MY PASSION FOR HISTORY BEGAN FIFTY YEARS AGO WHEN MY MOTHER, Barbara Ferron Doyle, brought home a shoe box full of letters my great-great-grandfather had sent home while serving as a drummer boy in the 3rd Vermont Infantry. I helped her organize and transcribe the letters, and, without quite knowing it yet, I became a historian that summer. Later I discovered that another ancestor, Frederick Salomon, a German immigrant from Wisconsin, had served as a Union general, and yet another ancestor was a Maryland slaveholder during the Civil War. After more than forty years of teaching and writing, the excitement of learning about the past that my mother ignited that summer has never died.
The inspiration for this book came from my wonderful wife and fellow historian, Marjorie Spruill. During the fall of 2008 I was honored to serve as the Douglas Southall Freeman Professor at the University of Richmond, and one of my duties was to deliver two public lectures. I was trying to launch a completely different project, but it kept stalling. As a bow to my patron, an eminent Civil War historian, I decided to present two lectures, “The South in the Age of Nationalism” and “Internationalizing America’s Civil War.” The seeds for the present book sprouted in Richmond. “That’s the book you need to write,” Marjorie told me. She has taken time from her own writing to listen to my good ideas with enthusiasm, and to my not-so-good ones with her knitted brow that always told me when I was off course. She understood what I was trying to say better than anyone. Our shared passion for the past has made this book much better, and my life much happier. “It’s the wanting to know that makes us matter.”
Thanks to the University of Richmond, and to Hugh West and his colleagues, who were genial hosts, and to Spencer Dicks, who gave able assistance as my research assistant that fall.
In the fall of 2010 the book finally got started during a superb sabbatical year in Washington, DC, the mother lode for Civil War historians. We found ourselves living in the Clara Barton apartments high above the allegedly haunted Office for Missing Soldiers Barton operated during the Civil War. Marjorie had won a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and thanks to Sonya Michel of the US Studies program there, I was welcomed as an affiliate. The Wilson Center provided excellent library services, brilliant research assistants (David Endicott and Meagan Jeffries), and stimulating colleagues from all parts of the world. I am grateful to Janet Spikes, Lindsay Collins, and all the Wilson Center staff for making my stay so pleasant and productive.
I profited from presenting early stages of my work during my year in Washington. Sincere thanks to Adam Rothman and Chandra Manning and their Nineteenth-Century History seminar at Georgetown University; Aaron Mars and his stimulating colleagues in the Office of the Historian at the US State Department; and Christian Ostermann and Roger Louis of the Washington History Seminar that convened at the Wilson Center.
Thanks are due also to the staff at the National Archives II in College Park, Maryland, and the unusually helpful people at the Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room. Special thanks to Michelle Krowl of the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, who allowed me to hold in my hands the gold medal that French liberals had given to Mrs. Lincoln and the velvet box one of them said contained the heart of France.
As my year in Washington came to an end, I received an unforgettable telephone call from Kent Mullikin of the National Humanities Center in North Carolina, telling me that I was awarded the Archie K. Davis fellowship for the coming year. My time at the National Humanities Center was a magic combination of splendid isolation, stimulating fellows, and extraordinary support from staff who are as friendly as they are competent. Geoffrey Harpham and Kent Mullikin invited me to deliver an evening lecture at the center, the perfect test audience for the book I was writing. I owe special thanks to the center’s librarians Brooke Andrade, Eliza Robertson, and Jean Houston for keeping the books flowing into my office. Karen Caroll went beyond the call of duty to copyedit early drafts of my chapters. Center fellows Erik Redling, Ezra Greenspan, and Karen Hagemann listened to me working out my ideas and provided many valuable suggestions. Thanks also to Amanda Brickell Bellows for her able research assistance during my time in North Carolina.
The helpful staffs of the Boston Athenaeum, the New York Public Library, and the Sanford Museum in Florida made my visits there both productive and pleasant.
I owe special thanks to the University of South Carolina and to Dean Mary Anne Fitzpatrick and my department chairs, Lacy Ford and Larry Glickman, who generously supported my research endeavors. The University of South Carolina has provided a wonderful venue for my career this past decade. I owe special thanks to the generous philanthropy of Peter and Bonnie McCausland. I could never have completed this book without the efficient services and vast collections of South Carolina’s magnificent libraries. The helpful staff of the Thomas Cooper Library delivered a steady stream of books and scanned articles. Special Collections made the Anthony P. Campanella Collection available for my research on Garibaldi. The South Caroliniana Library’s deep collection of manuscript materials on Confederate leaders was also invaluable. A generous award from the university’s Provost Humanities grants program facilitated travel to several archival sites. Thanks also to several very able research assistants in the History Department at South Carolina: Ann Tucker, Michael Woods, Mitchell Oxford, and Caroline Peyton all helped expedite my research on this book. My colleague Matt Childs and the graduate students of the Atlantic History Group gave me helpful reactions to one chapter. Not least, thanks to the graduate students in my seminar who were the first audience for this book in its final stages.
So many people have shared their time and expertise helping me along the way that I cannot thank them all. Lucy Riall helped me better understand the Garibaldi story. David and Mary Alice Lowenthal graciously shared portions of their typescript of Caroline Marsh’s diary. Allan T. Kohl, of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, provided digital images of Punch cartoons. David Hacker helped me understand Dan Smith’s work on Union soldiers. Marco Pizzo at the Museo Centrale del Risorgimento in Rome provided a rare image of Pio Nono. Brian P. Fahey of the archives of the Catholic Diocese of Charleston provided the English version of Bishop Lynch’s essay on slavery. Michael Sobiech shared his vast knowledge of Catholic history. Hugh Dubrulle was especially helpful to my understanding of British politics during this period. Brian Schoen shared his remarkable knowledge of Southern secessionists in Europe. Jörg Nagler and Marcus Gräser included me in two pioneering conferences on the international dimensions of the Civil War, in Jena, Germany, and the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, which proved valuable to my understanding of the subject.
I am especially indebted to Susan-Mary Grant, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, Patrick Kelly, and Robert Bonner for their very helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. In the grand tradition of Franco-American friendship, Stève Sainlaude read another version of the book and generously shared his unparalleled knowledge of French foreign policy. These and many other colleagues saved me from countless sins of omission and commission, but those remaining are due to my own failings.
I have been very fortunate to work with David Miller and Lisa Adams of the Garamond Agency, who helped me shape the proposal for the book and get it placed with Lara Heimert at Basic Books. Lara once admonished me not to cheapen the use of exclamation marks, but I must exclaim that she and all those at Basic Books who helped bring this book to life (Leah Stecher, Roger Labrie, Annette Wenda, Melissa Veronesi, and the entire Basic team) are the very best!
My main discovery in writing this book was that America’s Civil War really mattered to the world. All the time I worked on it, I was haunted by Abraham Lincoln’s remark that “the struggle of today, is not altogether for today—it is for a vast future also.” It is in that spirit that I dedicate this book to my grandchildren—Jackson, Charlie, and Caroline—and their vast future ahead.