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

Page 106

by Amanda Foreman


  31. PRO 30/22/36, ff. 281–89, Lyons to Russell, November 11, 1862.

  32. Jones, Union in Peril, p. 203.

  33. Gooch (ed.), The Later Correspondence of Lord John Russell, vol. 2, p. 333, Palmerston to Russell, November 2, 1862.

  34. ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 603, Hotze to Benjamin, November 7, 1862.

  35. Deborah Logan (ed.), The Collected Letters of Harriet Martineau, 5 vols. (London, 2007), vol. 4, p. 365, September 17, 1862.

  36. Wallace and Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran, vol. 2, p. 1088, November 11, 1862.

  37. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Clarendon, vol. 2, p. 268, Lewis to Clarendon, November 11, 1862.

  38. Howard Jones, Union in Peril, p. 217.

  39. Morely, The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, vol. 2, p. 85, Gladstone to wife, November 13, 1862.

  40. ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, pp. 610–12, Hotze to Benjamin, November 22, 1862.

  41. Quoted in Jones, Union in Peril, p. 223.

  42. For example, Keele University, Sneyd MS, S[rs/hwv]/274, Henry William Vincent to Ralph Sneyd, November 17, 1862,.

  43. ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 618, Mason to Benjamin, December 11, 1862.

  PART II: FIRE ALL AROUND THEM

  Chapter 15: Bloodbath at Fredericksburg

  1. Sarah Agnes Wallace and Frances Elma Gillespie (eds.), The Journal of Benjamin Moran, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1948, 1949), vol. 2, p. 1092, November 19, 1862.

  2. The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, ed. Carl Schurz, Frederick Bancroft, and William Archibald Dunning, 3 vols. (Garden City, N.Y., 1917), vol. 2, p. 246.

  3. Duke University, Malet family MSS, Kennedy to Malet, September 15, 1862.

  4. Calvin D. Davis, “A British Diplomat and the American Civil War: Edward Malet in the United States,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 77/2 (1978), pp. 160–61. In his memoir, Malet wrote that he always regretted obtaining his first post through his father’s influence. “For many years it did me harm,” he wrote. “The grade above mine was that of paid attaché, and ten of my juniors were passed to that rank over my head on the ground that I had been appointed when I ought to have been still in the schoolroom.” E. Malet, Shifting Scenes (London, 1901), p. 18.

  5. Davis, “A British Diplomat and the American Civil War,” p. 171.

  6. Duke University, Malet family MSS, Malet to Lady Malet, February 10, 1862.

  7. Ibid., Malet to Lady Malet, December 2, 1862.

  8. The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860–1865, ed. Stephen W. Sears (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), p. 517, McClellan to Lincoln, November 2, 1862.

  9. Richard Wheeler, Voices of the Civil War (New York, 1990), p. 203.

  10. The 12,000-strong corps was principally made up of German immigrants, and most of its commanders were foreign-born. A hero to many German Americans on account of his military leadership of the Baden revolutionaries in the 1848 revolution against Prussia, Sigel seemed to attract bad luck in the Civil War. At the Second Battle of Bull Run in August, his soldiers were mangled by the Confederates, resulting in the loss of 2,000 men. Since then, the XI corps had been designated the Reserve Grand Division. Some of the German volunteers’ English did not run much further than the corps’ slogan: “I fights mit Sigel.”

  11. NARA, CB MID64, roll 66, Sir Percy Wyndham to General Heintzelman, December 3, 1862.

  12. BL Add. MS 41567, f. 240, Herbert to mother, January 3, 1863.

  13. Hugh Dubrulle, “Fear of Americanization and the Emergence of an Anglo-Saxon Confederacy,” Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, 33/4 (Winter 2001), pp. 583–613, at p. 604, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Malet to Layard, December 27, 1862, BL Add. MS 39104, Layard Papers.

  14. BL Add. MS 41567, ff. 236–37, Herbert to brother Jack, November 26, 1862.

  15. Ibid.

  16. BL Add. MS 41567, ff. 238–39, Herbert to brother Jack, December 16, 1862.

  17. William Mark McNight, Blue Bonnets o’er the Border: The 79th New York Cameron Highlanders (Shippensburg, Pa., 1998), p. 83.

  18. Francis W. Dawson, Reminiscences of Confederate Service, 1861–1865, ed. Bell I. Wiley (Baton Rouge, La., 1980), p. 83.

  19. Shelby Foote, The Civil War, 3 vols. (New York, 1986), vol. 2, p. 22.

  20. Wheeler, Voices of the Civil War, p. 206.

  21. Heros von Borcke, “Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence,” Blackwood’s Magazine, 99 (Jan.–June 1866), p. 193.

  22. After Wynne and Phillips came Colonel Bramston, followed by Captain Bushby, who “had just run the blockade into Charleston, after an exciting chase by the Federal cruisers, and could only spare a few days to look at our army.…” Bushby presented General Lee with a saddle and Stonewall Jackson with a breech-loading carbine. Borcke, “Memoirs,” p. 463.

  23. Ibid, p. 194.

  24. Mary Sophia Hill, A British Subject’s Recollections of the Confederacy (Baltimore, 1875), p. 31.

  25. Foote, The Civil War, vol. 2, p. 26.

  26. Borcke, “Memoirs,” p. 196.

  27. Nearly three decades later, a young British military historian and disciple of Viscount Wolseley summarized Burnside’s mistakes: “Firstly, he underrated his antagonist; secondly, he neglected to reconnoiter as far as was within his power; thirdly, in preference to a line of operations which was feasible and safe, he selected one which … might possibly lead to terrible disaster.” G.F.R. Henderson, The Campaign of Fredericksburg (London, 1886, privately repr. 1984), p. 36.

  28. Mr. Goolrick, the British vice-consul (who was actually an American citizen), was also among the captives. He had long been an embarrassment to Lord Lyons, providing ample fodder to Northern newspapers who claimed that every British official was rabidly pro-South. Lyons took advantage of his arrest to close the vice-consulate permanently.

  29. William Stanley Hoole, Lawley Covers the Confederacy (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1964), p. 39.

  30. Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (eds.), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 4 vols. (Secaucus, N.J., 1985), vol. 3, p. 116.

  31. Ibid., p. 127.

  32. New-York Historical Society, Narrative of Ebenezer Wells (c. 1881), December 11, 1862.

  33. Henderson, The Campaign of Fredericksburg, p. 73.

  34. Illustrated London News, January 31, 1863.

  35. Brian Holden Reid, Robert E. Lee (London, 2005), p. 144.

  36. Chicago Historical Society, George W. Hart MSS, George Hart to mother, January 12, 1863.

  37. Hoole, Lawley, p. 40.

  38. Johnson and Buel (eds.), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, vol. 3, p. 116.

  39. James A. Rawley (ed.), The American Civil War: An English View (Mechanicsburg, Pa., 2002), p. 158.

  40. Hill, A British Subject’s Recollections of the Confederacy, p. 30.

  41. von Borcke, “Memoirs,” p. 451. The quotation in the footnote on this page is from Stuart to G.W.C. Lee, December 18, 1862, quoted in The Letters of General J.E.B. Stuart, ed. Adele H. Mitchell (n.p.: Stuart-Mosby Historical Society, 1990), pp. 284–85.

  42. The Times, January 23, 1863.

  43. R. A. Preston, “Letter from a British Military Observer of the American Civil War,” Military Affairs, 16 (1952), p. 55.

  44. Quoted in Margaret Leach, Reveille in Washington (Alexandria, Va., 1962; repr. 1980), p. 276.

  45. In contrast to the British Army, assistant surgeons in the Northern army were ranked as lieutenants and generally afforded much greater respect. “The social position of the medical, as compared with the combatant officers, is decidedly good, much better than in our own army,” Mayo explained to British readers in an essay about his experiences. It did not provoke comment that “any person with decent prospects of success in civil practice should ever think of entering it.” Francis Galton (ed.), Vacation Tourists, 1862–1863 (London, 1864), p. 376.

  46. Ibid., p. 384.

  47. Duke University, Malet family MSS, Malet to father, December 16, 1862.

  48. Michael Burlingame, Abraha
m Lincoln, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 2008), vol. 2, p. 446.

  49. George Templeton Strong, Diary of the Civil War, 1860–1865, ed. Allan Nevins (New York, 1962), p. 282, December 18, 1862.

  50. Ibid., p. 282, December 21, 1862.

  51. William H. Seward (ed.), Seward at Washington (New York, 1891), p. 487, Seward to wife, December 28, 1860.

  52. Diary of Gideon Welles, 3 vols. (Boston, 1911), vol. 1, p. 133, September 16, 1862.

  53. MPUS, p. 160, Adams to Seward, July 31, 1862.

  54. MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, December 22, 1862.

  55. PRO 30/22/36, ff. 320–23, Lyons to Russell, December 12, 1862.

  56. PRFA (1862), p. 124, Seward to Adams, July 5, 1862.

  57. Frederick J. Blue, Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (Kent, Ohio, 1987), p. 191.

  58. John M. Taylor, William Henry Seward: Lincoln’s Right Hand (New York, 1991), p. 208.

  59. David H. Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (New York, 1970), p. 90.

  60. Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2., p. 453.

  61. PRO 30/22/36, ff. 327–30, Lyons to Russell, December 22, 1862.

  62. James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes (eds.), The American Civil War Through British Eyes, vol. 2 (Kent, Ohio, 2005), p. 282, Lyons to Russell, December 26, 1862.

  63. Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events, ed. Frank Moore, 12 vols. (New York, 1863), vol. 6, p. 299.

  64. Devonshire MSS, Chatsworth, 2nd series (340.1831), Lord Hartington to Duke of Devonshire, December 18, 1862.

  65. Ibid., Lord Hartington to Duke of Devonshire, December 25, 1862.

  66. Ibid., Lord Hartington to Duke of Devonshire, September 29, 1862.

  67. Ibid., Lord Hartington to Duke of Devonshire, October 17, 1862.

  68. Ibid., Lord Hartington to Duke of Devonshire, December 28, 1862.

  69. William Watson was in Baton Rouge, where slaves vastly outnumbered the white population. He watched his friends confront the possibility by speaking directly to their slaves. There seemed to be little desire to leave. “If we run away, and go to New Orleans, like dem crazy niggers, where is we?” asked one slave wisely. “If so be we are to get free, we get it anyhow.” William Watson, Life in the Confederacy: Being the Observations and Experiences of an Alien in the South During the Civil War (London, 1887; repr. Baton Rouge, La., 1995), p. 430.

  70. Borcke, “Memoirs,” p. 458.

  71. Devonshire MSS, Chatsworth, 2nd series (340.1831), Lord Hartington to Duke of Devonshire, December 28, 1862.

  Chapter 16: The Missing Key to Victory

  1. Charles Herbert Mayo, Genealogical History of the Mayo and Elton Family (privately printed, 1882), p. 230.

  2. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals (New York, 2005), p. 498.

  3. James McPherson, Tried by War (New York, 2009), p. 149.

  4. Winston Groom, Vicksburg, 1863 (New York, 2009), p. 132. It is important to note, however, that James McPherson does not believe that Lincoln ever said those words; he concludes that the conversation was fabricated by Admiral David Dixon Porter. Even so, Lincoln himself would have agreed with them. McPherson, This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War (Oxford, 2007), p. 131.

  5. Memoirs of General William T. Sherman (New York, 1876), p. 291.

  6. Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel (eds.), Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, 4 vols. (Secaucus, N.J., 1985), vol. 3, p. 467.

  7. Ibid., p. 468.

  8. Sherman wrote in his memoirs: “One brigade (De Courcey’s) of Morgan’s troops crossed the bayou safely, but took to cover behind the bank, and could not be moved forward. Frank Blair’s brigade, of Steele’s division, in support, also crossed the bayou, passed over the space of level ground to the foot of the hills: but, being unsupported by Morgan, meeting a very severe cross-fire of artillery, was staggered and gradually fell back.… I have always felt that it was due to the failure of General G. W. Morgan to obey his orders, or to fulfill his promise made in person. Had he used with skill and boldness one of his brigades, in addition to that of Blair’s, he could have made a lodgment on the bluff, which would have opened the door for our whole force to follow.” Memoirs, pp. 291–92.

  9. He continued: “After capture, which was near night, we were marched through a drenching rain to Vicksburg, a distance of eleven miles, hungry and without blankets and were corralled in an old foundry where we laid on the cold wet ground for rest.” Personal Papers of Major Milton Mills—16th OVI, letter from Benjamin Heckert, description of Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, December 21, 1904, doc. B028–01: http://www.mkwe.com/ohio/pages/B028-01.htm.

  10. OR, ser. 1, vol, 17/1, p. 650, December 29, 1862.

  11. Owen Johnson Hopkins, Under the Flag of the Nation: Diaries and Letters of a Yankee Volunteer (Columbus, Ohio, 1961), p. 46. See also the diary of Sergeant Asa E. Sample of 54th Indiana Infantry, who recorded his part in the Chickasaw assault: “About this time the rebel batteries opened with canister shot and shell, replied to by our cannon in the rear. The ground before us was completely obstructed by fallen timber for near forty rods (660 feet). Over this we had to pass. Just now General DeCourcey gave the command ‘advance the 54th and 22nd Kentucky about 50 yards!!’ The fallen trees completely mingled the companies of both regiments but onward we went, whiz, boom, boom, went the shells above us, now lying down to evade that bursting burst, now advancing and many falling.” http://www.hoosiersoldiers.com/54THINDIANA/

  1YEAR/DIARIES/SAMPLE/DIARY-DECEMBER-1862.htm

  12. Allan Nevins, The War for the Union, 4 vols.; vol. 2: War Becomes Revolution, 1862–1863 (New York, 1960), p. 386.

  13. OR, ser. 1, vol. 17/1, S. 24, pp. 721–24, no. 4, Report by Brigadier General George Morgan, 13th Army Corps.

  14. Ibid.

  15. William L. Shea and Terrence J. Winschel, Vicksburg Is the Key (Lincoln, Nebr., 2003), p. 60.

  16. Stanley Hirshson, The White Tecumseh (New York, 1997), p. 145.

  17. John Y. Simon (ed.), The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 24 vols. (Carbondale, Ill., 2000), vol. 7, pp. 50–55. After the war, Grant denied that he was anti-Semitic and, to make amends, attended the dedication of the Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C.

  18. William Stanley Hoole, Lawley Covers the Confederacy (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1964), p. 44.

  19. OR, ser. 1, vol. 5, S. 5, p. 504. On February 8, General Smith ended his report on a skirmish around Fairfax Court House by saying, “Captain Currie, as usual, was everywhere to direct and make successful the expedition.”

  20. New York State Library, Edwin Morgan MSS, box 19, f. 11, Currie to Governor Morgan, March 2, 1863.

  21. William Watson, Life in the Confederacy: Being the Observations and Experiences of an Alien in the South During the Civil War (London, 1887; repr. Baton Rouge, La., 1995), p. 440.

  22. Bruce Catton, Never Call Retreat (London, 2001), p. 74.

  23. New York State Library, Edwin Morgan MSS, box 19, f. 11, Currie to Governor Morgan, March 2, 1863.

  24. OR, ser. 1, vol. 15, S. 21, p. 250, Telegram from L.D.H. Currie, February 26, 1863.

  25. Once Banks had filled all the outposts and boosted the garrisons, his effective fighting force was less than half his 32,000-man army. At first he thought that a run up the Mississippi River was still possible with just 12,000 men. Catton, Never Call Retreat, p. 76.

  26. Mary Sophia Hill, A British Subject’s Recollections of the Confederacy (Baltimore, 1875), p. 28.

  27. Ibid.

  28. Raphael Semmes, Service Afloat: A Personal Memoir of My Cruises and Services (1868, repr. Baltimore, 1987), p. 402.

  29. Charles Grayson Summersell, CSS Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1985), p. 13.

  30. Semmes, Service Afloat, p. 405.

  31. The officers either knew or were related to one another to a remarkable degree. Fifth Lieutenant Irvine Bulloch, for example, was James Bulloch’s younger half-brother; midshipman Edward Maffit Anderson, was the son of Edward Charles Anderson who had directed
the Confederate navy’s purchasing operations so ably in 1861; and midshipman Eugene Anderson Maffit was his cousin.

  32. Semmes, Service Afloat, p. 427.

  33. Raimondo Luraghi, A History of the Confederate Navy (Annapolis, Md., 1996), p. 227.

  34. In truth, USS Hatteras was not such a formidable opponent after all, being little more than a refitted passenger ship with about half the Alabama’s firepower. Charles Grayson Summersell, The Journal of George Townley Fullam (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1973), p. 72.

  35. Semmes, Service Afloat, p. 543.

  36. Norman C. Delaney, John McIntosh Kell of the Raider Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1973), p. 143.

  37. Douglas Maynard, “Civil War ‘Care’: The Mission of the George Griswold,” New England Quarterly, 34/3 (1961), p. 300.

  38. Ibid., p. 303.

  39. David Herbert Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (New York, 1970), p. 109.

  40. PRO 30/22/37, ff. 29–30, Lyons to Russell, February 24, 1863.

  41. Beverly Wilson Palmer (ed.), The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner, 2 vols. (Boston, 1990), vol. 1, p. 148, Sumner to John Bright, March 16, 1863.

  42. Brian Jenkins, Britain and the War for the Union, 2 vols. (Montreal, 1974, 1980), vol. 2, p. 185. Modern, low-cost, British-built and -owned steamships were monopolizing the Atlantic trade because their American competitors were old-fashioned sailboats.

  43. New York Times, November 21, 1862.

  Chapter 17: “The Tinsel Has Worn Off”

  1. Speeches, Arguments, Addresses, and Letters of Clement L. Vallandigham (New York, 1864), p. 430.

  2. BL Add. MS 415670, f. 245, Herbert to mother, March 10, 1863. The source for the footnote on this page is Francis Galton (ed.), Vacation Tourists, 1862–1863 (London, 1864), p. 398.

  3. Charles Herbert Mayo, Genealogical History of the Mayo and Elton Family (privately printed, 1882), p. 230.

  4. Wendy Trewin, All on Stage: Charles Wyndham and the Alberys (London, 1980), p. 8.

  5. Ibid., p. 11. This says his father encouraged him. But Wyndham himself says the family opposed the move and refused to support him financially. Thomas E. Pemberton, Sir Charles Wyndham: A Biography (London, 1904), pp. 8, 33.

  6. Trewin, All on Stage, p. 18.

 

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