163 lost interest in privateering: Robinson, Confederate Privateers, 32, 38–40.
163 a national celebrity: Nathaniel Philbrick, Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842 (New York: Viking Penguin, 2003), xv, xix, 300.
164 “the name of Wilkes”: Ibid., xxiv.
164 Welles appointed Wilkes: ORN, series 1, 1: 64–65.
164 under Captain Samuel F. Du Pont: Philbrick, Sea of Glory, 354.
164 Violating his orders: Norman B. Ferris, The Trent Affair: A Diplomatic Crisis (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977), 18–19.
164 Wilkes heard rumors: ORN, series 1, 1: 143.
164 fired shots across its bow: Ferris, The Trent Affair, 21; Philbrick, Sea of Glory, 354; Symonds, Lincoln and His Admirals, 75.
165 Wilkes had scoured the law books: OR, series 2, 2: 1098.
165 consideration for the passengers and crew: ORN, series 1, 1: 184.
165 “a storm of exultation”: Russell, My Diary North and South, 573–78; see also Charles Francis Adams, “The Trent Affair,” American Historical Review 17 (April 1912): 540, 547–49.
165 “conduct in seizing”: Bernard, Neutrality of Great Britain, 194.
165 “such a burst of feeling”: Ferris, The Trent Affair, 179.
165 “in very great haste”: Charles Wilson to William H. Seward, November 27, 1861, ALP LC.
165 “England is exasperated”: Thurlow Weed to William H. Seward, December 4, 1861, ALP LC.
165 “deliberately settled upon”: Thurlow Weed to William H. Seward, December 11, 1861, ALP LC.
166 “The law of nations”: Beale, ed., Diary of Edward Bates, 202.
166 “embodiment of dispatches”: Adams, “Trent Affair,” 547.
166 Former U.S. attorneys general and secretaries of state: Ibid., 548 (Caleb Cushing and Edward Everett).
166 law professors at Harvard: Ibid., 548 (Theophilus Parsons).
166 leading prize court lawyers: Ibid., 549 (Richard Henry Dana).
166 “superseded the authority”: Newton, Lord Lyons, 1: 64.
166 But British lawyers and statesmen: Adams, “Trent Affair,” 554.
166 “a suitable apology”: John Russell to Richard B. Pemell (Lord Lyons), November 30, 1861, ALP LC.
166 Lyons was to request: Newton, Lord Lyons, 1: 61.
166 “timidly truckling”: Beale, ed., Diary of Edward Bates, 216.
167 “Cuban Missile Crisis”: Symonds, Lincoln and His Admirals, 94.
167 “taken into his own hands”: Newton, Lord Lyons, 1: 64.
168 “was really defending”: George E. Baker, ed., The Works of William H. Seward (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1884), 5: 307.
168 “carried before a legal tribunal”: Ibid., 5: 308.
168 had hoped to arrange an arbitration: Memorandum on the Trent Affair, December 1861, ALP LC.
168 Lyons even forgave the absence: Ferris, The Trent Affair, 196–98.
168 “a technical wrong”: David Donald, ed., Inside Lincoln’s Cabinet: The Civil War Diaries of Salmon P. Chase (New York: Longmans, Green, 1954), 55; see also Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire: Britain’s Role in the American Civil War (New York: Randon House, 2010), 194.
168 “bring law into contempt”: Adams, “Trent Affair,” 555 and 555 n. 3.
169 “every negro of every rebel”: John M. Palmer to Lyman Trumbull, December 28, 1861, ALP LC; see also Charles P. McIlvaine to AL, January 6, 1864, ALP LC; Crook, Diplomacy During the American Civil War, 58.
Chapter 6. Blood Is the Rich Dew of History
170 The shorter war is: Twenty-Seven Definitions and Elementary Positions Concerning the Law and Usages of War [1861], definition 19, folder 15, box 2, FLP JHU.
170 Fort Donelson: My account of the battle at Fort Donelson relies on OR, 1: 7, 174–78; Marion Morrison, A History of the Ninth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry (Monmouth, IL: J. S. Clark, 1864); Jack Hurst, Men of Fire: Grant, Forrest, and the Campaign That Decided the Civil War (New York: Basic Books, 2007); Kendall B. Gott, Where the South Lost the War (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003), 194–283; Benjamin Franklin Cooling, Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987); James O. Churchill, A Letter Written During the Civil War, in Which Many St. Louis People Are Mentioned (St. Louis: The Writer, 1909); John H. Brinton, Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, Major and Surgeon U.S.V., 1861–1865 (New York: Neale Publishing, 1914), 91–92; Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1870), appendix 26–28; and Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of Rebellion (Des Moines: Dyer Publishing Co., 1908).
172 the Naval Academy at Annapolis: FL to Charles Sumner, February 4, 1853, box 42, FLP HL.
172 a reputation for prodigious: Hamilton Lieber to Guido Norman Lieber, March 24, 1862, box 55, FLP HL.
172 tied a kerchief . . . smashed the elbow: FL to Charles Sumner, March 23, 1862, box 42, FLP HL.
172 “death storm”: J. S. Newberry, A Visit to Fort Donelson, Tenn. for the Relief of the Wounded of Feb’y 15, 1862: A Letter (New York: U.S. Sanitary Commission, 1862), 4.
172 wounded . . . lay dead: Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion, appendix 28.
172 8th Illinois and 18th Illinois: Gott, Where the South Lost the War, 282–83.
172 201 . . . especially gruesome: Morrison, History of the Ninth Regiment, 17–24.
172 makeshift field hospital: Newberry, A Visit to Fort Donelson, 4–5.
173 catch the attention: Matilda Lieber to Hamilton Lieber, March 30, 1862, box 55, FLP HL.
173 “unconditional and immediate”: OR, 1: 7, 161.
173 “most disastrous”: Donald Stoker, The Grand Design: Strategy and the U.S. Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 116.
173 decide the Civil War: Gott, Where the South Lost the War; Stoker, Grand Design, 116.
173 etch the date: Hamilton’s sword was put up for auction and sold by the auction house of James D. Julia in New Hampshire in 2005. See http://www.icollector.com/inscribed-us-model-1850-foot-officer-s-sword-with_i5323646, last visited November 24, 2011.
173 born in Berlin: The old but excellent biography of Lieber is Frank Freidel, Francis Lieber: Nineteenth-Century Liberal (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1947).
174 assassinating Napoleon: Ibid., 9.
174 “able to expel the French”: Quoted in ibid., 19.
174 “I suddenly experienced”: Thomas Sergent Perry, ed., Life and Letters of Francis Lieber (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1882), 16.
174 fight for Greek independence: Freidel, Francis Lieber, 30–33.
175 “if there should not be”: Perry, Life and Letters, 38.
175 “indelible horror”: Ibid., 12.
175 a bewildered boy: Ibid.
175 “tremendous uproar and carnage”: Ibid.
175 “over the mangled bodies”: Ibid.
175 “I told my comrade”: Ibid., 14.
175 stealing his watch: Ibid., 18.
175 Lieber was arrested and imprisoned: Freidel, Francis Lieber, 23–30, 42–45.
175 Matilda (“Matty”) Oppenheim: Matilda signed her letters as “Matty,” and Francis (whom she called “Frank” in correspondence) addressed her the same way. See, e.g., FL to Matilda Lieber, August 5, 1854, box 36, FLP HL.
176 President John Quincy Adams . . . William Marcy: See Freidel, Francis Lieber, 58.
176 President Jackson had a set: Perry, Life and Letters, 92.
176 Lincoln owned a set: Joshua Wolf Schenk, Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), 30; Freidel, Francis Lieber, 81 n. 44.
176 a desultory teacher: On Lieber as a teacher, see the student notes of Robert Bage Canfield from 1861 (Robert Bage Canfield Manuscripts, 1858–1862, Rare Books Room, Butler Library, Columbia University), as well as the lecture notes that Lieber made for himself in the margins o
f books he seems simply to have read out at great length in class, punctuated by lengthy digressions—see, e.g., Lieber’s copy of [Thomas Arnold?], History of Rome (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, 1837), 195–97, in the Judge Advocate School Lieber Collection, Federal Research Division, LC.
176 spoke in strange and idiosyncratic formulations: Freidel, Francis Lieber, 199.
177 “for want of a rapid”: Ibid., 140.
177 “most fertile”: David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), 81.
177 “individual” . . . “lost more and more in the mass”: “Army,” in Encyclopaedia Americana, ed. Francis Lieber (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, & Blanchard, 1829), 1: 380.
177 “by persons who have”: Francis Lieber, Manual of Political Ethics (Boston: Little, Brown, 1838–39), 2: 633.
177 “energy and independence” . . . “moral electricity”: Ibid., 2: 632.
177 “choicest pages”: Ibid., 2: 633.
177 “Every single thread”: Law and Usages of War, No. II, 29 October 1861 [Notebook No. II], folder 16, box 2, FLP JHU.
177 “Blood” . . . “vital juice”: FL to Fanny Longfellow, March 15, 1844, quoted in James F. Childress, “Francis Lieber’s Interpretation of the Laws of War: General Orders No. 100 in the Context of His Life and Thought,” American Journal of Jurisprudence 21 (1976): 34, 44 n. 33.
178 “best and purest” . . . “degrading submissiveness”: Lieber, Manual of Political Ethics, 2: 646.
178 “the nobleness of human nature” . . . “freedom of his children”: Ibid., 2: 633.
178 “the greatest good”: Ibid., 2: 667.
178 “that lively feeling”: Ibid., 2: 647.
178 “not demoralizing”: Ibid., 2: 645.
178 were morally responsible for their actions: FL to Charles Sumner, April 1, 1841, May 20, 1841, and June 18, 1841, box 40, FLP HL; also FL to Senator Rufus Choate, December 25, 1841, in Perry, Life and Letters, 161.
178 would have acquitted McLeod: FL to Charles Sumner, May 20, 1841, box 40, FLP HL.
179 “the worst advised”: Perry, Life and Letters, 198.
179 “elevated intention”: The quotation comes from the marginalia on the cover of Lieber’s copy of Sumner’s Oration at Union College (July 25, 1848), FLP JHU.
179 leaf from the field at Waterloo: ML to Martin Russell Thayer, October, 1872, box 55, FLP HL.
179 march of the cadets: Perry, Life and Letters, 129.
179 “spheres of action”: Freidel, Francis Lieber, 198.
179 “shaping history in the field”: Perry, Life and Letters, 209–10.
179 “I was born for action”: Ibid.
179 “Would to God”: FL to Henry Halleck, February 8, 1862, box 27, FLP HL.
179 “Oh! my poor life”: Freidel, Francis Lieber, 122.
180 “a Slave State!”: Perry, Life and Letters, 104.
180 enlisted in Hampton’s Legion: Freidel, Francis Lieber, 136 n. 38 & 306.
180 “Behold in me”: Childress, “Francis Lieber’s Interpretation,” 43.
180 “Strike, strike”: FL to Charles Sumner, January 20, 1865, box 44, FLP HL.
180 “sledgehammer”: FL to Charles Sumner, February 13, 1865, box 45, FLP HL.
180 “a death blow”: Edward Bates to FL, September 2 and 3, 1862, box 2, FLP HL.
180 “Blow upon Blow”: FL to Alexander Dallas Bache, May 3, 1862, box 31, RC HL.
180 “Hard, Harder”: FL to Alexander Dallas Bache, May 6, 1862, box 31, RC HL.
180 “drive back”: Edward Bates to FL, September 2 and 3, 1862, box 2, FLP HL.
180 arm-and-hammer sketch: E.g., FL to Alexander Dallas Bache, May 12, 1862, box 31, RC HL.
180 “I intended to do so”: FL to Matilda Lieber, July 26, 1861, box 36, FLP HL.
181 “won’t you give us at least”: Freidel, Francis Lieber, 308.
181 “a peculiarly truthful”: FL to Henry Boynton Smith, August 15, 1861, box 39, FLP HL.
181 “war does not absolve us”: Lieber, Manual of Political Ethics, 2: 658.
181 “guided by no false sentimentality”: Lieber, “The Disposal of Prisoners,” New York Times, August 19, 1861.
181 around 100 people: FL to Henry Halleck, October 28, 1863, box 28, FLP HL.
181 an epic tour: Lieber’s lecture notes are available in box 2, folders 15–18, FLP JH.
181 carried in the New York Times and reprinted: E.g., “Lecture by Dr. Francis Lieber on the Laws and Usages of War—No. 1,” New York Times, October 27, 1861; see also [clipping], New York Evening Post, in box 2, folder 18, FLP JH.
182 “Father Namby Pamby”: FL to Henry Halleck, 10/3/1863, box 28, FLP HL. “Namby pamby” was Lieber’s favorite insult. See the interleafed passages in his copy of his own Manual of Political Ethics, 2: 664–65, box 5, FLP JHU.
182 “a period of peculiar martial character”: Law and Usages of War, No. I, 21 October 1861, folder 16, box 2, FLP JHU. All quotations from the lecture are from this source.
183 “a rule of action”: Law and Usages of War, No. III, 3 December 1861 [Notebook No. III], folder 16, box 2, FLP JHU.
183 “greater than necessary”: Law and Usages of War, No. IV, 17 December 1861 [Notebook No. IV], folder 16, box 2, FLP JHU.
183 “unnecessary infliction of pain”: Law and Usages of War, No. III.
183 “something fiendish” . . . “lawful to resort”: Law and Usages of War, No. IV.
184 “No doubt” . . . “one of our own?”: Ibid.
184 “those arms that do” . . . “peace and civilization”: Ibid.
184 “corte e grosse”: Felix Gilbert, “Machiavelli: The Renaissance of the Art of War,” in Peter Paret, ed. Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 11, 24 n. 26.
184 “kurz und vives”: Jay Luvass, ed., Frederick the Great on the Art of War (New York: Free Press, 1966), 141.
184 “but to make the calamity”: Montague Bernard, “The Growth of Laws and Usages of War,” in Oxford Essays (London: Parker, 1856), 134–35.
184 Carl von Clausewitz: For Clausewitz’s life, I have relied on the introductions in editors Michael Howard & Peter Paret’s translation of Clausewitz’s On War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976); Peter Paret, The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia, 1806 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009); Peter Paret, Understanding War: Essays on Clausewitz and the History of Military Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Peter Paret, Clausewitz and the State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976); and Roger Parkinson, Clausewitz: A Biography (New York: Stein & Day, 1971).
185 “minutiae of service” . . . “fighting a battle”: Paret, Cognitive Challenge, 140.
185 “hardly worth mentioning”: Clausewitz, On War, 75.
185 “in the name of humanity” . . . “hack off our arms”: Ibid., 260.
185 100 years after the Civil War: Beatrice Heuser, Reading Clausewitz (London: Pimlico, 2002), 17; see also Christopher Bassford, Clausewitz in English: The Reception of Clausewitz in Britain and America, 1815–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), which notes that Clausewitz had some readers far earlier.
185 “the continuation of politics”: Clausewitz, On War, 7, 69 (“war is nothing but a continuation of policy with other means”); 605 (“war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means”).
186 “an act of force”: Ibid., 75.
186 Clausewitz’s definition: Lieber, Manual of Political Ethics, 2: 631.
186 “to compel him to peace” . . . “use all means”: Ibid., 2: 660 n. 3.
186 “morality floats”: Law and Usages of War, No. IV.
186 eschewed the quintessential strategy: One twenty-first-century Clausewitz student puts it this way: “If the ends don’t justify the means, I’d like to know what in the hell does!” See Phillip Bobbitt, Terror and Consent: The Wars for the 21st Century (New York: Alfr
ed A. Knopf, 2007), 351.
186 They rejoiced at the Union victory: FL to Henry Halleck, February 8, 1862, box 27, FLP HL.
186 bad tidings: FL to Halleck, February 19, 1862, box 27, FLP HL.
187 sought out his wounded son: Oliver Wendell Holmes, “My Hunt After the Captain,” Atlantic Monthly 10 (1862): 738–64; Stephen M. Frank, “Rendering Aid and Comfort: Images of Fatherhood in the Letters of Civil War Soldiers from Massachusetts and Michigan,” Journal of Social History 21, no. 1 (1992): 15–17; Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001), 41.
187 some 16,367 . . . half a million: John Whiteclay Chambers et al., eds., The Oxford Companion to American Military History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 50.
187 Union wounded: Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion, appendix 27.
187 he could not find him . . . “I knew war as [a] soldier”: FL to Charles Sumner, March 23, 1862, box 42, FLP HL.
187 had dined regularly: Henry Halleck to FL, February 3, 1862, box 9, FLP HL; FL to Henry Halleck, February 7, 1862, box 27, FLP HL.
188 powerfully impressed: Henry Halleck to FL, February 3, 1862, box 9, FLP HL; Henry W. Halleck, Elements of Military Art and Science: Or, Course of Instruction in Strategy, Fortification, Tactics of Battles, Etc. (New York: D. Appleton, 1862), 8–34, esp. 23–34.
188 who directed Lieber: Matilda Lieber to Guido Norman Lieber, February 27, 1862, box 55, FLP HL.
188 “war is not” . . . “certain of success”: Halleck, Elements of Military Art, 145.
188 “been rendered clear”: Henry W. Halleck, International Law; Or, Rules Regulating the Intercourse of States in Peace and War (New York: D. Van Nostrand, 1861), 30.
188 “bound by rules”: Halleck, Elements of Military Art, 145.
188 Instead, bands of irregular soldiers: See Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri During the American Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Mark E. Neely, Jr., The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).
189 “all fastidious notions”: Daniel E. Sutherland, ed., A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 93.
Lincoln's Code Page 60