A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War (89 page)

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Despite not having met a single Southerner who was prepared to free his slaves under any conditions, Fremantle wrote after his visit to Charleston: “I think that if the Confederate States were
left alone,
the system would be much modified and amended.”

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Only the week before, on June 9, a letter from Lieutenant Sydney Herbert Davies had appeared on his desk. Davies had resigned from his regiment in Canada in order to carry secret dispatches to the South. “I have now the honour to apply for a major’s commission in the CSA,” he wrote. “I am in possession of a first class certificate as an instructor of musketry and am not ignorant of warfare.” He was rewarded with a commission of first lieutenant.
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Gettysburg, like Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville, had its own lexicon of horrors where thousands died contesting a patch of ground: the Wheat Field, Devil’s Den, and the Peach Orchard.

TWENTY-THREE
Pressure Rising

Fiasco at the House of Commons—Vicksburg surrenders—An economy without cotton—Rioting in New York—A summer jaunt—Rose Greenhow’s diplomatic mission

T
he House of Commons was full on Tuesday evening, June 30, 1863, when Henry Adams entered the Strangers Gallery, pretending not to notice the Southerners seated around him. According to the latest news from America, Lee’s army had marched without hindrance all the way to Pennsylvania. But the news appeared to be having a dampening effect on support for Roebuck’s motion—several MPs had questioned the need for a debate on recognition when the Confederacy was on the verge of winning independence without English help. It was yet one more dilemma weighing on Roebuck’s mind when he entered the Commons. Earlier that day, in the House of Lords, Russell had denied for a second time that the French emperor had written to him about recognizing the South.

James Spence had always felt uncomfortable with Roebuck as the South’s main spokesman in the Commons, but even he never imagined the extent to which the MP would self-immolate that evening. Roebuck’s speech began unpromisingly with an overflow of bile before descending into such balderdash that he alienated his listeners. There were cries of “No!” when Roebuck insisted that Negroes were worse off in the North than in the South, where “black children and white children are brought up together. I say it without fear of contradiction from any one whose contradiction is worthy of notice.… There is a kindly feeling in the minds of the Southern planters toward those whom England fixed there in a condition of servitude.” But the real damage came toward the end when he referred to his interview with Louis-Napoleon. Roebuck explained afterward that Russell’s denial had given him no choice but to bring up the matter because his own honor was at stake. But rather than simply saying in a few words that France was eager to cooperate on a policy of recognition, Roebuck gave a blow-by-blow description of their interview, including Louis-Napoleon’s complaints about double-dealing by the Foreign Office.

At that moment he was doomed, the Confederate lobby discredited. Roebuck had broken a cardinal rule: he, a backbencher, had wedged himself into the middle of Anglo-French relations. The Tories abandoned Roebuck to his fate—even MPs known to sympathize with the South expressed their disapproval of the motion, and the undersecretaries from the Home and Foreign offices were scathing in their criticism of his interference. Gladstone’s telling-off was merciful by comparison, though the cabinet was furious with Roebuck for dredging up the question of recognition. But there was more to come.

John Bright had watched his prey stagger and bleed from a thousand little cuts before he moved in for the kill. He recalled with biting sarcasm that “only about two years ago” Roebuck had stated categorically, “I have no faith in the Emperor of the French,” and yet he was appearing before the House as the emissary of “the great French ruler.” As to the confusion between Roebuck and the Foreign Office over what the emperor had actually communicated:

I will say this in justice to the French Emperor, that there has never come from him, not from any one of his ministers, nor is there anything to be found in what they have written, that is tinctured in the smallest degree with that bitter hostility which the hon. and learned Gentleman [Roebuck] has constantly exhibited to the United States of America and their people.
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Observing Roebuck’s humiliation, Henry Adams wrote that Bright “caught and shook and tossed Roebuck, as a big mastiff shakes a wiry, ill-conditioned, toothless, bad-tempered Yorkshire terrier.” Bright’s crushing of the MP was so complete that Henry “felt an artistic sympathy with Roebuck, for, from time to time, by way of practice, Bright in a friendly way was apt to shake him too, and he knew how it was done.” A Southerner described it as “the most deliberate and tremendous pounding I have ever witnessed.”
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The House adjourned for the night, leaving Roebuck’s motion prostrate on the floor.

There was consternation in Whitehall and the Quai d’Orsay as to how Anglo-French policy could have degenerated so swiftly into public farce. The French foreign minister, Édouard Drouyn de Lhuys, dispatched a telegram to Ambassador Gros in London asking for an explanation of the British government’s denial.
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At the Foreign Office, Lord Russell asked Lord Cowley, Britain’s ambassador to France, whether he had knowledge of a proposal from the emperor. Russell vaguely recalled Baron Gros’s aside about the emperor’s support for Southern recognition, but it had never occurred to him to treat it as an official communiqué to the government. Just as troubling to the cabinet was the claim in Roebuck’s speech that Louis-Napoleon had complained of his peace overtures being ridiculed by the British. The Foreign Office clerks were ordered to comb through every diplomatic dispatch of the past twelve months to see if there was any truth to the allegation.

When Mason reported the debacle to Slidell, his chief concern was whether they would be able to procure written evidence to prove Roebuck’s claim. James Spence and William Gregory, on the other hand, wanted only to be rid of the controversy; they pleaded with Roebuck to withdraw his motion. “The members are 10 to 1 in favour of the South,” wrote Spence to Commissioner Mason, but the minute the emperor of France was dragged into the debate, the issue became a matter of national pride and “on this point the vote might be 5 to 1 against Southern interests.”
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Roebuck, as Spence had feared, would not be swayed, nor would he listen to Palmerston, who wrote to him on July 9 saying he was welcome to make his motions in support of the South, but he was treading on dangerous ground when he interfered in matters of state. Roebuck was defiant. That same day,
The Times
predicted the capture of Washington by Lee.
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On Friday, July 10, Roebuck tried to resume his motion, only to find himself blocked by his friends. William Schaw Lindsay urged him to wait until after the arrival of the
Scotia
in three days’ time—bringing definitive news of Lee’s victory—which would cast the debate in an entirely different light. The Confederates added their own entreaties, terrified that Roebuck was on course to destroy the South’s political chances in the Commons permanently. All Henry Hotze desired now was a “decent retreat” before the House had the opportunity to vote down Roebuck’s motion.
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The Times
helped the Confederates by printing an editorial on Monday, July 13, urging Roebuck to withdraw his motion. Finally Roebuck listened to the pleas from the chorus around him. That same evening he announced to the House his decision to withdraw his motion. Benjamin Moran was in the gallery, watching as the Southern lobby squirmed during Roebuck’s speech. William Lindsay spoke immediately after, telling the members that whatever else they thought of his friend, he was not a liar; the emperor truly had told them of his desire to recognize the South. The speech was “a long rambling half mad jumble,” wrote Moran, “which the House alternately laughed and jeered at. Then Palmerston rose, and while patting the two dupes on the head, expressed the hope that the unusual proceedings … would never be repeated.”
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The Confederates were never happier to see a motion die.

Charles Francis Adams attended a reception at Lord Derby’s later that night, his recent depression almost lifted by the Confederate fiasco in the Commons. The Tories pressed him for news, forcing him to admit that, like them, he was waiting for the Atlantic steamer to arrive. But when the
Scotia
did come, on Thursday, July 17, the reports about the battle at Gettysburg were unclear. Adams could not tell whether Lee had suffered a defeat or merely been checked for a day or so.
The Times
hedged but leaned toward a momentary delay. Two days later, however, Henry Adams came down to breakfast and found his father reading the victory telegram from the State Department. “I wanted to hug the army of the Potomac,” Henry wrote of his joy at that moment. “I wanted to get the whole of the army of Vicksburg drunk at my own expense. I wanted to fight some small man and lick him.” The telegram announced not only Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg but also the fall of Vicksburg.

—

An uneven line of soiled white flags had signaled the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4. As the medical inspector of the XIII Army Corps, Dr. Charles Mayo was among the first wave of Federal officers sent to inspect the situation inside the town.
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Seven thousand mortar shells had been lobbed into Vicksburg during the forty-three-day siege. In some streets, every single house had been hit; shattered glass and wooden shards lay strewn everywhere. “The blackened ruins that had once been houses” made Mayo wonder how Londoners would fare in similar circumstances. “We knew quite well that the besieged would be unable to take charge of their own. As it was we found their sick in a most miserable plight,” he wrote. “The state of their hospitals was such that a regard for our own safety compelled us to place them in the hands of our own medical officers for instant purification and speedy abolition. They had come to the end of their resources. About 15,000 men fit for duty was all that remained of Pemberton’s army: his sick numbered 6,000 or 7,000.”
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The fighting continued, however, and although Pemberton had finally given up Vicksburg, General Johnston had no intention of surrendering the regiments under his control. He decided to make a stand at Jackson, whose citizens were still struggling to resurrect the city after its occupation in May. Frank Vizetelly reluctantly decided that it was time for him to leave the Mississippi Delta before the Federals seized control of the last railroads going east. He made it out just in time: on July 7, 46,000 U.S. troops, led by General Sherman himself, crossed the Big Black River and were only twenty miles from Jackson. But the journey quickly became a nightmare once the parched and dusty soldiers discovered that the retreating Confederates had fouled all the wells. Sherman was forced to send his mule teams back to the Big Black River to collect drinking water for his thirsty army. At Jackson, he encountered another problem: the Confederates were too well entrenched to be dislodged by anything except a sustained artillery barrage—the kind that required much more ammunition than the Federals had brought. It took less than an hour for the Union batteries to fire all their available shells. Sherman hastily sent his ordnance officers to round up all the army’s reserves. In the meantime, the guns remained silent.

Ill.42
Rebels marching out of Vicksburg and stacking arms.

Helpless until the ammunition arrived, the Union soldiers fortified their positions with heavy bales of cotton brought in from the surrounding countryside by heavily guarded wagon trains. Undaunted by the capture of the previous wagon train, Ebenezer Wells set off with his, despite having an escort that was only half strength. “I was about six miles out, riding along in front of my teams,” he wrote, when “I was startled by a shot passing close to me.” It seemed to be coming from a nearby cornfield. One of the guards became frightened and jumped into a wagon. As he landed, his gun went off, firing a bullet into Wells’s best friend. Torn between saving the wounded officer and protecting the supply train, Wells shouted for the wagons to keep moving without him and carried his friend to the edge of the road. “I knelt beside him while he told me his last message home,” he recorded. The officer begged him to send his watch and Bible home to his family. “Then, asking me to take his hand but not to move it for the pain, he told me to go as I was in danger.” Wells reluctantly galloped off after his wagons. Traveling down the same road on the return journey, he was horrified to see a large red stain where his friend had lain. “By great favour the general allowed me to have a funeral,” wrote Wells. The ammunition had arrived and the guns were firing when the burial took place, the priest’s words drowned out by the roar of the artillery.
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