History of the United States, v.4, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 17, Part 2: Savage’s Station and Glendale through Earl Russell and The Alabama

By sunrise of Sunday, June 29, the Confederates discovered that the Union army, which they had hoped to capture or destroy, had fled towards the James River. Immediate pursuit was given. Most of the troops had already gone by, but Magruder overtook Sumner's corps and Smith's division of Franklin's corps at Savage's Station, and a severe battle took place, in which the Confederates were defeated and the passage of the White Oak Swamp secured for the rear-guard of the Federal army. June 30 was fought the stubborn battle of Glendale, or Frayser's Farm. Longstreet and A. P. Hill contended with McCall's division and Heintzelman's, and part of Sumner's corps. Neither side prevailed, and the Union troops continued their retreat in good order. It was thought that if Jackson had come up at the time he was expected a portion of McClellan's army would have been destroyed or captured. The swift-moving Jackson had apparently been slow. He had been delayed in crossing the Chickahominy from the necessity of repairing the Grapevine bridge which the Federals had destroyed. He was late at Savage's Station, and on reaching the White Oak Swamp found the bridge and the passage disputed by Franklin. Dabney, his admiring biographer, thinks he would have managed somehow to cross the swamp, had not his genius suffered a "temporary eclipse " from sleeplessness and physical exhaustion.1 At all events, Jackson made no persistent attempt to force a passage at the bridge crossing or at Brackett's Ford, one mile above, and by his failure to support Longstreet and A. P. Hill, an important feature of Lee's plan miscarried. At the commencement of the battle of Glendale, Lee and Davis were so engrossed in watching the operations of their army that they came under fire, the Confederate President narrowly escaping accident. McClellan had left the field before the fighting began, seeking a defensive position for the next day.
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1 Life of Jackson, p. 466.

The morning of July 1 found the whole Union army posted on Malvern Hill, a strong position near the James River. By noon the Confederates appeared. Lee and Jefferson Davis were with their troops. D. H. Hill, now under Jackson's command, learned the great natural strength of Malvern Hill from a clergyman reared in the neighborhood, and going to Willis's Church to meet Lee, who, he writes, "bore grandly his terrible disappointment of the day before and made no allusion to it," imparted to the general his knowledge of the "commanding height" and "ample area" before them, and made bold to say, "If General McClellan is there in force, we had better let him alone." Longstreet laughed and retorted, "Don't get scared now that we have got him whipped."1 Although Lee understood McClellan well and played upon his weaknesses, he did not realize the extreme timidity of his tactics on the day of Gaines's Mill, and doubtless considered it past belief that he could have left exposed to an attack so overpowering a single corps tardily supported by one division to meet the combined forces of the Confederate army. Porter's spirited defence confirmed Lee in his error. Supposing that he had badly defeated the principal part of the Union army at Gaines's Mill, he now thought that he was pursuing shattered divisions and demoralized troops. Jackson had failed to give the crushing blow at Glendale, and while now the promise of success was not so good, yet a victorious army can do much against one in flight after a defeat. Therefore Lee resolved to attack McClellan, and the order was given that opened the battle of Malvern Hill. D. H. Hill and Magruder did the fighting on the Confederate side, but with inadequate support. Although their troops fought bravely and well, they were mowed down by the fire of the splendid artillery and the efficiently directed infantry of the Union army. On the Union side, the burden of the battle was borne by Couch of Keyes's corps and Morell2 of Porters.
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1 Hill's article, Century War Book, vol. ii. p. 391; Hill's report, O. R, vol. xi. part ii. p. 628.
2 Both commanded divisions.

They showed themselves able leaders, and Porter's generalship was of a high order. The Confederates were repulsed at all points with a loss double that of the Federals. Hill describes the heroic advance of nine brigades of Magruder across an open field " under the fire of field-artillery in front and the fire of the heavy ordnance of the gun-boats in the rear. It was not war," he declares, "it was murder."1 In his report he speaks of "the blundering management of the battle."2 Nearly all the observers and writers agree that Lee's generalship at Malvern Hill was clearly defective. The attack is condemned and the execution of it censured.

McClellan was not with his fighting troops. Some think that if he had been on the field and seen with his own eyes the victory his devoted soldiers 3 had won for him, he would have held his position on Malvern Hill; an energetic general might even have taken the offensive and gained a success of moment. In the Seven Days' Battles McClellan's loss was 15,849; Lee's 20,135.4 McClellan with his army retired to
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1 Century War Book, vol. ii. p. 394.
2 O. R., vol. xi. part ii. p. 629.
3 "The dear fellows cheer me as of old, as they march to certain death, and I feel prouder of them than ever." —McClellan to his wife, July 1, Own Story, p. 442.
4 Killed, Union 1734, Confederate 3286; wounded, Union 8062, Confederate 15,909; missing, Union 6053, Confederate 940. —Century War Book, vol. ii. p. 315.
I have despaired at getting at the truth as to the capture of artillery. Lee in his report dated March 6, 1863, says he took 52 pieces. Hill in his undated report says 51. — O. R., vol. xi. part ii. pp. 498, 622. McClellan's statements cannot be reconciled with these nor with each other. McClellan to the President, July 2: "I have lost but one gun; " to Stanton, July 3: "Our light and heavy guns are saved with the exception of one;" address to his soldiers, July 4: "You have saved all your material, all your trains, and all your guns except a few lost in battle, taking in return guns and colors from the enemy;" to the President, July 4: "We have lost no guns except twenty-five on the field of battle." — O. R., vol. xi. part iii. pp. 287, 291,299; part i. p. 72. McClellan to his wife, July 2: "I have the whole army here, with all its material and guns." — Own Story, p. 442. Lee says his army took 35,000 stands of small arms, Hill 27,000; both say 10,000 prisoners were captured.
My authorities for this account of the military operations after Gaines's Mill are substantially those cited in note 1 on p. 43. In addition I have used the reports of Sumner, Franklin, and Keyes; the testimony of Sumner, Keyes, and Hooker, C. W., part i.; articles of Longstreet and Franklin, Century War Book, vol. ii.

Harrison's Landing. July 8 Lee fell back to the vicinity of Richmond. After seven days of constant march and fight, both armies needed rest. Their thinned ranks must be filled before active operations could be resumed. In one month, indeed, those citizen soldiers had become veterans. The meed of victory attended the training of one army, and while defeat was the lot of the Union troops, they had not lost honor. They made an orderly retreat, and in the rear-guard fighting had more than once beaten their adversary. The Peninsular campaign was a failure, and the chief cause of its failure may be ascribed to McClellan. I have spoken of the mistakes of Lincoln and Stanton, wherein they contributed to the embarrassment of the Union army in its operations before Richmond, but it is not just to weigh their errors as heavily as we do those of the commanding general. Lincoln was a civilian called by the voice of the people to a place which on the occurrence of the war became one of unprecedented difficulty. That he would gladly have thrown all responsibility of the movement of armies on a man of military training, is shown by his whole treatment of McClellan. But McClellan was not equal to the position of commander-in-chief, and because of his incompetence the President was forced little by little to invade his province and assume unwonted duties with a result that is not surprising. Lincoln's care to avail himself of all sources of enlightenment is shown by his night journey, June 23, on a quick special train to West Point for the purpose of consulting General Scott, who was too infirm to visit Washington.1 The traditions of the country were favorable to the occupancy of the War Department by a civilian, and Stanton brought to this office ability, energy, and honesty.2 The mistakes of
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1 New York Herald, Times, June 25, 26.
2 See J. C. Ropes's remarkable characterization of Stanton, Story of the Civil War, part i. p. 225. 

Lincoln and Stanton were those of civilians who were constrained by force of circumstances to intervene in military business, while McClellan's trade was war; and when offensive operations had to be conducted on a large scale, he showed himself to be incompetent in his trade. It is no longer necessary to bring proof, indeed it is hardly necessary even to state, that Lincoln desired sincerely and ardently the success of his general. To me it is equally clear that Stanton shared this feeling. The very nature of the case, the combination of patriotism and self-interest, must have made the Secretary eager for victories no matter by what general won. His letters, despatches, and verbal assurances are evidence either that he did all in his power to aid McClellan, consistent with what he deemed his duty elsewhere, and that he would have rejoiced with no feeling of envy at the success of the Peninsular campaign, or that he was black-hearted and treacherous, to a degree inconceivable of one trusted by the most honest and magnanimous of men, Abraham Lincoln.1

McClellan's failure was due largely to his absurd overestimate of the enemy, which unnerved him when active operations were needed.2 Perhaps his tactics would have been
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1 See Stanton to McClellan, April 16, May 4, O. R., vol. xi. part iii. pp. 103, 134; McClellan to his wife, June 9, 12, Own Story, pp. 402, 404. Stanton wrote McClellan, June 11: "Be assured, general, that there has never been a moment when my desire has been otherwise than to aid you with my whole heart, mind, and strength, since the hour we first met; and whatever others may say for their own purposes, you have never had, and never can have, any one more truly your friend, or more anxious to support you, or more joyful than I shall be at the success which I have no doubt will soon be achieved by your arms." — O. R., vol. xi. part i. p. 47. See, also, Stanton to McClellan, July 5, Marcy to McClellan, July 4, 10, part iii. pp. 294, 298, 310; Stanton to McClellan, July 5, McClellan's Own Story, p. 476; Lincoln's speech at a Union meeting August 6, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 219. For McClellan's side see his letter to Stanton, July 8, and a note of the editor, ibid., pp. 477, 478.
2 McClellan seems to have accepted without question the estimates of Allan Pinkerton, the chief of his Secret Service division: these were grossly incorrect. May 3 Pinkerton estimated the Confederate strength at Yorktown under Johnston as 100,000 to 120,000. At this time it did not exceed 63,000, and was probably 10,000 less. June 26 Pinkerton reported: "The summary of general estimates of the rebel army shows their forces to be at this time over 180,000 men, and the specific information already obtained warrants the belief that this number is probably considerably short of the real strength of their army." —O. R., vol. xi. part i. p. 269. Lee's force on that day was between 80,000 and 90,000. It certainly did not exceed 90,000. Pinkerton's general estimates are printed on p. 271, ibid. Most of them might have been called camp rumors. Euripides wrote:

"It behoves the man
Who claims the merit of an able chief,
Not to depend upon his spies alone."

So preposterous was McClellan's estimate of his enemy, that General Palfrey writes: "It is impossible that he could have believed that the Confederates possessed such numbers." This notion has met with considerable favor, but in view of McClellan's reiterated expressions I cannot accept it. See O. R., vol. xi. part ii pp. 11, 51; part ii. p. 20; part iii. pp. 151, 188, 231, 264, 265, 266, 267, 280, 282; McClellan's Own Story, pp. 344, 363.
In a discussion which followed my reading of a paper on the Peninsular Campaign, before the Massachusetts Historical Society in January, 1896, the question was raised: Ought the commanding general at that stage of the war to have known with some degree of accuracy the size of the opposing army? I think that may be answered in the affirmative. From the larger population of the North, and its very much greater facilities for equipping an army, the presumption ought to have been that it would have more troops in the field than the South, until at least results began to flow from the Confederate Conscription Act, passed April 16. The veteran General Wool, in command at Fortress Monroe, felt sure that McClellan outnumbered the Confederates. — O. R, vol. xi. part iii. pp. 143,190. A remarkable example of what might have been known is seen in the testimony of Uriah H. Painter, a correspondent of the Philadelphia Inquirer, before the Committee on the Conduct of the War, July 10. Painter was with the Army of the Potomac from April 2 until about the 22d or 23d of June, and estimated that when the Confederates evacuated Yorktown, they had a force of "perhaps 50,000 to 60,000." His estimate of the number of Lee's troops, shortly before Gaines's Mill, was "about 100,000."
Question. "By what means did you obtain that information, and reach that conclusion?"
Answer. "By getting statements from prisoners, contrabands, and deserters, and learning about different divisions and brigades, and drawing conclusions from the mass of information collected. I have at different times found a great many of their muster rolls, and learned in that way how many men they had in their regiments." — C. W., part i. p. 292.
It is fair to McClellan to refer to Lanfrey's statement, that Napoleon in his correspondence with the Directory habitually underestimated his own force and magnified that of the enemy. — Tome i. p. 148, note.
Lieutenant-Colonel G. F. R. Henderson, in his Life of Stonewall Jackson, writes: "McClellan forgot that in war it is impossible for a general to be absolutely certain. It is sufficient, according to Napoleon, if the odds in his favor are three to two; and if he cannot discover from the attitude of his enemy what the odds are, he is unfitted for supreme command." — Vol. ii. p. 4. Again he writes: " From his knowledge of his adversary's [McClellan's] character and still more from his attitude, Lee had little difficulty in discovering his intentions. McClellan, on the other hand, failed to draw a single correct inference. And yet the information at his disposal was sufficient to enable him to form a fair estimate of how things stood in the Confederate camp." — P. 5.

less timid and disjointed had he been on the field when his battles were fought, but he was persistently absent.1 At Fair
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1 Webb makes some excuse for McClellan in that he did not have a proper staff. —P 182.

Oaks the fighting took place on the south side of the Chickahominy, while he remained on the north side. After Fair Oaks, in an address to his army, he declared in speaking of a conflict near at hand: "Soldiers, I will be with you in this battle and share its dangers with you ; " 1 and later in a despatch to Stanton he said, If my army "is destroyed by overwhelming numbers, I can at least die with it and share its fate."2 But the next important battle was Gaines's Mill; it was fought on the north side of the Chickahominy, and during its progress McClellan remained at his headquarters on the south side. Nor was he present at the battles of Savage's Station and Glendale, nor at the critical position of Malvern Hill. All writers and observers, with whom I am acquainted, agree that this irresolution arose from no lack of physical courage; moreover, it is inconceivable that he could have retained the confidence and love of his soldiers, and aroused their enthusiasm, had he been delinquent in this respect. The truth is, that an extreme sensitiveness, which would have been creditable indeed to a humanitarian but out of place in the general of an army bent on the offensive, led him always to shun the sight of bloodshed and suffering.3 In short, all
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1 O. R., vol. xi. part iii. p. 210.
2 June 25, ibid., part i. p. 51.
3 "I am tired of the sickening sight of the battlefield, with its mangled corpses and poor suffering wounded! Victory has no charms for me when purchased at such a cost." "Every poor fellow that is killed or wounded, almost haunts me! " —McClellan's letters to his wife, June 2, 23, Own Story, pp. 398, 408.

the circumstances of this campaign, the faults of omission and commission, show that although McClellan was a good organizer and knew how to win the affection of his soldiers, he lacked the quality of aggressive generalship, so essential to the North in their conduct of the war. The criticisms of Generals Francis A. Walker and Francis W. Palfrey, who were with the Army of the Potomac on the Peninsula, are unanswerable, and appear the more convincing as being offered in a spirit of kindliness by men who once believed thoroughly in McClellan, and doubtless threw up their caps when he rode along their lines.

After the victory of Gaines's Mill the Confederate President and generals felt sure of capturing or destroying the Union army, and their confidence was shared by the people of Richmond. The disappointment of all was keen when McClellan reached a safe position on the James River after signalizing the last of the Seven Days' Battles by an acknowledged victory over Lee. There was a disposition on the part of the public to find fault with those in command that the Union army had made its escape, but reflection that induced a better understanding of what had been done led the Southern generals and soldiers, the President and people, to comprehend how great reason they had for rejoicing. The elaborate preparations of the North had come to naught, the siege of Richmond had been raised; and the well-disciplined and splendidly equipped Federal force had been driven back a distance of twenty miles. The spirit of victory was with the Army of Northern Virginia. In those seven days Lee's soldiers began to love him and to acquire a belief that he was invincible, which lasted almost to the very end of the war. The association of Lee and Davis on those battlefields cemented a friendship already close. Lee displayed a considerate deference to his superior, Davis an affectionate concern for his general. "I will renew my caution to you," he wrote Lee, "against personal exposure either in battle or reconnaissance. It is a duty to the cause we serve, for the sake of which I reiterate the warning."1 All conditions united to brighten the hopes of the South. To the work of conscription, which was urged with vigor, a response seemed assured that would show the enthusiasm of the people to have been quickened by their army's success.2
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1 July 5, O. R., vol. xi. part Iii. p. 632.
2 Lee's and Jackson's reports, ibid., part ii.; Richmond Examiner, June 28, 30, July 3, 4, 7, 8; Richmond Dispatch, June 28, 30, July 5, 7, 9; Davis, Confederate Government, vol. ii.; Davis, Memoir by his wife, vol. ii.
Touching the failure to hurt McClellan more than was done, Davis wrote his wife, July 6: "Had all the orders been well and promptly executed, there would have been a general dispersion of McClellan's army, and the remnant which might have held together could have only reached the James River by first crossing the Chickahominy. Our success has been so remarkable that we should be grateful." In view of a disposition of Southern writers since the war to rate McClellan's generalship high, see what follows in this letter. Mrs. Davis's Memoir, vol. ii. p. 322. Joseph E. Johnston wrote Beauregard, August 4,1862: "I am not sure that you are right in regarding the success of McClellan's 'strategic movement' as evidence of skill. It seems to me to be due rather to our having lost two days immediately after the principal fight, that of Friday [Gaines's Mill, June 27] and many hours afterwards, especially on Tuesday [Malvern Hill, July 1]. I was told that the action on that day commenced about six o'clock p. m., but one and one-half or two miles from the field of Monday's engagement. It is said too that a large portion of our army was idle on each of those days. The battle of Malvern Hill (Tuesday) was but fifteen or twenty miles from the middle of McClellan's position on the Chickahominy. The result of that action terminated our pursuit. It seems to me that the 'partial results' were due to a want of the 'bulldog tenacity' you give us credit for. If the enemy had been pressed vigorously on Saturday and Sunday [June 28 and 29], he must have been ruined, could never have fixed himself securely on the James River. He left his position on the Chickahominy without our knowledge, because the wide interval by which he escaped was not observed by cavalry as it should have been. ... I must confess that the advantages we have gained by what is termed the seven days' fighting are not very evident to me." — New York Times, June 17, 1883.
General Viscount Wolseley wrote in the North American Review for August 1889, p. 174: "The retreat to the James was an extremely ably-conducted operation, carried out under great difficulties, and, above all, in the presence of such opponents as Lee and Jackson. It ought not to have succeeded as it did; had the defeated army been pressed as it should have been, it must have been destroyed. For some reason or other, however, Jackson and his army did not show their usual quality in that pursuit."

Brief reflection on McClellan's despatch of June 281 which showed him to be thoroughly demoralized, convinced President Lincoln that the plan for taking Richmond had failed, and that the Union armies must be increased if the end were to be attained towards which the Northern people strove. With a view to starting fresh enlistments, Secretary Seward, furnished with a letter in which the President made clear the need of additional troops, went to New York City, Boston, and Cleveland to confer with men of influence and with as many governors of States as possible. In this letter Lincoln declared: "I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me; and I would publicly appeal to the country for this new force, were it not that I fear a general panic and stampede would follow, so hard is it to have a thing understood as it really is." 2 After Seward had conferred in New York City with men of weight and taken counsel by wire in cipher with the President and Secretary of War, it was determined to issue a circular to the governors of the States of the Union, exposing the situation and asking them to offer the President the needed reinforcements. On July 2, in accordance with the secret arrangements, there appeared in the newspapers, in the words of the draft which Seward had made, a letter from the governors requesting the President to call upon the several States for men enough "to speedily crush the rebellion." The President's reply, which was also printed, follows substantially Seward's draft, except that during the negotiations the necessity of the country on one hand and the willing co-operation of the governors on the other had combined to increase the number of troops at first proposed, and the call went forth for 300,000 three, years' men.3 Sumner wrote John Bright: "The last call for
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1 Ante, p. 43.
2 Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 116.
3 Life of Seward, F. W. Seward, vol. lii. chap. xlii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 116 et seq.; N.. Y. Tribune, Herald, July 2. For the reason why the names of the governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Iowa, and Delaware were not affixed at that time to the letter, see Life of Seward, p. 110; New York Herald, July 9.

three hundred thousand men is received by the people with enthusiasm, because it seems to them a purpose to push the war vigorously. There is no thought in the Cabinet or the President of abandoning the contest."1 "We shall easily obtain the new levy," said Lincoln in a private letter.2 It was evident from the first that the people would give the government efficient support,3 although the call came upon them during a period of painful suspense when they were without news from McClellan's army. The War Department did not hear from McClellan from June 28 to July 1, and not until July 3 could the President have felt sure that his army was safe. Lincoln grew thin and haggard, and his despatches from the first of these days are an avowal of defeat. Stanton, on the other hand, did not realize the truth. June 29 he telegraphed Seward, "My inference is that General McClellan will probably be in Richmond within two days." Had the Secretary of War been given to dissimulation, or had he not sent a similar despatch to General Wool at Baltimore, we might suppose that he intended to mislead the men of influence and the governors with whom Seward was conferring, in order that the promise for additional troops might be more easily
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1 August 5, Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 83.
2 To Count Gasparin, August 4, Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 218. "The enlistment of recruits is now much more rapid than ever before. . . . Our people are beginning to feel a little more serious about the war, but the determination to wage it to a successful termination is stronger and firmer than ever." — John Sherman to his brother, August 8, The Sherman Letters, p. 156. "It would have done your heart good to see the procession of day before yesterday and to-day, the air all aflame with flags, the streets shaking with the tramp of long-stretched lines, and only one feeling showing itself, the passion of the first great uprising, only the full flower of which that was the opening bud."—Holmes to Motley, August 29, Motley's Letters, vol. ii. p. 86. See letter of Louis Agassiz, Life and Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 577; Letters of Asa Gray, vol. ii. pp. 482, 487. Under this call there were furnished 421,465 men. Plasterer's Statistical Record, p. 5.
3 New York Evening Post, July 2, Tribune, July 4, World, July 2, 3, Herald, July 3.

obtained.1 Seward took the cue readily, and in his draft of the governors' letter explained that the fresh recruits were needed to follow up "the recent successes of the Federal arms." 2 But the Northern people were not deceived. Learning after five days of suspense that McClellan's army had reached the James River, they recognized that it had been defeated and forced to retreat. The event was spoken of as a disaster, the news of it causing at once a panic in Wall Street. Days of gloom followed. "Give me a victory and I will give you a poem," wrote Lowell to his publisher; "but I am now clear down in the bottom of the well, where I see the Truth too near to make verses of." 3 There was a noticeable disposition to find fault with Stanton, whose folly in stopping recruiting4 at the time of the Union successes in the spring was bewailed. Not nearly so marked was the disposition to censure McClellan for the misfortune that had befallen the North, while Lincoln escaped with less criticism from the country at large than either.5

Meanwhile Congress was in session, an observer of military events and a diligent worker in its sphere, though exercising less relative sway and attracting less attention than in a time of peace, for the war caused the executive to trench upon its power and directed all eyes to his acts and the work of his armies. Nevertheless the senators and representatives labored
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1 See the despatches, O. R., vol. xi. part iii. p. 270 et seg.; Julian's Political Recollections, p. 218; Pope's article, Century War Book, vol. ii. p. 455.
2 Life of Seward, vol. iii. p. 104. This was written as early as June 30, before the full tidings of McClellan's retreat were known, hut Seward's diplomatic circular of July 7 would have done credit to McClellan himself. See p. 111.
3 Lowell's Letters, vol. i. p. 322.
4 See vol. iii. p. 636.
5 New York Times, July 3, 4, Herald, July 4, 6, 8, 10, Tribune, July 4, 5, World, July 4, Evening Post, July, 3, 5; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 83; The Sherman Letters, p. 156; August Belmont to Thurlow Weed, July 20, Belmont's Letters, privately printed, p. 66; Julian, Political Recollections, p. 218; Chandler's Senate speech of July 16, Life of Chandler, Detroit Post and Tribune, p. 234; Letters of Asa Gray to Darwin, July 3, 29.

with zeal, sagacity, and effect. The laws of this session show how much an able and honest Congress may accomplish when possessed of an earnestness and singleness of purpose that will prevail against the cumbrous rules which hedge about the action of a democracy's legislative body, unfitting it for the management of a war.1

Congress at this session2 authorized the President to take possession of the railroads and the telegraph lines when the public safety required it,3 recognized the governments of Hayti and Liberia, passed a Homestead Act, established a Department of Agriculture, donated public lands to the several States and Territories for the purpose of founding agricultural colleges, and authorized the construction of a railroad to the Pacific Ocean, giving it aid in land and in government bonds. It created a comprehensive and searching scheme of internal taxation which became a law by the President's approval July 1. This might be briefly described with a near approach to accuracy as an act which taxed everything. So impressed are two writers with its burdensome character that they have added to their summary of its provisions, as an apt description of it, Sydney Smith's well-known humorous account of British taxation in 1820.4 Under this act of Con
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1 This was the 2d sess. of the 37th Congress, which lasted from December 2,1861, to July 17, 1862. Of the nature of its work in general, see Julian, May 23, Speeches, p. 182; Sumner, June 27, Works, vol. vii. p. 144; Wade, June 28, Globe, pp. 3000, 3002; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 80 et ante; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. chap. v.; Riddle, Life of Wade, p. 318.
2 For important work of this session already mentioned, see vol. iii. p. 630.
3 Approved January 81.
4 Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, vol. i. p. 433; W. C. Ford, Lalor's Cyclopaedia, vol. ii. p. 577. Their citation is from Sydney Smith's article on America, Edinburgh Review, January, 1820. Smith wrote: "Taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the back, or is placed under the foot — taxes upon everything which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste — taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion — taxes on everything on earth, and the waters under the earth — on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home — taxes on the raw material — taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man — taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health — on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal — on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice —on the brass nails of the coffin, and the ribands of the bride — at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay." — P. 77. Caesar wrote of Scipio's taxation in Asia: "In capita singula servorum ac liberorum tributum imponebatur; columnaria, ostiaria, frumentum, milites, arma, remiges, tormenta, vecturse imperabantur; cuius modo rei nomen reperiri poterat, hoc satis esse ad cogendas pecunias videbatur." — De Bello Civili, III., xxxii.

Congress, distillers of spirits, brewers of ale, beer, and porter, all other manufacturers, wholesale and retail dealers, men in all kinds of business, whether their trade was to supply necessaries or luxuries, or to furnish amusements (such as proprietors of theatres and circuses and jugglers), lawyers, physicians, surgeons, and dentists were required to pay for licenses. A duty of twenty cents per gallon was imposed on spirits, one dollar per barrel on malt liquors, and that on tobacco and cigars was heavy. Many products and nearly all manufactures and articles were taxed, and carriages, yachts, billiard tables, and plate, also slaughtered cattle, hogs, and sheep, railroad bonds, passports, legacies, and distributive shares of personal property. A duty of three per cent. was laid on the gross receipts of railroads, steamboats, and toll-bridges, on dividends of banks, savings institutions, trust and insurance companies, on the gross receipts from advertisements in newspapers, etc., and on the salaries and pay of officers and persons in the service of the United States above an exemption of $600. On the gross receipts of railroads using other power than steam and of ferry-boats the duty was one and one-half per cent. One tenth of one per cent, was exacted on the gross amount of auction sales. A tax of three per cent. on incomes less than $10,000, and of five per cent. on incomes over $10,000 with an exemption of $600 was imposed,1 although certain deductions were allowable in making the return. Upon the income of citizens residing abroad, there was laid a tax of five per cent. without the usual exemption. Stamp duties were imposed upon every species of paper used
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1 Income derived from interest on notes or bonds of the United States was only taxed one and one-half per cent.

to represent or transfer property, on medicines or preparations, perfumery, cosmetics, and playing-cards. The duties on imports were increased by an act approved by the President, July 14.

Next to the tax and appropriation bills, the most important measure of this session of Congress, the Confiscation Act, dealt with a subject which attracted during the whole course of its consideration much attention from both Senate and House. The act as finally passed and approved iterated the penalty of death for treason, but allowed the court at its discretion to commute the punishment to fine and imprisonment; defined the crime of rebellion and annexed a penalty to it; directed the President "to cause the seizure of all the estate and property, money, stocks, credits, and effects," of all military and civil officers of the Southern Confederacy or of any of the States thereof, and, after sixty days of public warning, confiscated likewise the property of all "engaged in armed rebellion" against the United States "or aiding or abetting such rebellion ;" freed forever the slaves of those convicted of treason or rebellion, and also the slaves of "rebel owners" who took "refuge within the lines of the [Union] army" or in any way came under the control of the Federal government; denied the protection of the Fugitive Slave Act to any owners of escaped slaves except those loyal to the Union, and forbade any military or naval officer to surrender any fugitive to the claimant;1 gave authority for the colonization
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1 This result had been aimed at by an act to make an additional article of war approved March 13, but it had not been fully accomplished (see speech of Grimes in the Senate, April 14, Life of Grimes, Salter, p. 186). Sumner declared in the Senate, July 16: "The infamous order No. 3 which has been such a scandal to the Republic is now rescinded. The slave everywhere can hope." Reference is made to order No. 3 of General Halleck, issued from St. Louis November 20, 1861, which was obnoxious to the radical Republicans. It forbade fugitive slaves "to enter the lines of any camp or of any forces on the march." —O. R., vol. viii. p. 370. Halleck maintained that "it was a military and not a political order."— Letter to F. P. Blair, Greeley, American Conflict, vol. ii. p. 241.
Congress did not repeal the Fugitive Slave Law, although Sumner would have been glad to propose it had there been a chance of success. — Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 71. June 9 Julian offered a resolution in the House instructing the Judiciary Committee to report a bill to repeal it, and, although the House was disposed to go further in striking at slavery than the Senate, this resolution was laid on the table, 17 Republicans voting with 19 Unionists (all but two of these from the border slave States) and 30 Democrats, making a total of 66 for such action to 51 against. — Congressional Globe, p. 2623; Julian's Polit. Rec., p. 218.
The Fugitive Slave Law continued to be enforced where legal processes could apply. The Washington despatch to the New York Herald, May 16, said: "The Fugitive Slave Law is being quietly enforced in this district to-day, the military authorities not interfering with the judicial process. There are at least four hundred cases pending." See Life of Garrison, vol. iv. p. 51, note 1. General J. D. Cox writes me, under date of March 26, 1896: "The anti-slavery sentiment grew so rapidly in the field that the right to reclaim a fugitive slave in camp was never of any use to slaveholders. Officers said 'You may take him if you can find him,' but the rank and file took care that he should not be found." See paper " Dealing with Slavery," by Channing Richards, Sketches of War History, vol. iv., Ohio Commandery of the Loyal Legion.

of "persons of the African race made free" by this act; authorized the President to employ negroes as soldiers; and gave him power to amnesty the rebels by proclamation and to make exceptions from a general pardon. The bill which had been reported by Senator Trumbull from the Judiciary Committee and the one which the House had originally passed were more stringent in their provisions, and therefore more satisfactory to the radicals of the Senate, of whom Sumner, Wade, and Chandler were the leaders, than the act finally agreed to; but even this act was more acceptable to them than the measure which the conservative Republicans of the Senate with the aid of the Democrats and the Unionists of the border States, had, on a decisive vote, succeeded in adopting. Of this Chandler declared, June 28, the day on which McClellan began his retreat to the James: "I do not believe the bill is worth one stiver. It is utterly worthless as a bill to confiscate property." The subject went to a committee of conference, and while it was pending, senators and representatives were in gloom over the misfortune and failure of the Army of the Potomac.

The bill "was at last passed," wrote Sumner, "under the pressure from our reverses at Richmond." It is, he added, "a practical act of emancipation. It was only in this respect that I valued it. The Western men were earnest for reaching the property of the rebels.1 To this I was indifferent except so far as it was necessary to break up the stronghold of slavery."2 That "the Confiscation Act was more useful as a declaration of policy than as an act to be enforced" is the mature judgment of John Sherman,3 who in the Senate took an active part in the discussion of the measure. Yet the clause which affirmed the death penalty for treason was no empty form of words, for many Republicans, Unionists, and Democrats at this time thought that the "leaders of the rebellion" ought to be hanged, and that such in the end would be their fate.4

The Confiscation bill agreed upon in conference was enacted by the House July 11, and by the Senate one day later. It now became bruited abroad that the President would veto the bill, and many legislators were anxious lest Congress and
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1 On the sentiment of Ohio and Illinois, see Wade's and Trumbull's remarks, Senate, June 28, Globe, pp. 3001, 3005.
2 To Bright, August 5, Pierce's Sumner, p. 82. Cf. Senate debate of June 28 with that of July 8 and 12; on the latter day the bill was passed; see New York Evening Post, July 18.
3 Recollections, vol. i. p. 316; see Alex. Johnston in Lalor's Cyclopaedia, vol. iii. p. 933; Whiting, War Powers of the Constitution, p. 409.
4 See Willey's and Preston King's remarks in the Senate, Globe, pp. 945, 3375. At a meeting of the Conservative members of Congress in Washington, June 28, Richardson, of Illinois, who since the death of Douglas was the leader of the Democrats of that State, said that he "was in favor of applying the halter to the leaders of the rebellion," and William Allen, of Ohio, made a similar declaration. One of the resolutions adopted spoke of inflicting such punishment "on the guilty leaders as will satisfy public justice." — Washington corr. New York Herald, June 28. Sumner had previously in the Senate made a manly protest against this sentiment. "People talk," said he, "flippantly of the gallows as the certain doom of the rebels. This is a mistake. For weal or woe, the gallows is out of the question. It is not possible as a punishment for this rebellion." — Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 77.
In addition to authorities quoted, see on the Confiscation Act, Congressional Globe, 2d sess., 37th Congress passim; Sumner's Works, vol. vii. p. 3 et seq. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, vol. i. p. 373; Julian's speech on Confiscation and Liberation, May 23 ; S. S. Cox, Three Decades, p. 249.

perhaps the people should come into collision with the Executive. To ascertain in view of the many dangers thickening about the country, if this might not be avoided, Senator Fessenden and another gentleman had a consultation with the President. They found the rumor to be true. Lincoln's chief objection arose from his interpretation of the act to mean that offenders might be forever divested of their title to real estate. Confiscation to this extent was, in his view, clearly opposed to the explicit assertion of the Constitution, "No attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted." So strenuous was his opposition to this feature that he had decided to veto the bill, and had prepared a message pointing out his objections, and ending with, "I return the bill to the House in which it originated." Many regarded this measure of confiscation as one of the highest importance. Trumbull declared: "I believe that the passage of the bill and its fair execution is worth more towards crushing the rebellion than would be the capture of Richmond and the destruction of the whole rebel army that is around it to-day." Wade spoke of it as "the most useful of all bills, one that lies deeper in the hearts of the people than anything we have done during the session or can do. If it should fail to meet the approbation of the President of the United States, I can tell him it will be the saddest announcement that ever went out from the Capitol."1 The tone of some of the radical senators toward the President in the debate of July 16 was bitter,2 and by the veto of the bill the suppressed opposition to him in his own party would undoubtedly have been forced to an open rupture. This misfortune was obviated by Congress passing, the day previous to its adjournment, an explanatory joint resolution which removed Lincoln's main objection and was signed by him at the same time with the Confiscation Act itself. His draft of the proposed veto message which he sent to the House with the
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1 July 16, Globe, pp. 3375, 3380.
2 That may also be said of the debate of July 14

announcement of his approval of the bill and the joint resolution showed that his construction of the act was different from that of the radical senators, and that its execution in his hands might be attended with a greater regard for the forms of law and the letter of the Constitution than, according to their view, ought to obtain in this time of real danger to the Republic.1

The disaster to McClellan's army increased the criticism of the radical Republicans, who did not believe that the President was conducting the war with vigor. They found fault with him chiefly because he did not remove McClellan from command and because he did not strike at slavery.2 That they were restive at the President's encroachment on the powers of Congress and his failure to exercise his authority by some measure of liberation, had already become apparent in the Senate.3 Inasmuch as Congress had been called upon by the explanatory joint resolution to shape its action in
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1 See the debate in the Senate, July 16. In the Appendix to the CongressionalGlobe are printed the act and the joint resolution. The resolution touched other points than the one objected to by the President. The draft of the veto message is printed in the Globe, p. 3406, and in Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 209; see also editorials of New York Herald, July 28, and New York Tribune, August 5.
2 Adams S. Hill, Washington correspondent New York Tribune, at about this time wrote to Sydney Howard Gay, managing editor: "Ten minutes' talk last night with General Wadsworth. The result this. He is cheerful in view of military prospects, but thinks political signs gloomy. I value his testimony because he has, as he says, been with the President and Stanton every day at the War Department — frequently for five or six hours — during several months. He says that the President is not with us; has no Antislavery instincts. He never heard him speak of Anti-slavery men, otherwise than as 'radicals,' 'abolitionists,' and of the 'nigger question, 'he frequently speaks. Talking against McClellan with Blair, in Lincoln's presence, Wadsworth was met by Blair with the remark, 'He'd have been all right if he'd stolen a couple of niggers.' A general laugh, in which Lincoln laughed, as if it were an argument. W. believes that if emancipation comes at all it will be from the rebels, or in consequence of their protracting the war."—A. S. Hill Papers, MS. In this manner I shall indicate the private correspondence which has been kindly placed at my disposal by Professor Hill.
3 For example, Grimes, May 20, Globe, p. 2226; Sumner, June 27, Works, vol. vii. p. 881.

accordance with the wish of the Executive conveyed in a channel unknown to the Constitution, the feeling broke out, in the debate of July 16, that the President had magnified his office. Sherman intimated that they were acting under "duress," while Lane, of Indiana, further declared that the duress was the "threat of a veto from the President." Preston King, of New York, and Trumbull thought that Congress was coerced by this mode of proceeding; and Wade sneered at the practice of learning the "royal pleasure " before they could pass a bill.1 When Congress adjourned the next day, some of the radical senators and representatives went home with a feeling of hostility to Lincoln, and of despair for the Republic.2

They misjudged him, but not unnaturally, for although he was thinking about slavery as earnestly as any of them, the indiscretion of a general had obliged him to take a position which seemed to them to indicate a reactionary policy. Hunter, who commanded the Department of the South, issued an order, May 9, declaring free all the slaves in South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia. The first knowledge of this came to Lincoln through the newspapers one week later. Chase urged him to let the order stand. "No commanding general shall do such a thing upon my responsibility without consulting me," was the President's reply.3 May 19 he declared Hunter's order void, and in his proclamation appealed to the people of the border slave States to adopt some measure for the gradual abolishment of slavery, and accept the compensation for their slaves proffered them by the President and by Congress.4 "I do not argue," he said, — "I beseech you to make arguments for yourselves. You cannot, if you would, be blind to the signs of the times. I beg of you a calm and enlarged consideration of them, ranging, if it may be, far above personal and partisan politics. This proposal makes
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l Globe, p. 3375 et seq.
2 Julian, Recollections, p. 220; Washington despatch to New York Herald, July 17, also editorials of July 17, 18.
3 Warden, p. 433.
4 See vol. iii. p. 631.

common cause for a common object, casting no reproaches upon any. It acts not the Pharisee. The change it contemplates would come gently as the dews of heaven, not rending or wrecking anything. Will you not embrace it? So much good has not been done by one effort in all past time, as in the providence of God it is now your high privilege to do. May the vast future not have to lament that you have neglected it."1 This fervent and reasonable appeal did not convince those to whom it was addressed, but it showed the people of the North that the President desired to rid the nation of slavery if it could be done in a constitutional manner. In spite of the muttering at Washington, the declaration that Hunter's emancipation order was void received general approval throughout the country, since many Republicans, who were eager to see blows struck at slavery from any quarter, felt that they must yield to Lincoln, who had the power and responsibility.2 Two events happening previously to this indicated that the administration was keeping step with the march of human freedom. The first man in our history to suffer death for violating the laws against the foreign slave trade was hanged at New York in February.3 In April Secretary Seward con
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1 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 156.
2 New York Herald, May 17, 20, Tribune, May 19, 20. R. H. Dana wrote Sumner, June 7: "If two papers were opened—one for Hunter's proclamation and the other for the President's present position on that point—to be signed only by voters, the latter would have three to one in Massachusetts."— Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS. But see Governor Andrew's opinion in his letter to Stanton, May 19, Schouler's Massachusetts in the Civil War, p. 333. Chase, urging the President to let Hunter's order stand, had written: "It will be cordially approved, I am sure, by more than nine-tenths of the people on whom you must rely for support of your administration." — Warden, p. 434. Senator Grimes wrote his wife: "The President has to-day rescinded Hunter's proclamation. The result will be a general row in the country. All the radical Republicans are indignant but me, and I am not, because I have expected it and was ready for it. . . . But the end must come, protracted by the obstinacy and stupidity of rulers it may be, but come it will nevertheless."—Salter, p. 196.
3 Sumner's Works, vol. vi. p. 474; DuBois, Suppression of the Slave Trade p. 191. On the subject generally of the coastwise slave-trade and the non-enforcement of the laws against it, see DuBois, pp. 154, 162, 178, 180-187.

eluded an honorable and efficient treaty with Great Britain for the suppression of the African slave trade.1

How the government could treat slavery and the slaves to redound to the advantage of the Union cause was made the overpowering question in Lincoln's mind by his visit of July 8 to the Army of the Potomac at Harrison's Landing, which brought home to him with telling force the disastrous event of the Peninsular campaign. Gradual emancipation of the slaves, compensation of their owners, and colonization of the freed negroes, — this is the policy that he adopted. So vital did he deem some action of this kind that he could not allow the senators and representatives of the border slave States to go home on the adjournment of Congress before he had brought the matter again to their attention. July 12 he called them to the White House, and asked them earnestly if they would not adopt his policy and accept compensation for their slaves. He spoke of the hope entertained by "the States which are in rebellion" that their sister slave communities would join their Confederacy. "You and I know what the lever of their power is. Break that lever before their faces and they can shake you no more forever. ... If the war continues long . . . the institution in your States will be extinguished by mere friction and abrasion — by the mere incidents of war. . . . Much of its value is gone already. How much better for you and for your people to take the step which at once shortens the war and secures substantial compensation for that which is sure to be wholly lost in any other event." He then told them and the public of a difficulty he had to contend with,—" one which threatens division among those who, united, are none too strong." Out of
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1 Ratified by the Senate, April 24, without dissent. "Sumner hastened to the State Department to inform the Secretary of the vote. Seward leaped from his lounge, where he had been sleeping, and exclaimed: 'Good God! the Democrats have disappeared! This is the greatest act of the administration.' " — Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 68.

General Hunter's order the discord had lately arisen. "In repudiating it," Lincoln continued, "I gave dissatisfaction if not offence to many whose support the country cannot afford to lose. And this is not the end of it. The pressure in this direction is still upon me and increasing." In conclusion he averred that "our common country is in great peril," and besought them to help him save our form of government.1 A majority of the representatives of Kentucky, Virginia, Missouri, and Maryland in the two houses of Congress, twenty in number, replied that the policy advocated seemed like an interference of the national government in a matter belonging exclusively to the States; they questioned the constitutional power of Congress to make an appropriation of money for such a purpose; they did not believe that the country could bear the expense proposed; they doubted the sincerity of Congress in making the offer, and thought that funds for the compensation of slave owners should be placed at the disposal of the President before the border States were called upon to entertain such a proposition.2 One other objection must have weighed with them, which is only hinted at in their reply. It was a
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 109.
2 McPherson, Political History of the Great Rebellion, p. 215. In the course of their reply they said: "It seems to us that this resolution [of March, see vol. iii. p. 631] was but the annunciation of a sentiment which could not or was not likely to be reduced to an actual tangible proposition. No movement was then made to provide and appropriate the funds required to carry it into effect; and we were not encouraged to believe that funds would be provided." Senator Henderson, who made an individual reply favorable to the President's views, wrote: "I gave it [the resolution of March] a most cheerful support, and I am satisfied it would have received the approbation of a large majority of the border States delegations in both branches of Congress, if, in the first place, they had believed the war with its continued evils — the most prominent of which, in a material point of view, is its injurious effect on the institution of slavery in our States — could possibly have been protracted for another twelve months; and if in the second place they had felt assured that the party having the majority in Congress would, like yourself, be equally prompt in practical action as in the expression of a sentiment."
Minority replies favorable to the President's position were made by seven representatives and by Horace Maynard of Tennessee, as well as by Senator Henderson. McPherson, p. 217 et seq.

part of the plan that payment for the slaves should be made in United States bonds, and while negro property had become admittedly precarious1 the question must have suggested itself, whether, in view of the enormous expenditure of the government, the recent military reverses, and the present strength of the Confederacy, the nation's promises to pay were any more valuable. Gold, which June 2 was at three and one-half per cent. premium, fetched now, owing to McClellan's defeat and the further authorized issue of paper money,2 seventeen per cent.: its price from this time forward measures the fortunes of the Union cause.

During a drive to the funeral of Secretary Stanton's infant son, the day 8 after his interview with the border State representatives, Lincoln opened the subject, which was uppermost in his mind, to Seward and to Welles. The reverses before Richmond, the formidable power of the Confederacy, made him earnest in the conviction that something must be done in the line of a new policy. Since the slaves were growing the food for the Confederate soldiers, and served as teamsters and laborers on intrenchments in the army service, the President had "about come to the conclusion that it was a military necessity, absolutely essential for the salvation of the nation, that we must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued." 4 In truth, he was prepared to go as far in the path to liberation as were the radical Republicans of Congress. The inquiry therefore is worth making, why he did not recommend to Congress some measure to this end, which, with his support, would undoubtedly have been carried. It would appear reasonable that if the President under the rights of war could emancipate the slaves, Congress with the executive approval
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1 Henderson said that in Missouri "a third or more of the slaves owned at the time of the last census" had been lost. —McPherson, p. 219.
2 The Act approved July 11 authorized the additional issue of $150,000,000 United States legal-tender notes.
3 Sunday, July 13.
4 Diary of Secretary Welles, Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 121; Welles's article in the Galaxy, December 1872. C. E. Hamlin says that Lincoln read to the Vice-President, June 18, a draft of a proclamation freeing the slaves.— Life of Hannibal Hamlin, p. 429.

should have the same power; but Lincoln evidently believed action in this matter to lie outside of the province of the legislative body. Ready as he himself was to declare free the slaves in all the States which continued "in rebellion" after January 1, 1863, he remarked in the message submitted with the proposed veto of the Confiscation Act, " It is startling to say that Congress can free a slave within a State." 1 An edict of the President would be more impressive and would influence public opinion in the country and in Europe more than could a legislative act that was passed only after long debate and the consideration of various amendments, and was in the end perhaps a compromise in conference committee. Moreover a sagacious statesman in the position of chief magistrate, could better time the stroke. Again it is possible that Lincoln intended to secure gradually the co-operation of Congress in his policy, and began by proposing this further step towards compensation — for the offer of compensation was an indispensable part of his plan — which would meet one objection of the border State men. July 14, the day after his conversation with Seward and Welles, he asked the Senate and the House to pass a bill placing at his disposal a certain sum in six per cent. bonds to be used by him in paying for slaves in any State that should lawfully abolish slavery. This request was not well received in the Senate.
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1 As an indication of sentiment in Congress, I quote from Sumner's speech in the Senate of June 27: "There are senators who claim these vast War Powers for the President and deny them to Congress. The President, it is said, as commander-in-chief may seize, confiscate, and liberate under the Rights of War, but Congress cannot direct these things to be done. . . . Of the pretension that all these enormous powers belong to the President and not to Congress I try to speak calmly and within bounds. . . . But a pretension so irrational and unconstitutional, so absurd and tyrannical, is not entitled to respect. The Senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade] . . . has branded it as slavish. . . . Such a pretension would change the National Government from a government of law to that of a military dictator. . . . That this pretension should be put forward in the name of the Constitution is only another illustration of the effrontery with which the Constitution is made responsible for the ignorance, the conceit, and the passions of men." — Works, vol. vii. p. 139.

Grimes and Sherman did not recognize the right of the President "to introduce a bill here," and it was only after an effort on the part of Sumner that the message and the bill were referred to the Committee on Finance. Sumner also proposed that Congress defer their adjournment in order to consider the subject, but could not get his resolution before the Senate.1 On the day before the adjournment of Congress there was introduced in the House of Representatives from the select committee of emancipation a bill providing for the issue of bonds to the amount of $180,000,000 to be used for the compensation of loyal owners of slaves in the border States and in Tennessee, when any one of them should by law abolish slavery, and for the appropriation of $20,000,000 to be expended in colonizing the freed negroes. Owing to the lateness of the session, the bill was not considered.2

July 17 Congress adjourned. Five days later Lincoln read to his cabinet, to the surprise of all, probably, except Seward and Welles, a proclamation of emancipation which he purposed to issue. In it he said that he intended to recommend to Congress, at its next meeting, the adoption of a practical measure of compensation. He reiterated that the object of the war was the restoration of the Union; "and as a fit and necessary military measure for effecting this object," he declared that on January 1, 1863, all slaves in States wherein the constitutional authority of the United States was not recognized should be thenceforward and forever free. Various suggestions were offered, but all of the cabinet except Blair gave the policy proposed a full or qualified support. Blair demurred, on the ground that it would cost the administration the fall elections. Seward pleaded for delay, saying, in substance: "Mr. President, I approve of the proclamation, but I question the expediency of its issue at this juncture. The depression of the public mind, consequent upon our repeated reverses, is so great that I fear the effect of so
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1 Congressional Globe, p. 3322 et seq,
2 Ibid., p. 3394.

important a step. It may be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help; the government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia, instead of Ethiopia stretching forth her hands to the government. It will be considered our last shriek on the retreat. Now, while I approve the measure, I suggest, sir, that you postpone its issue until you can give it to the country supported by military success, instead of issuing it, as would be the case now, upon the greatest disasters of the war." The President had not seen the matter in this light; the wisdom of Seward's objection struck him with force; and he "put the draft of the proclamation aside, waiting for a victory."1

The secret of this conference was well kept.2 The radical Republicans, ignorant of the President's determination to strike at slavery when the proper time should arrive, continued their criticisms of his policy. His order of August 4 for a draft of 300,000 nine-months militia8 combined with the general gloom that deepened as the summer went on, to intensify this fault-finding,4 which culminated in The Prayer of Twenty Millions, written by Greeley and printed in the New York Tribune of August 20. All who supported your election, he said, and desire the suppression of the rebellion, are sorely disappointed by the policy you seem to be pursuing with regard to the slaves of rebels. "We require of you, as
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 125 et seq.; Carpenter, Six Months at the White House, p. 20; Chase's Diary, Warden, p. 440.
2 An inkling of it got into the newspapers, but with incorrect details. See Chicago Tribune, August 13; Washington despatch to New York Tribune, August 21. The reports were not credited.
3 Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1862, p. 128. Only 87,588 men were furnished under this call.— Phisterer, p. 5.
4 New York Tribune, August 5 ; Chicago Tribune, August 7, 8 ; Independent, August 21. Sumner wrote Bright, August 5: "I wish . . . that the President had less vis inertice. He is hard to move. He is honest hut inexperienced. Thus far he has been influenced by the border States. I urged him, on the 4th of July, to put forth an edict of emancipation, telling him he could make the day more sacred and historic than ever. He replied: 'I would do it if I were not afraid that half the officers would fling down their arms and three more States would rise.'" — Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 83.

the first servant of the republic, charged especially and preeminently with this duty, that you execute the laws. We think you are strangely and disastrously remiss in the discharge of your official and imperative duty with regard to the emancipating provisions of the new Confiscation act; [that] you are unduly influenced by the counsels, the representations, the menaces of certain fossil politicians hailing from the border slave States; [that] timid counsels in such a crisis [are] calculated to prove perilous and probably disastrous. We complain that the Union cause has suffered and is now suffering immensely from your mistaken deference to rebel slavery. We complain that the Confiscation act which you approved is habitually disregarded by your generals, and that no word of rebuke for them has yet reached the public ear. Fremont's proclamation and Hunter's order were promptly annulled by you, while Halleck's No. 3,1 with scores of like tendency, have never provoked even your remonstrance. We complain that a large proportion of our regular army officers with many of the volunteers evince far more solicitude to uphold slavery than to put down the rebellion. I close as I began, with the statement that what an immense majority of the loyal millions of your countrymen require of you is a frank, declared, unqualified, ungrudging execution of the laws of the land, more especially of the Confiscation act." 2

Lincoln did not read this open letter, which was addressed to him only through the columns of the New York Tribune, until August 22. He replied at once in a letter which was printed the next day in the National Intelligencer of Washington, and was also telegraphed to Greeley, appearing in the evening edition of the Tribune? The President said: "If there be in it
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1 See note 1, p. 60. 4 This letter occupies two and one-half columns of the Tribune. I have cited little but the heads of the discourse, and have not indicated the ellipses by the usual dots. Only the last part of the letter is printed in Greeley, The American Conflict, vol. ii. p. 249.
2 Greeley, The American Conflict, vol. ii. p. 250 ; J. C. Welling, N. A Rev. Reminiscences of A. Lincoln, p. 523 ; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi. p. 152.

[your letter] any statements or assumptions of facts which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I 'seem to be pursuing,' as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be 'the Union as it was.' If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."1

Lincoln and Greeley may be looked upon as representative exponents of the two policies here outlined. There was in
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1 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 227.

their personal relations a lack of sympathy, because they did not see things alike. Lincoln knew men, Greeley did not; Lincoln had a keen sense of humor, Greeley had none; indeed, in all their intercourse of many years, Lincoln never told the serious-minded editor an anecdote or joke,1 for he knew it would be thrown away. Greeley and the Tribune, though not so powerful at this time in forming public opinion as they had been from 1854 to 1860, exerted still a far-reaching influence and gave expression to thoughts rising in the minds of many earnest men.2 No one knew this better than the President, who, in stating his policy in a public despatch to Greeley, flattered the editor and those for whom the Tribune spoke. His words received the widest publication,3 and were undoubtedly read by nearly every man and woman at the North. They were sound indeed. His position could not have been more cogently put. His policy was right and expedient, appealed to the reason of his people and inspired their hopes. How large a following Greeley had cannot be set down with exactitude. His letter was more than a petition like that of "the three tailors of Tooley Street," which one of his rivals deemed modesty itself compared with Greeley's,4 yet it was far from being the prayer of twenty millions. Lincoln had the majority with him before his reply, and his reply made many friends. In spite of the misfortune of the Army of the Potomac, he still had only to announce clearly his policy to obtain for it the support of a host of plain people.5 An
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1 Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life, p. 404.
2 A. K. McClure writes: "Notwithstanding the loyal support given to Lincoln throughout the country, Greeley was in closer touch with the active loyal sentiment of the people than even the President himself, and his journal constantly inspired not only those who sincerely believed in early emancipation, but all who were inclined to factious hostility to Lincoln, to most aggressive efforts to embarrass the administration by untimely forcing the emancipation policy." — Lincoln and Men of War Times, p. 295.
3 Greeley printed them, August 23, in his telegraphic news, and, August 25, In the editorial columns, following with a feeble rejoinder.
4 New York Herald, August 21.
5 Ibid.; New York Times, August 25; World, August 21, 25; Evening Post, August 25; Boston Daily Advertiser, August 25; Chicago Tribune, August 25, 26, 27. The editorial in the New York Tribune of August 27 is an indication that the tide of public sentiment had turned against Greeley.

enthusiastic mass-meeting in Chicago listened to the reading of a poem whose theme was the July call for troops. "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more," now became the song of the soldiers and the watchword of the people.1

Until the spring of 1862 the government of Great Britain preserved the neutrality which had been declared by the Queen's proclamation at the beginning of the war.2 As we have now come to the period when this neutrality was violated to the injury of the United States, and as it certainly would not have been violated had the feeling of the dominant classes been friendly to the North, reference must again be made to English sentiment on our Civil War. In classifying English sentiment as it prevailed in the autumn of 1861, and in suggesting certain excuses for the preponderating opinion of those whose political and social position was high,3 I omitted a consideration of weight. The sympathy of the British government and public with Italy during the war of 1859, and the progress made in that war towards Italian liberty, impressed upon the English mind the doctrine that a body of people who should seek to throw off an obnoxious dominion and form an orderly government of their own, deserved the best wishes of the civilized world for their success.4 Why, it was asked in England, if we were right to sympathize with Italy against Austria, should we not likewise sympathize with the Southern Confederacy, whose people were resisting the subjugation of the North?5 This argument swayed the judgment of the
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1 Chicago Tribune, August 21; Old War Songs, North and South, S. Brainard's Sons, Cleveland. a See vol. iii. p. 417.
3 Ibid., pp. 502, 509.
4 Lecky, Democracy and Liberty, vol. i. p. 490.
5 The traditional sympathy of the English for the weaker party may have been a contributing cause. See Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 152. R. P. Collier, a friend of the North, said in the House of Commons, February 23, 1864: "Our sympathies are always on the side of the weak against the strong — on the side of those who are struggling for independence against those who are struggling for conquest." —Hansard, 1010.

liberal-minded Grote,1 and colored other opinion which was really dictated by interests of rank or of commerce and manufactures. The divisions of sentiment in the spring of 1862 were the same as in the preceding autumn. The "Torifying influence " 2 which had affected English Liberals as a result of the Trent affair had been modified by victories of the Union armies in the Southwest.3 The belief obtained that the North would win and that England would get cotton; but as the spring wore on and no further progress was made, as the stock of cotton diminished and as the distress of the operatives in Lancashire increased, sympathy turned again to the South. Those who favored action on the part of the government, first by mediation, which, if not accepted by the North, should be succeeded by the recognition of the Southern Confederacy and the breaking of the blockade, grew stronger in their expressions. Men of this opinion watched the Emperor of the French, hoping that he might initiate the policy dear to their hearts which they could not persuade their own government to venture upon.4 The main body of the aristocracy and the highest of the middle class desired that the great democracy should fail, partly because it was a democracy, partly because it enacted high protective tariffs, partly because the division of a great power like the United States which had constantly threatened Great Britain with war would redound to their political advantage; but with that portion of the middle class engaged in commerce and manufactures the desire that overshadowed all else was that the war should come to an end so
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1 Lecky, Democracy and Liberty, vol. i. p. 488.
2 See vol. iii. p. 543.
3 Ibid., pp. 599, 630. The Earl of Malmesbury, a Conservative, makes this entry in his diary, London, May 23: "There is a rumor that the Confederates have been defeated, and Beauregard taken prisoner, which everybody regrets. The feeling for the South is very strong in society." — Memoirs of an ex-Minister, vol. ii. p. 273.
4 Adams to Seward, April 25, Diplomatic Correspondence, 1862, p. 77.

that England could get cotton and resume the export of her manufactured goods to America. The reports of the burning of cotton at the South, and the falling off in the demand of the North for English merchandise consequent on the enforced economy of the times, intensified this feeling. The North could terminate the war by the recognition of the Southern Confederacy; and the irritation was great over her persistence in the seemingly impossible task of conquering five and one-half millions of people. "Conquer a free population of 3,000,000 souls? the thing is impossible," Chatham had said; and this was applied with force to the case in hand.1

The friends of the North remained as sincere and active as in the previous autumn, but like the patriots at home they had days of discouragement at the small progress made towards a restoration of the Union. The most significant and touching feature of the situation is that the operatives of the North of England, who suffered most from the lack of cotton, were frankly on the side of the United States. They knew that their misery came from the war, and were repeatedly told that it would cease in a day if the North would accept an accomplished fact; but discerning, in spite of their meagre intelligence, that the struggle was one of democracy against privilege, of freedom against slavery, they resisted all attempts to excite them to a demonstration against its continuance. They saw their work fall off, their savings dwindle, their families in want even to the prospect of lacking bread, yet they desired the North to fight out the contest. Two careful writers who themselves sympathized with the United States say that a majority of Englishmen were of like opinion; that majority therefore must have been composed largely of the operatives of Lancashire and their kind.2
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1 Gregory's speech in the House of Commons, July 18, Hansard, 550. 2 Lecky, Democracy and Liberty, vol. i. p. 485; but he also states: "A majority of the upper, and perhaps of the middle classes soon came to sympathize decidedly with the South, and they were the classes who were most powerfully represented in the press, in society, and in parliament." — Goldwin Smith, The United States, p. 258, and Macmillan's Magazine, December 1865; see, also, speech of Thomas Hughes, "John to Jonathan," delivered in Boston, October 11, 1870, printed in Vacation Rambles.

If the indictment which Americans bring against the governing classes of England for their sympathy with the South is maintained at the bar of history, it will be because they sympathized with a slave power, and thereby seemed to admit their own government and people to have been wrong on the slavery question for a generation. The attempt of Englishmen to persuade themselves that slavery was not the issue of the war is a case of wilful blindness. This was a fact patent to all observers: The South held slaves, the North was free. Lincoln had been elected President for the reason that he represented the opposition to the extension of slavery, and his election was the cause of the secession and the war. If the North won, slavery would certainly be restricted and perhaps abolished; if the South gained her independence, slavery would be ratified and extended, and the African slave trade probably revived. Professor Cairnes and John Stuart Mill told the English public this in logic impossible of refutation, but the majority of voters remained unconvinced.1 Nothing could be less candid than many of the current expressions. In 1861, when the avowed object of the war was the restoration of the Union, it was said, Make your war one against slavery and you will have the warm sympathy of the British public;2 yet Lincoln's plan of compensated emancipation was pronounced chimerical and its proposal insincere, issued for the purpose of affecting
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1 Mill wrote in Fraser's Magazine for February, 1862: "But why discuss on probable evidence notorious facts? The world knows what the question between the North and South has been for many years and still is. Slavery alone was thought of, alone talked of. Slavery was battled for and against, on the floor of Congress and in the plains of Kansas ; on the slavery question exclusively was the party constituted which now rules the United States; on slavery Fremont was rejected, on slavery Lincoln was elected ; the South separated on slavery, and proclaimed slavery as the one cause of separation." Cairnes's book on the "Slave Power" was published between March and June. "The fact is the real issue is slavery." — Louis Blanc, London, July 21, Letters on England, vol. ii. p. 98.
2 See vol. iii. p. 510.

European opinion.1 Gladstone, a friend of the North in January,2 was later swayed by the sentiment of the powerful classes. April 24 he told the men of Manchester that the "deplorable struggle " was the cause of their misery, but that if the heart of the South were "set upon separation" she could not be conquered, and we must be careful therefore not to alienate her 6,000,000 or 10,000,000. He argued against the call of sympathy for the North on the ground that the contest was between slavery and freedom, declaring, "We have no faith in the propagation of free institutions at the point of the sword." 3 When William E. Forster said in the House of Commons that he believed it was generally acknowledged that slavery was the cause of the war, he was jeered with shouts, "No, no!" and "The tariff!" When he returned, " Why, Vice-President Stephens said that the South went to war to establish slavery as the corner-stone of the new republic," his retort was apparently looked upon as only the usual House of Commons repartee.4

The government of Great Britain was guilty of culpable negligence in permitting in March the sailing of the Florida, a vessel equipped for war, which had been built at Liverpool for the service of the Confederates. Sincere and diligent inquiry on the part of the authorities at Liverpool would have disclosed her true character and destination, and a friendly disposition towards the United States would have detained
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1 Cairnes, p. 163.
2 See vol. iii. p. 541.
3 Times, April 25.
4 July 18, Hansard, 537. My authorities for this account other than those directly cited are: the files of the Times, Daily News, Spectator, and Saturday Review, especially the Times of June 11, 23, 28, July 3, 5, 8, 9, 12 ; the Daily News, June 25, July 3, 5 ; the Saturday Review, May 31, June 7, 14, 21, July 5; the Spectator, May 31, June 14, 21, July 5; Charles Francis Adams's Diary ; Adams's letters to Seward, Diplomatic Correspondence, 1862 ; McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, vol. ii.; Life of Lord Palmerston, Lloyd C. Sanders ; Thomas Hughes, "John to Jonathan," Boston, October, 1870, Vacation Rambles ; letters of Bright, Cobden, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll to Sumner, Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.; Letters on England, Louis Blanc, vol. ii.

her until sufficient legal investigation could be made in proceedings for her condemnation. From Liverpool the Florida went to Nassau. There the animus of the authorities was favorable to the Confederacy, but the evidence of the Florida's character was so conclusive that, in spite of their disinclination to perform an obvious duty, it was impossible to avoid seizing her. Judicial proceedings were instituted for her condemnation, but she was released. "In my opinion," writes Chief Justice Cockburn, the British arbitrator at the Tribunal of Geneva, "the Florida ought to have been condemned, and there was a miscarriage of justice in her acquittal."1

While the British government "neglected to use due diligence for the fulfilment of its duties as a neutral," 2 it took care to commit no positive act of hostility. In answer to a question Lord Palmerston stated, in the House of Commons, June 13, that the government had no present intention "of offering mediation between the two contending parties" in America, and that it had received no communication on the subject from France. Seventeen days later this attitude was modified, when, in referring to the sufferings and privations in the cotton-manufacturing districts, which were endured
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1 My principal authorities in the case of the Florida and Alabama. are contained in two British Blue-books entitled "Papers relating to Proceedings of the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva" (1872). There were five arbitrators, Count Sclopis, M. Staempfli, Baron d'ltajuba, named respectively by the King of Italy, President of Switzerland, and Emperor of Brazil. Charles Francis Adams was the American, and Chief Justice Cockburn the British arbitrator. In these books are printed the opinions and arguments of these five. In the case of the Florida I have relied mainly on the opinion of the three disinterested members of the board. In the consideration of this and the Alabama the mere designations part i. and part ii. will be understood to refer to these Blue-books. As to the Florida, see Count Sclopis, part i. p. 32, M. Staempfli, p. 14, Baron d'ltajuba, p. 28. See also Adams, p. 18. Chief Justice Cockburn dissented from these opinions, part ii. p. 116. The quotation from him in the text is on p. 140. See Adams to Russell, February 18, and Russell's reply, Diplomatic Correspondence, 1862, pp. 39, 40; Bulloch, The Secret Service of the Confederate States, vol. i. The Florida was built under the name of the Oreto.
2 Baron d'ltajuba, part i. p. 28.

"the most heroic fortitude and patience," he said that they would offer mediation if there were a chance of success.1

By July 11 it was known in London that McClellan had met with serious reverses before Richmond and had been forced to retreat to the James River. Those who sympathized with the South to the extent of desiring that their government might openly aid the Confederacy were full of glee at the turn affairs had taken, while the main body of the aristocracy and middle class, who opposed intervention of any sort, also showed evident satisfaction. What encouragement could be given the South through speeches, through leaders in the press, and through social influence, they gave with an open hand; yet an analysis of the different expressions discovers a warm sympathy with the South only in those who had plainly a fellow-feeling for the aristocracy across the sea, for deep in the hearts of those who were unbiassed by the traditions of their order lay a secret distrust of their own arguments and a perception of the truth that the South was fighting to preserve slavery. Rather was the moving spirit one of hostility to the North, and perhaps it was not so much hostility as it was irritation that the United States should seem to be so blind to the interests of civilization. Before McClellan's defeat was known, the Times had spoken of " this insensate and degenerate people," 2 and the tenor of its preaching was, "The war can only end in one way. Why not accept the facts and let the South begone ?" 3 When the misfortune of the Union army was learned, the leaders in the Times glowed with impatience and remonstrance against the continuance of a hopeless struggle. Englishmen will probably never realize how these words stung the Northern people in their time of trouble.4 Nothing illustrates better the power
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1 Hansard, 543, 1214.
2 July 9.
3 Thus paraphrased by the Spectator, July 12.
4 "The Russian minister said they [the English] had no sensibility themselves, and hence could not understand it in others. He thought well of Lord Palmerston because he could depend on what he said. 'Mais cet homme a la peau dure comme un rhinocere.' "—Diary of Charles Francis Adams, entry June 13. With rare generosity Mr. Charles F. Adams allowed me to use his father's diary in manuscript and to print the extracts from it in this chapter and in chap. xxii. In some measure they will show its value to me ; but the careful reading of the diary has given me, moreover, an understanding of English sentiment and the course of the English government which I could have obtained in no other way.

of a journal than the utterances of the "Thunderer," which irritated Americans more than any speech of Palmerston, any despatch of Earl Russell, and I think I may safely add any violation of Great Britain's neutrality.1 Let one imagine how different would have been the feeling between the two English-speaking nations had the ability and influence of this newspaper been on the side of the North! 2

The majority of English voters for whom the Times was alike the oracle and the organ had a fit representative in the Prime Minister Palmerston, who seemed to have some sort of political relations with the editor of the journal.3 The Times
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1 "The Times, which is aware that its articles weigh in America more heavily than despatches, writes every now and then as if it wanted war." — The Spectator, July 12.
2 ''During the whole reign of the Ten-pounders — i. e. from 1832 to 1867 — the Times affected the governing opinion almost too deeply. At one period which lasted years, it was hardly possible to pass a law of which the Times disapproved. It was most difficult to appoint any man whom the Times condemned to great office, while the man to whom the Times pointed as one who ought to rise, as a rule did rise, sometimes very fast indeed." — The Spectator, November 10, 1894. "The Times, existing as an organ of the common, satisfied, well-to-do Englishman, and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that." — Matthew Arnold, Essay on the Function of Criticism (1865). See, also, Kinglake's Invasion of the Crimea (London, 1888), vol. ii. p. 232 et seq.
3 After making a note of a conversation between Palmerston, Delane, the principal editor of the Times, and himself, Adams writes: "Delane was evidently sounding in order to guide his paper by ministerial policy. I have always attributed the obvious ill will to us visible in the Times, the Post, and the Globe to the disposition of the premier. Without committing himself or the government to any one of them, it is quite notorious that he conciliates their good will by suffering them to conjecture his wishes." — Entry in Diary, May 10.

did not favor mediation or intervention on the part of Great Britain alone, and so argued in its leader of July 18. On this day, long looked forward to by the active friends of the South, took place, in the House of Commons, the debate on Lindsay's resolution that the government ought seriously to consider the propriety of offering to mediate between the United States and the Southern Confederacy. Four speakers supported the motion; two opposed it, one of whom was William E. Forster. Lord Palmerston closed the debate in expressing the hope that the House would be content to leave the matter in the hands of the government. Lindsay thereupon withdrew his motion.1 Nevertheless, after McClellan's defeat the inimical feeling towards the North increased rapidly. The distress in the cotton-manufacturing districts was sore,2 and it was natural that the English governing classes desired the most speedy possible settlement of the American difficulty. It would be shallow to find fault with them for thinking the North would fail in its effort to conquer the South, since the
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1 Hansard, 511 et seq. 2 "The shadow of the American calamity is creeping with a slow but steady advance over the shining wealth of our cotton districts and threatening it with a temporary but total eclipse. Little by little the darkness grows; first one town and then another is swallowed up in the gloom of universal pauperism; the want is urgent, and the prevalent idleness is at least as menacing as the want; young women in large numbers are thrown upon public charity without proper accommodation by night, and with no proper avocation by day; young men accustomed to the constant strain of mechanical exertion are suddenly left to the undesirable companionship of their own restless minds. The rates are becoming so heavy that in some places 50 per cent. of the expected returns have to be remitted on the ground of poverty; the benevolence of the most opulent is stretched, and that of the generous is over-taxed; and yet we have an autumn and winter of probably deepening gloom before us." — Spectator, July 19.
"The cotton famine is altogether the saddest thing that has befallen this country for many a year. There have been gloomy times enough before this. We have seen Ireland perishing from actual starvation, and England half ruined from commercial distress. War and rebellion have taken their turn among the troubles from which a great nation can scarcely expect to be long free. But in the worst of our calamities there has seldom been so pitiable a sight as the manufacturing districts present at this moment." — Saturday Review, July 26.

opinion of our friends was the same.1 The working people still desired the North to fight it out.2

The most culpable act of negligence is yet to be recorded. As early as June 23 Adams called the attention of Earl Russell to a "more powerful war steamer" than the Florida which was being completed at Liverpool and which was nearly ready for departure. This ship became on her second christening the Alabama. Adams asked that she be prevented from sailing unless the fact should be established that her purpose was not inimical to the United States.3 The communication was referred to the proper department, and in the course of business reached Liverpool, where the sympathy of the community with the Confederate States was notorious. The surveyor of the port, who undoubtedly suspected for whom the ship-of-war was intended, took care to shut his eyes to any condemning evidence, and made a colorless statement which was submitted by the Commissioners of Customs in London to their solicitor, and was adjudged by him to be sufficient ground for advising against her seizure. The commissioners in their communication to the Lords of the Treasury concurred in the opinion of their legal adviser, but
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1 "The last news from your side has created regret among your friends and pleasure among your enemies. I am grieved at it. ... I do not lose faith in your cause, hut I wish I had less reason to feel anxious about you." — Bright to Sumner, July 12. "There is an all but unanimous belief that you cannot subject the South to the Union. ... I feel quite convinced that unless cotton comes in considerable quantities before the end of the year, the governments of Europe will be knocking at your door." — Cobden to Sumner, July 11. "We have just heard of the apparent defeat of your army before Richmond. At least, such is the construction put on the telegraphic news here. Will it only excite the government the more to more determined efforts — or will it tend to induce a disposition to concede a separation? We are all speculating." — Duke of Argyll to Sumner, July 12. "I cannot believe in there being any Union party in the South, and if not, can the continuance of the war be justified ?" — Duchess of Argyll to Sumner, July 12. All these from Pierce-Sumner Papers, MS.
2 On this subject in general see the Times, July 14, 16, 18, 21, 22; the Daily News, July 11, 16, 22, 29; the Spectator, July 12, 19, August 2; Saturday Review, July 12, 19, 26, August 2, 9; Adams's letters to Seward and his diary for July.
3 Part ii. p. 180.

said that "the officers at Liverpool will keep a strict watch on the vessel."1 All these papers came to Earl Russell, who, on the advice of the Attorney-General and SolicitorGeneral,2 suggested to Adams that the United States consul at Liverpool (Dudley) be instructed to submit to the collector of the port any evidence that confirmed his suspicion. Adams and Dudley were indefatigable, and July 9 Dudley addressed to the collector a letter which no impartial man could have read without being convinced that the vessel in question was designed for the Southern Confederacy. The greater part of his statements, writes Chief Justice Cockburn in his opinion dissenting from the award of the Geneva Tribunal, "could not have been made available in an English Court."3 But the moral evidence was complete, and needed only time and opportunity to convert it into legal proof. It is not surprising that in the analysis of the historical laboratory the result reached is that the collector, the solicitor, and the Commissioners of Customs knew in their hearts that the Alabama was intended for the Confederate government, secretly wished that she might get away, and since they had not strictly a legal case against her persuaded themselves that their were performing their official duty. Chief Justice Cockburn, who puts the best face possible upon the action of the English authorities, intimates that at this juncture these officials should have addressed an inquiry to the Messrs. Laird, demanding for whom this warship was designed. "If it had been," he adds, "the high character of these gentlemen would doubtless have insured either a refusal to answer or a truthful answer. The former would have helped materially to establish a case against the
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1 Part i. p. 36.
2 This was the opinion signed June 30: "If the representation made by Mr. Adams is in accordance with the facts, the building and equipment of the steamer is a manifest violation of the Foreign Enlistment act, and steps ought to be taken to put that act in force and to prevent the vessel from going to sea." — Part i, p. 36; see also Earl Selborne, Memorials, vol. ii. p. 421.
3 Part ii. p. 183.

vessel, the latter would have justified her immediate seizure."1 This criticism is unanswerable. To require from Dudley direct proof which he must procure in a hostile community, with the quiet opposition probably of an unsympathetic and technical bureaucracy, was unfriendly and exasperating.

Three weeks had passed since the customs officials at Liverpool and London had been enjoined to find out the truth, but had they actually conspired to suppress it, they would hardly have acted differently. They showed no disposition to search for proof, and carped at the evidence offered them.2 July 17 Adams wrote Dudley to employ a solicitor and secure affidavits to submit to the collector. Four days later Dudley and his solicitor brought to the collector direct proof. Six persons deposed to the character and destination of the vessel; five of whom showed it to be reasonably probable that the Alabama was destined for the Southern Confederacy, while the sixth, a mariner of Birkenhead, swore that " it is well known by the hands on board that the vessel is going out as a privateer for the Confederate government to act against the United States under a commission from Mr. Jefferson Davis."3 We cannot detain the vessel, says the collector. Insufficient evidence, says the solicitor of customs. You are both right, say the commissioners. The work of getting the Alabama ready went on with swiftness and zeal, while the Circumlocution Office moved with the pace of a snail. The papers went to the Lords of the Treasury.

Meanwhile Adams had retained a Queen's Counsel of eminence, R. P. Collier, to whom the six depositions and two additional ones were submitted. Collier's opinion is in no uncertain tone. "I am of opinion," he wrote, "that the collector of customs would be justified in detaining the vessel., Indeed, I should think it his duty to detain her. ... It appears difficult to make out a stronger case of infringement of the Foreign Enlistment act, which, if not enforced on this occasion, is little better than a dead letter. It well deserves
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1 Part ii. p. 184.
2 Adams, part i. p. 37.
3 Part ii. p. 185.

consideration, whether, if the vessel be allowed to escape, the Federal government would not have serious grounds of remonstrance." 1 This opinion went to the customs authorities at Liverpool. "It was the duty of the collector of customs at Liverpool," declares Cockburn, "as early as the 22d of July to detain this vessel." 2 The collector would not act, and referred the matter to his superiors, the Commissioners of Customs. Insufficient evidence is still the word of the assistant solicitor of customs, who adds, I cannot concur in Collier's views. At this stage of the proceedings, writes Cockburn, "it became in my opinion the duty of the Commissioners of Customs at once to direct the seizure to be made. Misled by advice which they ought to have rejected as palpably erroneous, they unfortunately refused to cause the vessel to be seized." 3

In the mean time Adams had sent the affidavits, the opinion of Collier, and many other papers relating to the case to Earl Russell. "I ought to have been satisfied with the opinion of Sir Robert Collier," wrote Russell in after years, with a candor which does him honor, "and to have given orders to detain the Alabama at Birkenhead."4

Now ensues a scene which, useful as it would have been to the writer of an opera-bouffe libretto, or to Dickens for his account of the Circumlocution Office, completely baffles the descriptive pen of the historian. The papers received from the Commissioners of Customs and those which Adams had sent Russell were submitted to the law officers of the Crown, one set reaching them July 23, the other July 26; that is to say, they reached the senior officer, the Queen's Advocate, on those days. Sir John Harding, who was then the Queen's Advocate, had been ill and incapacitated for business since the latter part of June; in fact, his excitable nerves and weak constitution had succumbed to the strain of work, and he was now verging on insanity. At his private house these papers
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1 Diplomatic Correspondence, 1862, p. 152.
2 Part ii. p. 190.
3 Part ii. p. 190.
4 Recollections and Suggestions, Earl Russell, p. 235, see, also, p. 332.

lay for five days. Work on the Alabama went on briskly, and everybody in the kingdom was satisfied with having done his duty. The collector had referred the matter to the Commissioners; the Commissioners had referred it to the Lords of the Treasury; the Lords and Earl Russell had referred it to the law officers of the Crown. The papers on which perhaps depended war or peace between two great nations either received no notice whatever, or were examined only by a lawyer who was going mad.1 Finally, on July 28, the Attorney-General and Solicitor-General got hold of the papers. Their report was conclusive. "We recommend," they said, July 29, "that without loss of time the vessel be seized by the proper authorities."2 It was too late. The Alabama had left port that morning, and under pretence of a trial trip had gone out to sea. Yet she was still on the Welsh coast, only fifty miles from Liverpool, where the most ordinary energy on the part of the London and Liverpool authorities would have been sufficient to effect her apprehension before she started on the career which was to do so much in driving the American merchant marine from the high seas.3
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1 Part ii.; Mozley's Reminiscences, chap. xcii. vol. ii.; Lord Selborne's account in Reid's Life of Lord John Russell, p. 313; Sir H. James's statement in the House of Commons, March 17, 1893; Lord Selborne's letter in reply, Sir H. James's answer, and Selborne's rejoinder, Times, March 24, 1893.
2 Part ii. p. 188.
3 " You have been," said Cobden, May 13, 1864, "carrying on hostilities from these shores against the people of the United States, and have been inflicting an amount of damage on that country greater than would be produced by many ordinary wars. It is estimated that the loss sustained by the capture and burning of American vessels has been about $15,000,000, or nearly £3,000,000 sterling. But that is a small part of the injury which has been inflicted on the American marine. We have rendered the rest of her vast mercantile property for the present valueless." "There could not," said William E. Forster, May 13, 1864, "be a stronger illustration of the damage which had been done to the American trade by these cruisers than the fact, that, so completely was the American flag driven from the ocean, the Georgia, on her second cruise, did not meet a single American vessel in six weeks, though she saw no less than seventy vessels in a very few days." — Hansard, quoted in Sumner's speech on the Johnson-Clarendon treaty, Sumner's Works, vol. xiii. pp. 77, 78.

As nothing in the way of negligence could have been so unfriendly, and nothing could have been more derogatory to honest neutrality than the action of the British authorities and government in this case,1 it is little wonder that an English writer of standing has asserted that every cabinet minister rejoiced at the escape of the Alabama? and that before the end of 1862 the gossip about London ran that Earl Russell himself had given warning to the Alabama to go before the order to stop her could be sent.3 Again, it has been stated frequently by American writers that the English government — meaning the ministry — connived at the escape of the Confederate privateer. All these statements are untrue. It is certain that at least four cabinet ministers — the Duke of Argyll, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, Milner Gibson, and Earl Russell — regretted deeply the escape of the Alabama. Touching the first three, no evidence need be adduced, and no charge further than negligence and indecision at an im
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1 "The Government of Great Britain neglected to use due diligence for the fulfilment of its duties as a neutral." —Baron d'ltajuba, part i. p. 41. "The example of the Oreto made it the duty of the British authorities to be on their guard against acts of this kind. They, nevertheless, did not in any way take the initiative, on the representations of Dudley and Adams, with the view of inquiring into the true state of affairs, although they had given an assurance that the authorities should take the matter up. After sufficient evidence had been furnished, the examination of it was so much procrastinated, and the measures taken to arrest the vessel were so defective, that she was enabled to escape just before the order for her seizure was given." — M. Staempfli, part i. p. 48. "The neutrality of Great Britain was gravely compromised by the vessel named the Alabama." — Count Sclopis, p. 55. Most of my facts have been drawn from the dissenting opinion of Chief Justice Cockburn.
Since writing this, vol. ii. of the Memorials, Family and Personal, of the Earl of Selborne (who at the time was Solicitor-General) has appeared. I have read carefully his statement and argument. I see no reason to modify any expression I have used. I have added to my account that Selborne (then Roundell Palmer) and the Attorney-General gave Russell an opinion June 30. — Ante, p. 86.
2 "There was not one of her Majesty's ministers who was not ready to jump out of his skin for joy when he heard of the escape of the Alabama." — Mozley's Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 141. "Mozley, then, I believe, a regular writer for the Times." —Selborne Memorials, vol. ii. p. 428.
3 Russell's statement to Adams, Diary, entry November 15.

portant juncture can be brought against Earl Russell. Cobden wrote Sumner: "Earl Russell was bona fide in his desire to prevent the Alabama from leaving, but he was tricked and was angry at the escape of the vessel."1 The most intelligent and decisive appreciation of the Foreign Secretary's attitude was expressed by Charles Francis Adams before the Tribunal of Arbitration at Geneva, in words honorable to both men, who had contended as ardently in conversation and letter as the courtesy of diplomatic usage would permit. "I am far from drawing any inferences," he said, "to the effect that he [Earl Russell] was actuated in any way by motives of ill-will to the United States, or, indeed, by unworthy motives of any kind. If I were permitted to judge from a calm comparison of the relative weight of his various opinions with his action in different contingencies, I should be led rather to infer a balance of good-will than of hostility to the United States." 2
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1 May 2,1863, Morley's Cobden, p. 584. Spencer Walpole, on the authority of a letter from the Duke of Argyll of December 5, 1872, makes the statement that Russell in cabinet meeting proposed that the Alabama be detained in the event that she entered any British port, and actually drafted a despatch directing this. He was supported in this by no one but the Duke of Argyll, and the design was abandoned. — Life of Russell, vol. ii. p. 355.
2 Part i. p. 24.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.4. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].