Burley and Beall are reunited—Lord Lyons meets Feo—Shipwreck—Charleston under siege—Northern ambivalence—The enemy in ashes
Lord Lyons arrived in Montreal on September 15, 1864, with his two favorite attachés, George Sheffield and Edward Malet. Simply being away from the unhealthy climate of Washington was enough to restore Malet’s health: “A change of air is all I wanted,” he informed his mother, “and I now feel as if I had never been ill.”1 But Lyons, he noticed, remained weighed down by his fear that many tedious discussions awaited him in Quebec about Federal crimping and Confederate plots.
The governor-general of Canada, Viscount Monck, was in many ways as isolated as Lord Lyons. Though blessed with a genial manner and patrician ease at social gatherings, Monck’s determination to avoid showing favoritism toward any party forced him to maintain a degree of aloofness from the Canadians, who could sense that he looked askance at their internal quarrels. Monck thought his ministers were among the most small-minded men he had ever encountered. None of them, he wrote in a confidential letter to London, “is capable of rising above the level of a parish politician.”2 It had been clear to him since his arrival three years earlier that the endemic suspicion and jealousy between Canada’s provinces had been disastrous for the country’s development. To survive and flourish, Monck believed, these separate provinces had to be persuaded that their future prosperity depended upon confederation; and he had thrown himself into the project with energetic zeal.33.1 He hoped that at the very least, political unity would strengthen Canada’s relations with the United States, and that it might possibly even make the colonists more willing to pay for their own defense—an object dear to London.
Lord Monck had been concerned about Southern violations of British neutrality ever since the Confederate agents had appeared in the spring, petitioning—without success—to have five additional ships sent to patrol the Great Lakes. Personally, he was pro-Northern rather than neutral (or even pro-Southern like many Canadians), and was doing his best to discourage the Confederacy from sending its agents to Canada. In November 1863 he had foiled a Southern plot to attack the Federal prison camp on Johnson’s Island in Lake Erie off Sandusky, Ohio—successfully, though only temporarily, dampening the Confederates’ interest in launching raids from Canada against the North.3
During the summer, Commissioner Jacob Thompson had revived the plan to liberate the prisoners on Johnson’s Island. The days when almost any force could have taken the island were long past, but the prison was still an enticing prospect for the Confederates because its position in Sandusky Bay was close to the Canadian border. Sandusky itself was a minor town; Charles Dickens had paid a fleeting visit in 1842 and thought the place bleak and the population “morose, sullen, clownish and repulsive.”4 But to the fugitive slaves who escaped captivity via the “underground railroad” to Canada, Sandusky represented their last stop before freedom. The U.S. authorities had chosen Johnson’s Island for the opposite reason; without a boat, it was the last stop to nowhere.
The island’s prison was badly built and poorly maintained: its latrines lacked drainage and the barracks had no running water. But the suffering of the 2,500 Confederate prisoners had only really begun in the spring, when the War Department decreed that conditions should mirror those of Southern prisons; food parcels were confiscated, and prisoners were forbidden to supplement their rations except by capturing rats (which were, however, plentiful). These weak and diseased inmates were the men Jacob Thompson intended to use to bring terror to the United States’ northern border.
The iron-hulled gunboat USS Michigan had been patrolling Sandusky Bay since Monck’s exposure of the first Confederate plot against Johnson’s Island. Before then, it had been employed to make draft protesters in Detroit think twice before they rioted.5 The warship had never fired its guns and was too unseaworthy for deployment in battle, but since she was the only naval vessel on Lake Erie, whoever sailed her controlled the lake. In mid-July, Thompson believed he had found the right man to capture the vessel.
Twenty-seven-year-old Charles H. Cole was a mystery to everyone who knew him. He lied about his war record, hiding the fact he had been cashiered from the Confederate army in 1863 for dishonesty.6 He had never held a leadership role, and yet in July he managed to dupe Thompson into giving him $4,000 to investigate the various possibilities for seizing the Michigan.7 Cole used the money to treat his girlfriend to a luxurious holiday tour around the Great Lakes before finally settling down to business on August 11 and booking a room for “Mr. and Mrs. Cole” in one of Sandusky’s better hotels. The West House overlooked Sandusky Bay, offering its clientele an unobstructed view of Johnson’s Island and USS Michigan, which was usually anchored nearby. Cole’s reports to Thompson were sufficiently optimistic to elicit the order that he should spend whatever it took to bribe the officers or purchase the Michigan outright. “He thinks everything looks favourable and is sanguine of success,” Thompson told Clement Clay on August 13, 1864. Cole opened an account in one of the local banks, letting it be known that he represented an oil company from Pennsylvania, and began distributing his largesse among the Michigan’s officers. None responded to his cautious overtures. Even the captain, John C. Carter, who resented sailing around an empty lake while his peers were off chasing Confederate raiders, was beyond reach.
Cole wrote to Thompson in August telling him that he was ready to lead a team of Confederates to capture the vessel. The claim may have been nothing more than a maneuver to gain more time and funds. If so, he was caught out when Thompson not only ordered him to proceed but also sent him one of his best volunteers, John Yates Beall, late of Chesapeake Bay.8 Once he met Beall, Cole realized that his comfortable little setup was at an end. Beall had crossed into Canada hoping to start his own privateering operations on the Great Lakes, but he dropped the idea after hearing about the Johnson’s Island plan from Thompson. “I immediately volunteered,” wrote Beall, “and went to Sandusky, Ohio, to meet Captain Cole, the leader. We arranged our plans, and separated. Cole stayed at Sandusky. I came to Windsor to collect men, and carry them to the given point.”9
Map.20 British North America and the United States
Click here to view a larger image.
Beall remained in Windsor until the beginning of September, carefully working out the details of the plan with Thompson. He was overjoyed when Bennet G. Burley arrived after a difficult journey through the North. Burley’s British nationality meant he could purchase the equipment and weapons required without inviting suspicion, and Cole’s role was gradually reduced until his sole contribution was to arrange an evening of diversions for the Michigan’s crew.10 Some were to be entertained on shore, the rest plied with drink on the vessel. While Cole was intoxicating the crew, Beall and his team were to capture the local Sandusky ferryboat called the Philo Parsons and, on Cole’s signal, to sail alongside the Michigan and climb aboard. Then, with the element of surprise on their side, they would fire on the garrison guarding Johnson’s Island, blow open the walls, and release the prisoners.
On September 17, two days before the date appointed for the raid, one of Beall’s volunteers betrayed the group to the provost marshal of Detroit. Captain Carter of the Michigan was initially skeptical of the report, until he remembered that Cole had arranged a party for the Michigan’s crew at an inn on the outskirts of Sandusky. On the morning of the nineteenth, Carter sent a trusted officer to the West House hotel, who lured Cole onto the Michigan on the pretext of asking permission for the entire crew to attend the party. As soon as he was on the vessel, Cole was arrested and searched for papers. The documents Cole was carrying were not particularly revealing, but that did not stop him from confessing everything to Captain Carter. He also admitted that he had intended to abscond with Thompson’s money before carrying out the final part of the plan: to rescue the prisoners.11
In the meantime, Beall and Burley had boarded the Philo Parsons, fully confident that Johnson’s Island would be theirs by midnight. Burley persuaded the ferry captain to make an unscheduled stop at Sandwich, on the Canadian side of the river, to pick up three friends, one of whom he said was disabled; the ship’s clerk noticed that the disabled man was miraculously cured as soon as the vessel started moving again. At the next stop, another sixteen men climbed aboard, bringing a large wooden trunk with them. The Philo Parsons continued chugging quietly along its scheduled route until 4:00 P.M., when the trunk was opened and Burley handed out two dozen revolvers and hatchets. Within half an hour, all the passengers and crew were locked in the cabin. No one was hurt, although a few shots had been fired.
Beall and Burley congratulated themselves on a superbly run operation. All they had to do was drop off the prisoners on one of the deserted islands in the lake and wait for Cole’s signal to attack the Michigan. By 6:00 P.M. however, the plan was falling apart. Beall discovered from the engineer that there was no more wood, since it was company policy to take on only enough fuel for the scheduled trip. The raiders had no choice but to sail to the nearest fueling station, on Middle Bass Island. While they were there loading the wood, another ferry, the Island Queen, docked beside the Philo Parsons. Seeing the puzzled look on the captain’s face, Beall ordered his men to seize the steamer. The fight proved more difficult than expected; among the passengers were twenty-six Federal soldiers on an illicit jaunt. Vicious hand-to-hand fighting ensued between the soldiers and Confederates, and the Island Queen’s engineer was shot in the face. It was thirty minutes before the last man surrendered.
With his strong sense of chivalry, Beall refused to allow the passengers to be molested. One turned out to be carrying $80,000 in his baggage, which he offered to share with Beall in exchange for his life. The Confederate haughtily explained that he was conducting a rescue mission, not a robbery, and all property was safe except for the ships themselves and their day’s takings, which were legitimate prizes. As soon as there was sufficient wood on board to restart the engines, Beall ordered the passengers off the boat, first exacting a promise from each one to keep silent for the next twenty-four hours.
It was 9:00 P.M. when the Confederates finally sailed within sight of the Michigan. She had changed position since the morning and was facing the prison; ominously, her gun ports were open and steam was rising from her funnel. The raiders waited for Cole’s signal. Burley’s anecdotes of previous raids failed to impress the worried men, and after an hour they began to argue that they should turn back. None of them knew Beall or Burley well enough to risk their lives in what increasingly appeared to be a compromised mission. Beall pleaded and threatened without success. The ringleader of the mutineers explained they had nothing against him—they even admired him—but they were not prepared to die for him. When Beall asked if they were willing to put their opposition down in writing, they not only agreed, but all seventeen signed their names. The statement declared the mission to be hopeless: “We … take pleasure in expressing our admiration of the gentlemanly bearing, and courage of Captain Y. Bell [sic] … but … we cannot by any possibility make it a success, and having already captured two boats, we respectfully decline to prosecute it any further.”12
Beall and Burley had little choice but to abort the mission. When the sun rose on Tuesday, September 20, 1864, the Philo Parsons lay partially submerged a few miles from Windsor. The Confederates had stripped her of everything valuable, including three mirrors and the piano from the saloon. Beall was already on his way to the northern wilds of Ontario; Burley went east to hide out with friends in Guelph, near Toronto.
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The legation in Washington informed Lord Monck of Beall’s raid by coded telegram. Anxious to forestall Northern accusations of connivance or indifference, he ordered the Canadian Rifles stationed at Windsor to provide all possible assistance to the U.S. authorities. Lord Lyons had been at Spencer Wood, the governor-general’s official residence in Quebec, for only two days, and the news from Lake Erie so depressed him that he retired to bed with a crushing headache. The unwelcome discovery that there was a large number of houseguests also staying had already put him in a delicate state. He did not reappear for twenty-four hours.
Lyons roused himself for an excursion to Chaudière Falls, but he remained apart from the group and left them wondering when he failed to appear at the picnic lunch. Their suspicion that he was avoiding them was close to the mark. He would have stayed away from dinner, too, if he could have done so without offense. Just before the gong, there was a savage encounter between a house cat and a lapdog belonging to one of the guests. “With difficulty the animals were quieted, and we went in to dinner,” recorded Lord Monck’s sister-in-law, Frances Monck, whose husband, Colonel the Hon. Richard Monck, was the governor-general’s brother and military secretary. “Lord L.’s amusement was great; he went on all the evening alluding to the battle.”13
Feo Monck, as she was always known, was a force of nature, though a gentle one, who was perpetually missing trains, losing hats, and spilling anything hot and full to the brim. She was intelligent, too, though it could be difficult to tell behind the endless little dramas that punctuated her day. Feo and Lyons soon discovered that they shared the same dislike of hot weather, cold weather, exercise, and boats, and thereafter, as his attachés observed, he was a changed man. Sheffield and Malet had always assumed that Lord Lyons disliked women, but around Feo he revealed a hitherto unknown repertoire of after-dinner songs and became a tireless raconteur of hilarious anecdotes from the annals of diplomatic history. The more Feo laughed at his puckish comments, the wittier he became. “If you could hear Lord L.’s odd, grave, inquiring way of saying these things you would laugh as much as I am now laughing,” she wrote in her letter journal after they had spent a week exploring the majestic rivers of Quebec.
By the time the house party visited Shawinigan Falls, the second-highest waterfall in Canada after Niagara, Lyons had thrown off the last traces of reserve, removing his boots and stockings and splashing about the shallow rocks like a child. “Lord L. has travelled much, but he says he never saw a more exquisite view than that day,” recorded Feo. “When we had feasted our eyes on the Falls, and picked leaves, we went to our grand lunch laid on a table made with boards by the servants and boatmen. The sun was burning hot and the day perfection.” During the long journey home “we talked and sang, and Lord L. repeated poetry.”14
Lyons could not be so free when they visited Montreal and Niagara Falls. “We are to go to Cataract House at Niagara on the American side,” wrote Feo, “as the Confederate people are met at the Clifton House [on the Canadian side], and Lord L. does not wish to seem to watch them.”15 For once, Lyons’s caution made things worse; it would have been better if he had made a great show of watching them, thus sending a clear message to Jacob Thompson and his cohorts that their illegal operations in Canada would not be tolerated. But he was struggling both physically and mentally; only Feo Monck and the attachés knew how much he had dreaded his return to Washington. During one of their final excursions, he persuaded her to hide with him instead of meeting a deputation of local worthies who had gathered to greet their boat. “He gave me his arm,” wrote Feo, “and we ran off out of the ship, and got into a cab without waiting for any of them,” leaving the mayor standing disconsolately on the wharf. As the date of his departure on October 12 drew near, Lord Lyons became increasingly reckless and led Feo into all sorts of scrapes. On an outing to Lake Ontario they climbed up a steep ledge overlooking the lake, ignoring the prominent danger sign, and “we stood there,” recalled Feo, “clinging to the railing till we saw a policeman coming, and were so afraid of being scolded that we jumped down and ran away!”16
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Rose Greenhow had arrived at Halifax on September 6, 1864, and had been forced to wait for nearly three weeks while the Condor recoaled and took on supplies before she could begin the final part of her journey to Wilmington, North Carolina. Two more passengers were joining her: Lieutenant Wilson, whose parole she had obtained from Charles Francis Adams, and the Confederate commissioner James Holcombe, who had decided that he did not wish to participate in Thompson’s or Clay’s operations. The long delay until the Condor’s departure on September 24 was enough time for the U.S. consul in Halifax to learn the names of the passengers and the ship’s destination. As soon as the vessel steamed out of the harbor, he sent a telegram to Washington warning the Navy Department to ready the fleet at Wilmington. When the Condor reached Cape Fear in the small hours of October 1, every available blockader was waiting.
A storm was brewing as the vessel approached the Carolina coast. The roiling sea favored the Condor, and Captain Hewett was able to slip past the first line of blockaders. But as they approached New Inlet—the closer of the two entrances to Cape Fear River—Hewett saw that the sheer number of blockaders crowding around the entrance would make it impossible for him to escape detection. USS Niphon was the first to spot the Condor, and at 3:30 A.M. the chase began. The Niphon plowed through the waves, firing her guns in a steady roll. The Condor’s passengers cowered beneath the deck listening to the explosions above their heads. Suddenly, the ship lurched hard to starboard and crashed to a stop. The pilot had mistaken the wreck of the Night Hawk, which had been chased down the previous night, for a Federal ship and turned hard to avoid it, hitting a sandbank in the process.
The Condor was close enough to Fort Fisher for its guns to afford her some protection against the Niphon. Captain Hewett thought he might still be able to make the final dash in a few hours, once the tide had lifted his ship off the bar, but he could not guarantee that it would hold against the pounding of the waves, or that the rest of the fleet would not join the Niphon. Rose Greenhow and James Holcombe both became hysterical. She was carrying dispatches from Mason and Hotze for Richmond, as well as £2,000 in gold, the entire profit from her book, and was rapidly becoming panic-stricken at the thought of being a Federal prisoner again.17 Since the shore was only a few hundred yards away, she begged Captain Hewett to let down a rowboat. Holcombe added his pleas. At first Hewett refused, but when two sailors volunteered to row, he relented.
Rose, Holcombe, Wilson, and the Condor’s pilot clambered with great difficulty into the rolling boat with the oarsmen. Rose had left everything behind on the ship except a copy of her book, the dispatches, and the money, which was in a pouch secured by a heavy chain. As they neared the surf, a wave flipped the boat over, spilling the passengers into the water. The men were able to swim to the surface and cling to the side of the boat, but Rose never reappeared. An hour later, the tide brought the rowboat in, allowing the battered and exhausted survivors to hobble onto the beach. Captain Hewett and his crew were rescued at dawn, although the Condor was left stuck in the sand.
Rose’s body was found in the morning by Thomas Taylor, an English blockade runner who had gone down to the beach to supervise the salvage operation of his own vessel.33.2 He had her remains carried to Fort Fisher, where the commandant’s wife, Mrs. Lamb, prepared it for transportation to Delaware. The following day, October 2, Wilmington gave Rose a state funeral: church bells tolled as her flag-draped coffin led an immense cortege headed by representatives from the Confederate War Department, the army, and the navy. Mindful that she was being buried without her family present, the president of the Soldiers’ Aid Society preserved Rose’s hair for her daughters, “in case we ever hear from them.”19
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Rose Greenhow’s death was a brutal reminder to Wilmington’s inhabitants that the Federals were tightening their grip. Francis Lawley had become worried for the city’s safety after his visit in mid-September. “There is abundant cause for thinking that Wilmington is the great thorn in the flesh of the Federals at this moment,” he wrote on September 24. “We shall witness a desperate attack upon this place within the next seven weeks.”20 This was also the view of General Beauregard, who was growing exasperated by the lack of defensive preparations in both Wilmington and Charleston and had written to Captain Henry Feilden urging him to try his utmost to shake “the authorities of Charleston” out of their complacency.21
Beauregard’s letter had been waiting for Feilden when he returned to Charleston from his secondment to General John K. Jackson. Though it was arduous and uncomfortable, the worst that had happened to him during his mission to bring back Confederate deserters from Florida was the loss of a ring given to him by Julia.33.3 She had been talking about a grand wedding after the war, but Sherman’s capture of Atlanta had convinced Feilden that it would be foolish to delay any longer. Charleston’s defenses were holding for the moment, but seventy days of continuous shelling had left parts of the city in utter ruin—Feilden was not sure where they would live after the wedding. Lieutenant James Morgan of the defunct Georgia was dismayed when he visited Charleston during Feilden’s absence and found many of the streets covered over with grasses and vines. “I felt ashamed of my new uniform,” he wrote, after seeing the ragged state of the troops guarding Wilmington and Charleston.22 Morgan had never imagined that conditions aboard his ship would compare favorably with those in the local barracks.
Feilden was so accustomed to keeping up a positive front for Julia that a general vagueness was creeping into all his letters. He gave his family every pertinent detail about his fiancée except her surname, and Lady Feilden was obliged to send an engagement present of gloves and a parasol addressed simply to Miss Julia. Feilden laughingly reassured Julia that the omission had not been for want of love. His feelings for her would never alter, he promised, nor would he ever give her a moment’s distress by flirting or looking at another woman: “My wife will never be afraid of my misbehaving in that manner,” he wrote firmly.23
Feilden’s steadfast nature was one of the qualities that endeared him to his superiors. He had never complained about the state of headquarters even though his commanding officer, General Roswell S. Ripley, was a drunk and his staff not much better. It was nevertheless a great relief to him when Ripley was replaced at the beginning of October. “General Beauregard has recommended that Col. Harris be promoted to the rank of Major General, and that the defence of Charleston be handed over to him,” Feilden wrote excitedly to Julia. The change in command almost certainly guaranteed his promotion:
Col. [D. B.] Harris told me that he had told General Beauregard that he would only accept the command under certain conditions, and one of them was that he should select his own staff, and not have Ripley’s crowd palmed off on him. In that case he will apply for me as his AA General. It will be a capital thing for me if all this happens; it will give me my promotion to a Majority and put me in a position where I shall not be ranked by every ignoramus who has got influence enough to be placed on the staff of the Department of SC., Ga., & Fla. Colonel Harris is a splendid officer and just the man I should like to serve under. Charleston, with him in command, would make a splendid fight.24
Feilden’s belief in the South was unshaken by the recent downturn in her fortunes. “I was intended to live in the midst of all these troubles,” he wrote, “for I can keep up my spirits under all circumstances.” True to form, his subsequent letters were all about their wedding.25 But the flow of letters between Charleston and Greenville ceased in early October. Yellow fever had spread to the staff headquarters, and Colonel Harris was among the first to be struck with the disease. Feilden nursed him day and night for a week, but Harris was beyond help and died on October 10. Feilden stayed up for two nights, guarding the body from the depredations of rats and dogs until Harris’s family could claim the body. He had lost not only a friend but also his best chance of promotion.
General Beauregard’s choice to replace Harris was Lieutenant General William J. Hardee, a veteran of the Mexican War and the author of a drill manual used by both armies. Hardee had been looking for a new post since falling out with General Hood in Georgia, and he came with his own staff of trusted and experienced officers. Feilden’s friends were determined to ensure that Hardee realized he was gaining an officer of exceptional quality. Colonel Thomas Jordan, Beauregard’s chief of staff, wrote to General Hardee about Feilden on October 12: “He is of English birth and education and has seen service in the British Army. At first he was on inspection duty, but I had him transferred to my office, where he became my right-hand man—and I can recommend him as a judicious, well-informed, well trained staff officer.”26 The letter languished in Hardee’s “to consider” pile. The general was appalled by the bedraggled state of his new troops and immediately launched a campaign for supplies. The soldiers lacked blankets and coats; “very many of my men are absolutely barefooted,” he complained to Richmond on October 19.
Francis Lawley had seen for himself the weakened state of the Southern armies. It went against the grain with him to dwell on the Confederacy’s deprivations, but he could no longer ignore the truth. “I cannot be blind to the fact, as I meet officers and privates from General Lee’s army,” he wrote to Lord Wharncliffe from Richmond on October 12, “that they are half worn out, and that, though the spirit is the same as ever, they urgently need rest.” Their diet for the past 160 days had consisted of bread and salted meat, while the enemy had at its command “all that lavish profusion of expenditure and the scientific experience that the whole civilized world can contribute.”27 However, when Lawley praised “the patience and self-denying endurance of the troops,” he was stretching an ideal already abandoned by his friends. Earlier in the week, the chief of ordnance, General Josiah Gorgas, had privately conceded that the soldiers’ spirits were almost beyond saving: “Our poor harrowed and overworked soldiers are getting worn out with the campaign. They see nothing before them but certain death, and have, I fear, fallen into a sort of hopelessness, and are dispirited. Certain it is that they do not fight as they fought at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania.”28
Ill.55 Rendezvous of General Mosby’s men above the Shenandoah Valley, by Frank Vizetelly.
Frank Vizetelly witnessed the battles between Jubal Early’s similarly exhausted Confederates and Sheridan’s hard-driving cavalry in the Shenandoah Valley. Early was relying on the help of John Singleton Mosby and his Partisan Rangers to harass the Federals, and at first Vizetelly was dazzled by Mosby, whose guerrilla raids reminded him of the daredevil spirit of Jeb Stuart. “His achievements are perfectly marvellous,” wrote Vizetelly after hearing how the Rangers swooped down on a six-hundred-foot-long Federal wagon train in mid-August and captured the entire contents, suffering only two casualties in the raid.29 Mosby had been able to outlast his former rival Sir Percy Wyndham, but his new opponent, the English colonel L.D.H. Currie, could not be tricked into making the sort of mistakes that had been Wyndham’s undoing. Although Currie could not prevent Mosby’s raids, he kept the wagon trains moving and intact. Nor were the raiders much help to Jubal Early in a real cavalry battle. Early had lost an entire brigade in a combined Union cavalry and artillery attack on September 24.33.4 Since then, he had been able to mount only insignificant skirmishes against Sheridan, who was carrying out Grant’s order to lay waste to the region. Vizetelly had covered many campaigns, but none that so explicitly targeted the enemy’s will to fight. The sight of emaciated women pleading with soldiers for bread to feed their children led him to accuse Union troops of deliberately causing mass starvation among the civilians. Sheridan’s declaration that “the people must be left nothing but their eyes to weep with over the war” was repeated many times in the British press. This sort of “wanton destructiveness,” asserted the editor of the Illustrated London News, is “unknown to modern warfare.”33.5 30
There was nowhere safe for refugees anymore: families who thought they would find sanctuary in Richmond risked losing their adolescent sons to the Confederate army. Despite President Davis’s dictum against “grinding the seed corn of the Republic,” boys as young as fifteen were now being rounded up and marched to the trenches. “No wonder there are many deserters—no wonder men become indifferent as to which side shall prevail,” wrote the War Department clerk John Jones bitterly.31 Nevertheless, those who risked the journey to Richmond sometimes met with surprising generosity. “Virginians of the real old stock,” in Mary Sophia Hill’s words, gave her a corner to sleep in when she arrived ill and penniless in early October. The military tribunal in New Orleans had returned a guilty verdict with the recommendation of imprisonment for the duration of the war. But her defense lawyer, a “Union man” named Christian Roselius, had protested against the sentence and won a commutation to banishment from New Orleans. Consul Coppell also interceded on her behalf, offering to buy passage for Mary on the Sir William Peel, which was about to depart for England, but General Banks refused, saying, “She will have to run the blockade. She will have plenty of trouble; perhaps it will teach her to behave herself the rest of her days.”32
“He had his desire,” recalled Mary. “I did have plenty of trouble.” Despite the insistence of the new legation secretary, Joseph Burnley, that “everything that could be done in this matter has been done,” Mary was carried across the picket lines into Confederate territory and left by the road to fend for herself.33 Mary never revealed how she made the one-thousand-mile journey from New Orleans to Richmond without a horse or money, but the memory would forever haunt her, driving her to seek justice years after the war.
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Mary had arrived in Richmond shortly after the Federals captured another of the forts guarding the approach to the capital on September 29. The enemy, wrote John Jones on October 4, “is now within five miles of the city, and if his progress is not checked, he will soon be throwing shells at us.… Flour rose yesterday to $425 a barrel, meal to $72 a bushel.”34 Mary risked her life to look for her twin brother, Sam, who had been sent to the trenches with the other engineers in his office. While crossing a pontoon bridge she stood aside to allow General Lee to ride past. “I consider it an honor,” she wrote, “and a great one too, to have seen the General of the age, Robert E. Lee, the soldier’s friend, the Christian warrior.”35
Lee had grown used to such hero worship; his determination to endure the same hardships as his men was widely known, though it had not deterred Southerners, particularly women, from delivering food and gifts to his tent. But another side to Lee had become apparent of late. No man, not even the great “Christian warrior,” could withstand the relentless attrition of troops, supplies, and options without showing the strain. Francis Dawson was taken to Lee’s mess and subjected to a tirade of sarcastic remarks:
Ill.56 Punch’s terrifying depiction of the human cost of the Civil War, September 1864.
It was the most uncomfortable meal that I ever had in my life [he wrote]. My frame of mind can be imagined when General Lee spoke to me in this way: “Mr. Dawson will you take some of this bacon? I fear that it is not very good, but I trust that you will excuse that. John! Give Mr. Dawson some water; I pray pardon me for giving you this cup. Our table service is not as complete as it should be. May I give you some bread? I fear it is not well baked, but I hope you will not mind that.” Etc., etc., etc.; while my cheeks were red and my ears were tingling, and I wished myself anywhere else than at General Lee’s headquarters.36
Only a month of fighting weather remained. On October 7, 1864, Lee ordered his final large-scale assault of the year, sending two divisions along Darbytown Road with orders to flush the Federals out of their new position. They started off well and overran the first line of trenches, capturing more than three hundred soldiers in the process, among them the English fugitive Robert Livingstone, who had been released from the hospital on September 30 and had only rejoined the 3rd New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry the day before. As Livingstone was marched away, he could hear his side responding with a massive barrage of fire. The Confederates were faltering. Lee galloped toward the retreaters, waving his hat and shouting for them to make another stand. On previous occasions the very sight of him had been enough to stem a flight, but this time the men continued to run.
Grant was sufficiently encouraged by his troops’ handling of the Confederate attack to order a follow-up assault on October 13, but this time the Federals were driven back by the defenders. “We have had a pretty brisk little fight today,” Dawson wrote to his mother that evening. “Grant has been feeling our lines on this [North] side of the River; he made but two attacks on our ranks and each time was easily repulsed.” The setback to the Federals had an immediate effect on the Confederates’ spirits. Dawson was almost giddy: “There are croakers [pessimists] everywhere … but you must not allow any of them to persuade you that we are, as the Yankees say, ‘in our last ditch.’ ” Moreover, his commander had returned: “I am happy to say that General Longstreet reported for duty today, his right arm and hand is still paralyzed from his wound but he could not be kept back any longer … he is a tower of strength to our cause, and he returns at a good time.”37
Dawson’s optimism was a testament to his ignorance of the true state of the Confederate defenses. He had laughed at the sight of black regiments during the recent fighting in and around Darbytown Road, considering their deployment proof of the North’s weakness. But more experienced Confederate officers acknowledged their heroism and were asking why the South did not employ their slaves to solve the manpower shortage.33.6 General Lee was considering the idea, although he did not say so in public.
Edward Stanley was fascinated by the North’s ambivalence to Negro regiments. Even some members of the Adams family were shocked by Charles Francis Jr.’s transfer to a black regiment. “His uncle, Mr. Sidney Brooks, was I hear very disgusted that his favourite nephew would do this,” wrote Stanley. “I am glad he has done this as the more people of position take these commands, the more it tends to raise the Negro.” Stanley thought the experience would be good for Adams himself, who “was not quite free from the American prejudice against and repugnance to Negroes.” Charles Francis Adams, Jr., had not regretted his decision the previous September to transfer to the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry (Colored), but he shared General Sherman’s doubts that black troops would ever be the equal of white. The “Nigs” were angelic, he told Henry Adams after the regiment had sustained nineteen casualties and three dead in fighting at Petersburg on June 15. But “the rugged discipline which improves whites is too much for them. It is easy to crush them into slaves, but very difficult by kindness and patience to approach them to our own standard.”38
Stanley had finished his tour of the North more pessimistic about the future of the freedman than when he started. Day-to-day relations between blacks and whites had the feel of an awkward jig to him. He had visited a school in Boston where a “quadroon” pupil was made to sit by herself, as though separated from the other girls by a cordon sanitaire.33.7 The sight convinced him that the racial integration of the U.S. Army was vital to reforming American society. He knew this would not happen overnight, but he had been encouraged by the number of white soldiers willing to join colored regiments, especially among the foreign volunteers who wanted to become officers.
Private James Horrocks was among the whites applying to transfer to a colored regiment. “What do you think about it?” he asked his parents, as he weighed the army’s unequal treatment of colored regiments against the possible improvement of his prospects:
Chances of being shot greater; accommodations and comforts generally smaller, but pay much larger than what I have now. No horse to ride but a uniform to wear. And above all—an Officer’s real shoulder straps and the right of being addressed and treated as a gentleman, with the advantage of better society, and if I like it, this is a position I can hold for life, being United States troops, while Volunteers will undoubtedly be disbanded when the war is over.33.8 40
Horrocks’s confidence that peace could not be far away received a boost on October 19 at the Battle of Cedar Creek in the Shenandoah Valley. The Confederates under Jubal Early surprised the Federals in a dawn attack, routing two of Sheridan’s corps and destroying their camps. But in the afternoon, Sheridan led a crushing counterattack, capturing hundreds of prisoners and most of Early’s artillery. It was the Confederate general’s third and final battle against Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. Every battle had been a Federal victory, and Early could not afford to risk another encounter. “We have only pistols, sabers and old fashioned rifles,” wrote a Confederate cavalryman. “Above all, we have not enough food to keep the horses up.”41 Sheridan had achieved his purpose; the verdant Shenandoah Valley was now a wasteland of burned fields and ruined homesteads.
Sheridan’s success in Virginia made some newspapers uneasy. “The laying waste of the Shenandoah Valley will undoubtedly call out acts in retaliation equally terrible,” predicted the Detroit Free Press as reports began to filter through to the North of a Southern movement to exact revenge.42 On October 15 the Richmond Whig urged Davis
to burn one of the chief cities of the enemy, say Boston, Philadelphia, or Cincinnati. If we are asked how such a thing can be done, we answer, nothing would be easier. A million of dollars would lay the proudest city of the enemy in ashes. The men to execute the work are already there. There would be no difficulty in finding there, here, or in Canada, suitable persons to take charge of the enterprise and arrange its details.… New York is worth twenty Richmonds. They have a dozen towns to our one; and in their towns is centered nearly all their wealth. It would not be immoral and barbarous. It is not immoral nor barbarous to defend yourself by any means or with any weapon the enemy may employ for your destruction.43
The Confederacy’s mood of despair and outrage would soon be reflected in its new cipher key, which would be altered from “Complete Victory” to the more ominous-sounding “Come Retribution.”
33.1 The fourth Viscount Monck exceeded all expectations when he took up the governorship. He had only accepted the post because his Irish estates were so encumbered with debt that it was either Canada or bankruptcy. He had never displayed the least talent for politics or administration before; yet Palmerston had seen something in Monck that he liked, and his perspicacity was rewarded. Monck was a diligent, discreet, and scrupulously honest public servant who led the way to the British North American provinces’ becoming the Canadian Confederation in 1867.
33.2 The vessel was the Night Hawk, which had confused the pilot on board the Condor. Thomas Taylor was the “supercargo,” the officer in charge of a ship’s cargo. Though only twenty-four, Taylor had the highest success rate of any English blockade runner. But his luck had run out the night before the Condor’s arrival. The Night Hawk was chased onto a sandbar and boarded by Federal sailors, who “acted more like maniacs than sane men, firing their revolvers and cutting right and left with their cutlasses,” recalled Taylor. After beating up the crew, they set fire to the ship and left, not caring whether the blockade runners burned or drowned. Taylor had wanted to fight the flames, but his men dragged him onto a rowboat, “though the boiling surf seemed more dangerous to my mind than remaining on the burning ship.”18
33.3 Feilden promised the family he had stayed with in Florida that he would send them a reward if they ever found the ring. Two years after the end of the war, he received a small package with the ring inside. He kept his promise and sent all the money he could afford.
33.4 During a battle on September 24, 1864, at Front Royal, an English volunteer substitute, Private Philip Baybutt (1844–1907), seized the regimental flag of the 6th Virginia Cavalry. The prize enabled him to receive the only Medal of Honor awarded to a British subject during the Civil War.
33.5 Sheridan ordered his troops to hang prisoners of Mosby’s Rangers rather than treat them as prisoners of war, and six were executed on September 22, 1864. Mosby retaliated and executed five Union prisoners, chosen at random, on November 6. A week later he wrote to Sheridan suggesting that they call a truce on the executions.
33.6 The colored troops in the Darbytown Road engagements received fourteen of the sixteen Medals of Honor awarded to black soldiers during the Civil War.
33.7 Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne, a French journalist and liberal politician, was in New York on a similar cultural voyage as Stanley. He observed: “Between Broadway and the Hudson River there exists a filthy, rundown neighborhood inhabited by Irish immigrants and colored people exclusively. It is impossible to imagine anything more depressingly poor.… From time to time one sees with amazement a trolley car ride by which carries a sign: ‘Colored People Admitted.’ What in the world can be the meaning of this? Are there separate laws here for Negroes? No, but public prejudice persecutes them more powerfully, more tyrannically even than law.”39
33.8 For example, the English volunteer Thomas Beach, who had adopted a new identity as a Frenchman named Henri Le Caron, was able to leap from being a private in the 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry to a lieutenant in the 15th U.S. Colored Infantry.