A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War (170 page)

23.
Virginia Mason (ed.),
The Public Life and Diplomatic Correspondence of James M. Mason
(New York, 1906), pp. 387–92.

24.
Spencer,
The Confederate Navy in Europe
(Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1983), pp. 135–36, January 21 and January 20, 1863.

25.
Ibid., p. 131.

26.
James M. Morgan,
Recollections of a Rebel Reefer
(Boston, 1917), pp. 96–97.

27.
James D. Bulloch,
The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe
, 2 vols. (New York, 1884), vol. 1, p. 272.

28.
Ibid., p. 270.

29.
Ibid., p. 273, February 3, 1863.

30.
There appears to be a great deal of confusion over which Emile Erlanger—the father or son—Mathilda actually married. Charles M. Hubbard,
The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy
(Knoxville, Tenn., 1998), p. 207, says the father, which the family website confirms:
http://www.hydethomson.com/familytree/default.htm

31.
Judith Fenner Gentry, “A Confederate Success in Europe: The Erlanger Loan,”
Journal of Southern History
(1970), pp. 158–88. Spence always claimed that Erlanger took advantage of the Confederacy but subsequent studies have showed that the terms of the loan were comparable to, if not more favorable than, those offered to other governments with more grounds for legitimacy.

32.
H. B. Wilson was a Canadian who had worked in the shipping industry. He did not arouse the Confederates’ suspicion and, within a few weeks of introducing himself, had become a regular at their meetings and dinners. His success opened the doors to other U.S. agents.

33.
ORN, ser. 1, vol. 13, p. 640, January 9, 1863. Excerpts of these reports were distributed to the navy, for example: “Liverpool. January 10 1863: The steamer
Pet
has just cleared and will go to sea this day.… The steamer
Banshee
has gone to-day on a trial trip.… It will not be very many days before she leaves for the South.… The
Peterhoff
went to sea yesterday. I herewith forward an invoice of her cargo, also an invoice and description of the
Sterlingshire
, a sailing bark in the Confederate service. From all I can learn the two steamers may attempt to get into Charleston. They are new, or nearly so, and would make good transport ships.”

34.
Frances Leigh Williams,
Matthew Fonatine Maury
(Piscataway, N.J., 1963), p. 403.

35.
NARA, T.168, roll 31, vol. 31, doc.29, Morse to Seward, February 20, 1863.

36.
Bulloch,
The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe
, vol. 1, p. 395, February 3, 1863.

37.
ORN, ser. 2, vol. 3, pp. 712–16, Mason to Benjamin, March 19, 1863.

38.
Stephen Wise,
Lifeline of the Confederacy: Blockade Running During the Civil War
(Columbia, S.C., 1988), p. 94.

39.
Van Doren Stern,
When the Guns Roared
, p. 194.

40.
Hubbard,
The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy
, pp. 132–33.

41.
E. D. Adams,
Great Britain and the American Civil War
, 2 vols. in 1 (New York, 1958), vol. 2, p. 130.

42.
Beverly Wilson Palmer (ed.),
Selected Letters of Charles Sumner
, 2 vols. (Boston, 1990), vol. 1, p. 154, Sumner to John Bright, April 7, 1863.

43.
Lord Newton (ed.),
Lord Lyons: A Record of British Diplomacy
, 2 vols. (London, 1914), vol. 1, pp. 99–100, Russell to Lyons, March 28, 1863.

44.
Adams,
Great Britain and the American Civil War
, vol. 2, p. 131.

45.
NARA, T. 168, roll 31, vol. 31, doc. 41, Morse to Seward, March 27, 1863.

46.
Adams,
Great Britain and the American Civil War
, vol. 2, p. 134.

47.
Brooks Adams, “The Seizure of the Laird Rams,”
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
, 45 (1911–12), p. 248.

48.
“We have had—I have had—some Experience of what any attempt of that sort may be expected to lead to,” Palmerston told the House. He was referring to the collapse of his previous premiership in 1859, when MPs punished him for truckling to French demands to curb the freedoms of political refugees living in Britain. Spencer,
The Confederate Navy in Europe
, p. 99.

49.
MHS, Adams MSS, Diary of Charles Francis Adams, March 28, 1863.

50.
Morgan,
Recollections of a Rebel Reefer
, p. 114.

51.
Frank J. Merli,
Great Britain and the Confederate Navy
(Bloomington, Ind., 1965), p. 129.

52.
The officer from the
Galatea
was singing the “Bonnie Blue Flag,” which went: “Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights hurrah! Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag.… ”
BDOFA
, ser. 1, vol. 6, doc. 193, pp. 146–47, Commodore Dunlop to Admiral Milne, February 7, 1863. In the Caribbean there was also an incident involving HMS
Greyhound
, when her band played “Dixie’s Land” within earshot of a U.S. naval vessel. Commander Hickley immediately raced over to the players and made them follow up with “My Country, ’Tis of Thee,” but the damage was already done.

53.
“Here we are amongst the rebels enjoying ourselves very much,” wrote Henry Gawne to his mother, a week after arriving at the port. “Everyone here is very hospitable. As much hunting as ever you please and of all descriptions, deer, foxes etc. Several of our officers are away now for four days in the Country hunting. I went out riding last Friday with a Col Browne of the Artillery.” Buckinghamshire RO, Gawne MSS, D115/20 (1), Henry Gawne to Edward Moore Gawne and mother, January 6, 1863.

54.
Regis Courtemanche,
No Need of Glory: The British Navy in American Waters
(Annapolis, Md., 1977), p. 117.

55.
Newton (ed.),
Lord Lyons
, vol. 1, p. 100, Lord Russell to Lord Lyons, March 28, 1863.

56.
PRO 30/22/37, f. 43, Lyons to Russell, April 13, 1863.

57.
PRO 30/22/37, ff. 57–60, Lyons to Russell, May 5, 1863.

58.
Adams,
Britain and the American Civil War,
vol. 2, p. 140.

Chapter 19: Prophecies of Blood and Suffering

 
1.
The Private Journal of Georgiana Gholson Walker,
ed. Dwight Franklin Henderson, Confederate Centennial Studies, 25 (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1963), p. 13.

 
2.
Kenneth Blume, “The Mid-Atlantic Arena: The United States, the Confederacy, and the British West Indies, 1861–1865,” Ph.D thesis, SUNY Binghamton, 1984, p. 257.

 
3.
James M. Morgan,
Recollections of a Rebel Reefer
(Boston, 1917), pp. 103–5.

 
4.
PRO FO115/361, f. 3, Stanton to Seward, May 15, 1863. Montreal, where Abinger was stationed, was teeming with Confederate refugees, which further solidified his pro-Southern stand. On his return to Montreal, he married Helen Magruder, the daughter and niece of renowned Confederates.

 
5.
George Alfred Lawrence,
Border and Bastille
(New York, 1864), p. 190.

 
6.
James H. Wilkins (ed.),
The Great Diamond Hoax and Other Stirring Episodes in the Life of Asbury Harpending
(San Francisco, 1915), pp. 66, 74–76.

 
7.
Ibid.

 
8.
PRO FO5/1280, Consul Booker to Russell, June 29, 1863.

 
9.
PRO FO5/1280, Scholefield to Austen M. Layard, May 1, 1863.

10.
“Bright-Sumner Letters, 1861–1872,”
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society
, 46 (1912), pp. 120–22, John Bright to Sumner, June 27, 1863.

11.
“John Wilkes Booth: An Interview with the Press with Sir Charles Wyndham,”
New York Herald
, quoted in Gordon Samples,
Lust for Fame
(New York, 1998), p. 113.

12.
James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes (eds.),
Private and Confidential: Letters from British in Washington to Foreign Secretaries
(Selinsgrove, Pa., 1993), p. 320, Lyons to Russell, April 13, 1863, and p. 322, May 5, 1863. The most controversial revelation in the Blue Book was Lord Lyons’s private meeting with New York Democrats in November 1862. The Republican administration put the worst possible interpretation on it, even though Lyons was not doing anything wrong or unusual for a diplomat by talking to the opposition party. “The Despatches of Lord Lyons prove how difficult it is to become familiar with the public spirit in this country, even for a cautious, discreet diplomat and an Englishman,” wrote Adam Gurowski. “I am at a loss to understand why Earl Russell divulged the above mentioned correspondence, thus putting Lord Lyons into a false and unpleasant position with the party in power.”
Diary from November 18, 1862–October 18, 1863
(New York, 1864), p. 182.

13.
Diary of Gideon Welles
, 3 vols. (Boston, 1911), vol. 2, p. 250, April 1, 1863. It was no help to Lyons that Welles vehemently opposed Seward on the letters of marque question. His chief objection stemmed from the fact that it would remain the purview of the State Department rather than his own.

14.
Sumner calmed down a little, but remained adamant that the
Peterhoff
’s mails should have been dealt with by the prize court. Ironically, when the British cabinet had a chance to consider the
Peterhoff
affair rationally, it too reached the same conclusion. The Lord Chancellor asked: “What will be most [helpful] for our interest as a future belligerent?” The answer, obviously, was the right to seize the enemy’s letters from neutral ships.

15.
PRO 30/22/37, Frf. 42–43, Lyons to Russell, April 7, 1863.

16.
PRO FO115/394, f. 35, B. Lowry to Lyons, May 28, 1863.

17.
Richmond Enquirer
, October 3, 1863.

18.
Emory University, Gregory MSS, Lawley to Gregory, March 26, 1863.

19.
Ibid.

20.
BL Add. MS 41567, ff. 246–47, George Henry Herbert to mother, March 31, 1863.