to the profits. Roland R. Foulke, A Treatise on International Law, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1920), vol. 2, p. 244. The last country to offer letters of marque was Mexico in 1847.

  49. The declaration had four salient points: 1. Privateering is, and remains, abolished; 2. The neutral flag covers enemy’s goods, with the exception of contraband of war; 3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy’s flag; 4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective. Also, the declaration was only binding upon countries that had signed the treaty.

  50. Adams, “The British Proclamation of May, 1861,” p. 218.

  51. Ibid., p. 220, Lord Lyons to Lord John Russell, May 6, 1861.

  52. In Lyons’s words, “It may be impossible to deter this Government from offering provocations to Great Britain, which neither our honour nor our interest will allow us to brook.” Ibid., Lord Lyons to Lord John Russell, May 20, 1861.

  53. Ibid., Lord Lyons to Lord John Russell, May 6, 1861.

  54. Adams, Charles Francis Adams, 1835–1915, p. 89.

  55. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 126, May 7, 1861.

  56. Ibid., p. 104, April 27, 1861.

  57. The Times, April 30, 1861.

  58. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 119, May 5, 1861.

  59. The Times, May 7, 1861.

  60. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 124, May 7, 1861.

  61. Adams, “The British Proclamation of May, 1861,” p. 207, Consul Bunch to Lord John Russell, February 28, 1861.

  62. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 128, May 7, 1861.

  63. Crawford (ed.), William Howard Russell’s Civil War, p. 52, May 7, 1861.

  64. Robert Douthat Meade, Judah P. Benjamin: Confederate Statesman (Baton Rouge, La., 2001), pp. 172, 175.

  65. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 128, May 7, 1861.

  66. Meade, Judah P. Benjamin, p. 172.

  67. Ibid., p. 166. During his long impriso
nment after the war, Jefferson Davis allegedly told his doctor that he had wanted to send 3 million bales of cotton to Europe before the blockade took effect. It never happened because he “had not time to study and take the responsibility of directing until too late.” Prison Life of Jefferson Davis by Dr. Cravens, quoted in Confederate Veteran, 24 (1916), p. 207. Douglas B. Ball also exonerates Davis and instead blames the secretary of the treasury, Christopher Memminger, for being shortsighted and vacillating on the subject until it was too late: Financial Failure and Confederate Defeat (Champaign, Ill., 1991), pp. 88–96. Where the ships would have come from to ship 3 million bales, however, is not clear.

  68. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 130, May 7, 1861.

  69. F. L. Owsley, King Cotton Diplomacy (2nd ed., Chicago, 1959), p. 24, June 4, 1861.

  Chapter 4: Expectations Are Dashed

  1. William S. Walsh, Abraham Lincoln and the London Punch (New York, 1909), p. 24.

  2. MPUS, no. 330, Dallas to Seward, April 9, 1861.

  3. Donald Bellows, “A Study of British Conservative Reaction to the American Civil War,” Journal of Southern History, 51/4 (Nov. 1985), pp. 505–26, at p. 511.

  4. MPUS, no. 330, Dallas to Seward, April 9, 1861.

  5. Brian Jenkins, “Sir William Gregory: Champion of the Confederacy,” History Today, 28 (1978), p. 323.

  6. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., “The British Proclamation of May, 1861,” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 48 (1915), pp. 190–241, at p. 209, Bunch to Russell, March 21, 1861.

  7. Sarah Agnes Wallace and Frances Elma Gillespie (eds.), Journal of Benjamin Moran, 1857–1865, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1948, 1949), vol. 1, p. 809, May 13, 1861.

  8. PRO 30/22/21, ff. 469–71, Palmerston to Russell, April 27, 1861. They were flummoxed by having no American to speak to on the issue. On May 5 (f. 472), Palmerston wrote to Russell that he had received a visit from an agent of Rothschilds, who read a letter from August Belmont urging mediation: “I stated to him also the obvious objections to any step on our part at the present moment but I admitted the great importance of the matter and it desires to be fully weighed and considered.” Palmerston suggested they could try communicating “confidentially with the South by the men who have come over here from there; and with the North by Dallas who is about to return in a few days. Dallas, it is true, is not a political friend of Lincoln and on the contrary rather leans to the South, but still he might be an organ, if it should be deemed prudent to take any step.”

  9. PRO NI T/1585A, Private John Thompson to father, April 28, 1861.

  10. Illustrated London News, May 4, 1861.

  11. Economist, May 4, 1861.

  12. Saturday Review, March 30, 1861.

  13. Wallace and Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran, vol. 1, p. 796, April 5, 1861, p. 799, April 18, 1861, p. 802, April 27, 1861.

  14. A. L. Kennedy (ed.), My Dear Duchess: Social and Political Letters to the Duchess of Manchester, 1858–1869 (London, 1956), p. 154, Lord Clarendon to Duchess of Manchester, May 8, 1861.

  15. British Sessional Papers, 1861, vol. 63, Command Paper No. 2910, pp. 210–11, May 3, 1861.

  16. Letters of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, ed. G. F. Lewis (London, 1870), pp. 395–96, G. C. Lewis to Sir Edmund Head, May 13, 1861.

  17. K. D. Reynolds, Aristocratic Women and Political Society in Victorian Britain (Oxford, 1998), p. 124, Duchess of Sutherland to Gladstone, May 25, 1861, BL Add. MS 44325, ff. 137–79, and Duchess of Sutherland to Gladstone, May 28, 1861, f. 144.

  18. BL Add. MSS 44531, Gladstone to Duchess of Sutherland, May 29, 1861.

  19. BDOFA, part I, ser. C, vol. 5, p. 199, Lord John Russell to Lord Lyons, May 11, 1861.

  20. Even before the proclamation, the U.S. secretary of war, Simon Cameron, had to gently but firmly reject offers from Canadians who were eager to raise regiments for the North. OR, ser. 3, vol. 1, ser. 122, no. 6.

  21. After the war, the United States claimed that Britain had acted without provocation and with malign intent. However, as D. P. Crook, C. F. Adams, Jr., and others argue, the cabinet had more than enough information and reason to take this route. Lord Russell knew by May 11, thanks to the consul in New York, that Lincoln had proclaimed the blockade and called for 75,000 soldiers—and that the Confederacy had a president, functioning legislature, a constitution, judges, customs officers, armies, and a flag. See, for example, D. P. Crook, The North, the South, and the Powers, 1861–1865 (New York, 1974), passim.

  22. ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 215, Yancey and Mann to Toombs, May 21, 1861.

  23. Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, ed. Ernest Samuels (New York, 1973), p. 116.

  24. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, July 11, 1861.

  25. The legation shuttled first to 7 Duke Street on May 20, and then to 17 St. George’s Place on June 1. The building was adequate but on the small side. The house he found for his family, 52 Grosvenor Square, had also been his grandfather’s residence during his posting in London.

  26. W. C. Ford (ed.), Letters of Henry Adams, 1858–1891, 2 vols. (Boston, 1930–38), vol. 1, p. 90, Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., May 16, 1861.

  27. Quoted in Asa Briggs, Victorian People (London, 1954), p. 206.

  28. T. Wemyss Reid, Life of the Right Honourable William Edward Forster (London, 1888), p. 333, Forster to Ellis Yarnall, May 10, 1861.

  29. Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, p. 124.

  30. Trinity College Library, Cambridge, Houghton MS CA9/66, Milnes to Sir Charles J. MacCarthy, June 25, 1861.

  31. George Douglas, Eighth Duke of Argyll (1823–1900): Autobiography and Memoirs, ed. the Dowager Duchess of Argyll, 2 vols. (London, 1906), vol. 2, p. 170, Argyll to John Motley, May 14, 1861.

  32. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, May 15, 1861.

  33. Ibid., May 16, 1861.

  34. Ibid.

  35. Charles Vandersee, “Henry Adams Behind the Scenes: Civil War Letters to Frederick W. Seward,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 71/4 (1967), p. 248. Otherwise, Henry had written to Frederick Seward, every staff member would be new and “you will see at once what a position the Embassy would be in.”

  36. G. P. Gooch (ed.), The Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, 1840–1878, 2 vols. (London, 1925), vol. 2, p. 320, Lord John Russell to Lord Cowley, June 13, 1861.

  37. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, May 18, 1861.

  38. Edward L. Pierce (ed.), Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, 4 vols. (Boston, 1894), vol. 4: 1860–1870, p. 31, Argyll to Sumner, June 4, 1861.

  39. Gooch (ed.), The Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, vol. 2, p. 320, Russell to Lord Cowley, June 13, 1861.

  40. Hansard, 3rd ser., vol. 163, col. 277, May 30, 1861.

  41. C. Vann Woodward (ed.), Mary Chesnut’s Civil War (repr., New Haven, 1981), p. 67.

  42. Seward’s new accommodation was called the “Old Club House.” Two years before he moved in, it was the scene of Daniel Sickles’s notorious murder of Phillip Barton Key, his wife’s alleged lover. Sickles shot Key in cold blood on the street in front of the house, and his victim was carried inside, where he bled to death in the room that became Seward’s parlor.

  43. David Herbert Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (New York, 1970), p. 21.

  44. Ibid., p. 25.

  45. Tropic Wind, Hiawatha, Octavia, and Haxall.

  46. BDOFA, part I, ser. C, vol. 5, p. 209, doc. 172, Lyons to Russell, May 2, 1861.

  47. Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861 to November 12, 1862 (Boston, 1862), pp. 37–50.

  48. PRO 30/22/35, ff. 96–98, Lyons to Russell, June 4, 1861; PRO 30/23/35, ff. 99–100, Lyons to Russell, June 10, 1861.

  49. George Templeton Strong, Diary of the Civil War, 1860–1865, ed. Allan Nevins (New York, 1962), p. 145, May 22, 1861.

  50. G. H. Warren, Fountain of Discontent: The Trent Affair and Freedom of the Seas (Boston, 1981), p. 84.

  51. MHS, Adams M
SS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, June 1, 1861.

  52. Ford (ed.), Letters of Henry Adams, vol. 1, p. 93, Henry Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., June 10–11, 1861.

  53. Designed by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the ship was five times the size of its nearest rival. In addition to the 2,000 troops on board, there were more than 470 women and children, 122 horses, and 400 crew, making a total of around 3,000. During the voyage, two women gave birth, and five stowaways were discovered. G. H. Warren, Fountain of Discontent, p. 87.

  54. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, June 12, 1861.

  55. Allan Nevins, The War for the Union, 4 vols.; vol. 2: War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863 (New York, 1960), p. 245.

  56. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, June 5, 1861.

  57. W. C. Ford (ed.), A Cycle of Adams Letters, 1861–1865, 2 vols. (Boston, 1920), vol. 1, pp. 13–15, Charles Francis Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., June 21, 1861.

  58. Ibid., pp. 19–22, Charles Francis Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., July 18, 1861.

  59. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, June 17, 1861.

  60. Carl Schurz, “Reminiscences of a Long Life,” McClure’s, 26/1 (Nov. 1905), p. 642. Schurz went on to say: “I left Mr. Adams with the highest impression of his patriotism, of the clearness and exactness of his mind, of the breadth of his knowledge, and his efficiency as a diplomat.… He was, in the best sense of the term, a serious and sober man. Indeed, he lacked some of the social qualities which it may be desirable that a diplomat should possess. While he kept up in London an establishment fitting the dignity of his position as the representative of a great republic and performed his social duties with punctilious care, he was not a pleasing after-dinner speaker, nor a shining figure on festive occasions. He lacked the gifts of personal magnetism or sympathetic charm that would draw men to him.”

  61. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, August 18, 1861.

  62. Ibid., June 5, 1861.

  63. Ford (ed.), A Cycle of Adams Letters, vol. 1, p. 7, Charles Francis Adams to Charles Francis Adams, Jr., June 7, 1861.

  64. Adams, The Education of Henry Adams, pp. 197, 196, 134.