Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History (44 page)

2
. *James Bulloch,
The Fuse of War: The CSS
North Carolina (London: John Murray, 1875), 142.

3
. *Roswell Hawks Lamson,
Into the Maelstrom: A Memoir of the
Gettysburg (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1876), 105.

4
. *Bulloch,
The Fuse of War
, 144.

5
. *Henry Adams, “The Case for the
Gettysburg
,”
New York Tribune
, September 19, 1863. The owner and editor of the
Tribune
was Horace Greeley, who encouraged Henry Adams to write what was to become the definitive defense of the actions of the
Gettysburg
in the seizure of the
North Carolina
in British waters. It was widely circulated in Europe, where its conclusions did much to sway opinion in favor of the United States. It was widely supported and praised by Russian Foreign Minister Gorchakov.

6
. *Bulloch,
The Fuse of War
, 148. Bulloch would be later exchanged and arrive in Richmond aboard a British warship to a hero’s welcome and parade. He would later command the first warship built with the full approval of the British government for the Confederacy, the CSS
Robert E. Lee
.

7
. *Adams, “The Case for the
Gettysburg
.” The papers were indeed a diplomatic goldmine, especially Bulloch’s reference to a “private but most reliable source” in Whitehall. Unfortunately, the war swept ahead of the publication of these documents, but they did much to affect opinion in the rest of Europe and South America.

8
. *Lamson,
Into the Maelstrom
, 127.

9
. Robert J. Schneller, Jr.,
A Quest for Glory: A Biography of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996), 105.

10
. J. J. Colledge,
Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy From the Fifteenth Century to the Present
(London: Greenhill Books, 2003), 14, 142.

11
. *Jacob P. Eldridge,
A Marine Aboard the
Gettysburg (New York: The Century Company, 1888), 199.

12
. Regis A. Courtemanche,
No Need of Glory: The British Navy in American Waters, 1860–1864
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1977), 163.

13
. *Charles Francis Adams, Jr.,
The Life of Charles Francis Adams
(Boston, 1890), 342.

14
. Adams to Russell, September 5, 1863,
Foreign Relations of the United States
(“Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs Accompanying the Annual Message of the President) (FR–63, vol. 1, 367.).

15
. *Mary K. Doering,
John Bright: Member From America
(New York: Regency Press, 1975), 228. *Charles Francis Adams, letter to Charles Adams, Jr., September 15, 1863, in
The Papers and Correspondence of Charles Francis Adams
(Boston: Concord Press, 1892), 293.

16
. *“Dreadful Battle at Moelfre Bay, Americans Attack, British Ships Lost, Suvivors Ashore,”
North Wales Gazette
, September 5, 1863. This article cited several references of the consideration with which the survivors were treated by the crew of the
Kearsarge
, their immediate landing at a small Welsh port of Amlwch, and the prompt provision of medical care provided the wounded.

17
. *Charles Francis Adams, letter to Charles Adams, Jr., 396–405. *Charles Francis Adams, “Report to the Secretary of State of the Actions of the USS
Gettysburg
and
Kearsarge
, September 4–5, 1863,”
Congressional Record
5 (1863): 472–505. *Austen David Layard,
Origins of the American War: View From the Foreign Office
(London: Holmes & Sons, Ltd, 1886), 257. There are such significant differences in the accounts of Adams and Layard that one wonders if they were attending the same meeting. Russell’s report to the cabinet included only a summary of the conversation and omitted Adams’s more pointed comments.

18
. *Ralph W. Eddington,
Winslow of the
Kearsarge:
Hero of Moelfre Bay
(Annapolis, MD: Naval Academy Press, 1925), 232.

19
. *Lamson,
Into the Maelstrom
, 183.

1
. “New Alliance Cemented,”
New York Herald
, October 2, 1863; and “Our Russian Visitors,”
New York Times
, October 11, 1863.

2
. “The Russian Empire and the American Republic Against the Western European Powers,”
New York Herald
, October 7, 1863.

3
. “A Russian Fleet Coming Into Our Harbor,”
New York Times
, September 24, 1863, 2; “Our Naval Visitors,”
New York Times
, September 26, 1863, 2; “The Russian Ball,”
New York Herald
, November 6, 1863, 10.

4
. “The Russian Ball,”
New York Herald
, November 6, 1863.

5
. “The Russian Padre,”
New York Times
, September 27, 1863, 5.

6
. “The Russian Guests,”
New York Times
, October 3, 1863, 2.

7
. *“WAR! U.S. Victory in Naval Battle off Welsh Coast; British and American Ships Sunk,”
New York Tribune
, September 17, 1863, 1.

8
. *William H. Seward,
The Diplomacy of the Great War
(New York: E. P. Dodd & Company, 1872), 152.

9
. Ulysses S. Grant,
Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Selected Letters, 1839– 1865
(New York: The Modern Library, 1990), 384–85. “At Vicksburg 31,600 prisoners were surrendered together with 172 cannon, about 60,000 muskets and a large amount of ammunition. The small-arms of the enemy were far superior to the bulk of ours. …The enemy had generally new arms, which had run the blockade and were of uniform caliber. After the surrender, I authorized all colonels whose regiments were armed with inferior muskets, to place them in the stack of captured arms and replace them with the latter.”

10
. *Michael D. Wilmoth, ed.,
Reports of the Central Information Bureau During the Great War
, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1888), 35–37.

11
. Robert V. Bruce,
Lincoln and the Tools of War
(Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1956), 264.

12
. *Martin P. Anderson, “The Coffee Mill Gun in the Great War,”
Harper’s Weekly
, July 15, 1869, 2; Bruce,
Lincoln and the Tools of War
, 263. In August 1863, the Spencer Company reported that it had two thousand of its repeaters on hand for immediate delivery. Ripley had been sabotaging orders from Spencer but was retired at this time. The repeaters were immediately ordered and were on hand at the time of the cabinet meeting.

13
. John W. Busey and David G. Martin,
Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg
(Hightstown, NJ: Longstreet House, 1994) 241–63. Maine’s contingent in the Army of the Potomac suffered 27.9 percent casualties at Gettsyburg.

14
. *Telegram from Sharpe to Rosecrans, September 15, 1863, National Archives, M504 Unbound, Roll 303. It is one of the ironies of the war that Rosecrans had put such confidence in Sharpe’s message but underestimated the time in which Longstreet would arrive. He thought he would fight and beat Bragg before “Old Pete” arrived.

15
. Peter Cozzens,
This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 376, 393.

16
. Homer,
The Iliad
, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Viking Penguin, 1990), 9.1–8.

17
. “Report of Maj. James E. Callaway, Twenty-First Illinois Infantry, Commanding Eighty-First Indiana Infantry,” September 28, 1863,
The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
(hereafter
OR
), vol. 30, part I (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1890), 525.

18
. Ibid., 526.

19
. Jerry Korn and the Editors of Time-Life,
The Fight for Chattanooga: Chickamauga to Missionary Ridge
(Alexandria, VA: Time-Life, 1985), 72.

20
. J. J. Colledge,
Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy From the Fifteenth Century to the Present
(London:
Greenhill Books, 2003), 338.
Undaunted
measured 250 by 52 feet and 4,020 tons compared to
Kearsarge
at 201 by 33 feet and 1,550 tons.

21
. *“Sea Fight of the USS
Kearsarge
and HMS
Undaunted
,”
New York Tribune
, September 17, 1863, 1.

22
. Albert A. Woldman,
Lincoln and the Russians
(Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1952), 140. *
Harper’s Weekly
, September 17, 1863, 661–62.

23
. Thomas L. Harris,
The Trent Affair
(1896), 208–10. *Stefan Lisovsky, “Voyage to America,”
Morskoi Sbornik
, December 20, 1870, 37–38.

24
. *Henry Adams,
The Russian Alliance in the Great War
(New York: The McClure Company, 1880), 132.

25
. M. Bowden,
The Life and Archaeological Work of Lt. General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers DCL FRS FSA
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 7.

26
. James D. Horan,
Confederate Agent
(New York: Fairfax Press, 1954) 107.

27
. *Edgar L. Steinhalter, “The Davis-Grenfell-Wolseley Conspiracy,”
Midwest Historical Journal
, vol. 87, 89–93.

28
.
OR
, vol. 41, part 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1890), 151.

29
. *Alfred Thayer Mahan,
Gunsmoke Across the Upper Bay: The Battle for New York
(Boston: Concord Press, 1890), 199–205. This volume was the first of five in which Thayer wrote the definitive accounts of the major naval battles of the Great War.

30
. Colledge,
Ships of the Royal Navy
, 39, 328. The
Dauntless
was a small, older frigate launched in 1847 at 2,520 tons and measuring only 219 by 40 feet and armed with four 10-inch rifles, two 68-pounders, and eighteen 32-pounders. By contrast the
Topaze
was launched in 1858 at 3,915 tons and measured 235 by 50 feet and was initially armed with thirty 8-inch guns, one 68-pounder, and twenty 32-pounders. By this time, each ship was armed with at least one Armstrong gun.

31
. *John L. Hunter, Kearsarge
Gunner: The Life of John W. Dempsey
(Cleveland, OH: Ohio River University Press, 1986), 89.

32
. *Paul R. Catlett,
Winslow and Lamson: Saviors of New York
(Boston: A. M. Thayer and Company, 1890), 262–65.

33
. *John Welbore Sunderland Spencer,
Pursuit of the
Kearsarge (London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1872), 297–305. This book was Spencer’s public explanation of why he did not ensure the destruction of the
Kearsarge
. A court of inquiry charged him with “failing to do his utmost.” He was tried by court-martial, but in the face of both public outcry and the Queen’s disapproval of the proceedings, he was acquitted. He never held command again.

34
. *Winslow Carter,
Battle of the Upper Bay
(New York: The Century Company, 1895), 216.

35
. *Lyons to Russell, September 24, 1863, in William Delancey,
The Diplomacy of Lord Lyons
, vol. 2 (London: Sampson Low, 1913), 395.

36
. *John W. Wilson,
William H. Seward in War and Peace
(New York: The McClure Company, 1892), 187.

37
. *Cassius Clay,
Forging the Alliance: My Two Years in Russia
(Lexington: Blue Grass University Press, 1932—reprint of the 1869 edition), 278. News of the battle, deemed a Russian naval victory over the British because of the sinking of
Dauntless
and
Gannet
, sent Russia wild with joy as the church bells rang from the Baltic to the Pacific. Revenge for the humiliations of the Crimean War seemed at hand. Ambassador Clay was cheered by throngs everywhere he went in St. Petersburg. Lisovsky was promoted and ennobled. For once the Russian Imperial Navy had put the Army, its immense sister service, in the shade.

38
. *Andrei N. Medvedev,
The Russo-American Alliance in the World War
(St. Petersburg: Kronstadt Publishers, 1880), 136.