It is the custom of historians to measure the relative strength of North
and South chiefly in terms of population. The North numbered 23,000,000
inhabitants; the South, about 9,000,000, of which the slave population
amounted to 3,500,000. But these obvious statistics only partially
indicate the real situation. Not what one has, but what one is capable
of using is, of course, the true measure of strength. If, in 1861,
either side could have struck swiftly and with all its force, the story
of the war would have been different. The question of relative strength
was in reality a question of munitions. Both powers were glaringly
unprepared. Both had instant need of great supplies of arms and
ammunition, and both turned to European manufacturers for aid. Those
Americans who, in a later war, wished to make illegal the neutral trade
in munitions forgot that the international right of a belligerent to buy
arms from a neutral had prevented their own destruction in 1861. In
the supreme American crisis, agents of both North and South hurried to
Europe in quest of munitions. On the Northern side the work was done
chiefly by the three ministers, Charles Francis Adams, at London;
William L. Dayton, at Paris; and Henry S. Sanford, at Brussels; by
an able special agent, Colonel George L. Schuyler; and by the famous
banking-house of Baring Brothers, which one might almost have called the
European department of the United States Treasury.
The eager solicitude of the War Department over the competition of the
two groups of agents in Europe informs a number of dispatches that are,
today, precious admonitions to the heedless descendants of that dreadful
time. As late as October, 1861, the Acting Secretary of War wrote to
Schuyler, one of whose shipments had been delayed: "The Department
earnestly hopes to receive...the 12,000 Enfield rifles and the remainder
of the 27,000, which you state you have purchased, by the earliest
steamer following. Could you appreciate the circumstances by which we
are surrounded, you would readily understand the urgent necessity there
is for the immediate delivery of all the arms you are authorized to
purchase. The Department expects to hear that you have been able
to conclude the negotiations for the 48,000 rifles from the French
government arsenals." That the Confederate Government acted even more
promptly than the Union Government appears from a letter of Sanford to
Seward in May: "I have vainly expected orders," he complains, "for
the purchase of arms for the Government, and am tempted to order from
Belgium all they can send over immediately.... Meanwhile the workshops
are filling with orders from the South.... It distresses me to think
that while we are in want of them, Southern money is taking them away to
be used against us."
At London, Adams took it upon himself to contract for arms in advance of
instructions. He wrote to Seward: "Aware of the degree to which I exceed
my authority in taking such a step, nothing but a conviction of the need
in which the country stands of such assistance and the joint opinion of
all the diplomatic agents of the United States...in Paris, has induced
me to overcome my scruples." How real was the necessity of which this
able diplomat was so early conscious, is demonstrated at every turn
in the papers of the War Department. Witness this brief dispatch from
Harrisburg: "All ready to leave but no arms. Governor not willing to
let us leave State without them, as act of Assembly forbids. Can arms
be sent here?" When this appeal was made, in December, 1861, arms were
pouring into the country from Europe, and the crisis had passed. But if
this appeal had been made earlier in the year, the inevitable answer may
be guessed from a dispatch which the Ordnance Office sent, as late as
September, to the authorities of West Virginia, refusing to supply
them with arms because the supplies were exhausted, and adding, "Every
possible exertion is being made to obtain additional supplies by
contract, by manufacture, and by purchase, and as soon as they can be
procured by any means, in any way, they will be supplied."
Curiously enough, not only the Confederacy but various States of the
North were more expeditious in this all-important matter than Cameron
and the War Department. Schuyler's first dispatch from London gives
this singular information: "All private establishments in Birmingham
and London are now working for the States of Ohio, Connecticut, and
Massachusetts, except the London Armory, whose manufacture is supposed
to go to the Rebels, but of this last fact I am not positively informed.
I am making arrangements to secure these establishments for our
Government, if desirable after the present State contracts expire. On
the Continent, Messrs, Dayton and Sanford...have been making contracts
and agreements of various kinds, of which you are by this time
informed." Soon afterward, from Paris, he made a long report detailing
the difficulties of his task, the limitations of the existing munitions
plants in Europe, and promising among other things those "48,000 rifles
from the French government arsenals" for which, in the letter already
quoted, the War Department yearned. It was an enormous labor; and,
strive as he would, Schuyler found American mail continuing to bring him
such letters as this from the Assistant Secretary of War in October: "I
notice with much regret that [in the latest consignment] there were no
guns sent, as it was confidently expected that 20,000 would arrive by
the [steamship] Fulton, and accordingly arrangements had been made to
distribute them through the different States. Prompt and early shipments
of guns are desirable. We hope to hear by next steamer that you have
shipped from 80,000 to 100,000 stand."
The last word on the problem of munitions, which was so significant
a factor in the larger problem, is the report of the United States
Ordnance Office for the first year of the war. It shows that between
April, 1861, and June, 1862, the Government purchased from American
manufacturers somewhat over 30,000 rifles, and that from European makers
it purchased 726,000.
From these illustrations it is therefore obvious that the true measure
of the immediate strength of the American contestants in 1861 was the
extent of their ability to supply themselves from Europe; and this,
stated more concretely, became the question as to which was the better
able to keep its ports open and receive the absolutely essential
European aid. Lincoln showed his clear realization of the situation
when he issued, immediately after the first call for volunteers, a
proclamation blockading the Southern coasts. Whether the Northern people
at the time appreciated the significance of this order is a question.
Amid the wild and vain clamor of the multitude in 1861, with its
conventional and old-fashioned notion of war as a thing of trumpets and
glittering armies, the North seems wholly to have ignored its fleet; and
yet in the beginning this resource was its only strength.
The fleet was small, to be sure, but its task was at first also small.
There were few Southern ports which were doing a regular business with
Europe, and to close these was not difficult. As other ports opened and
the task of blockade grew, the Northern navy also increased. Within a
few months, to the few observers who did not lose their heads, it was
plain that the North had won the first great contest of the war. It had
so hampered Southern trade that Lincoln's advantage in arming the North
from Europe was ten to one. At the very time when detractors of Lincoln
were hysterical over the removal of Fremont, when Grimes wrote to
Fessenden that the country was going to the dogs as fast as imbecility
could carry it, this great achievement had quietly taken place. An
expedition sailing in August from Fortress Monroe seized the forts which
commanded Hatteras Inlet off the coast of North Carolina. In November,
Commander Dupont, U. S. N., seized Port Royal, one of the best harbors
on the coast of South Carolina, and established there a naval base.
Thenceforth, while the open Northern ports received European munitions
without hindrance, it was a risky business getting munitions into the
ports of the South. Only the boldest traders would attempt to "run the
blockade," to evade the Federal patrol ships by night and run into a
Southern port.
However, for one moment in the autumn of 1861, it seemed as if all the
masterful work of the Northern navy would be undone by the Northern
people themselves in backing up the rashness of Captain Charles Wilkes,
of the war-ship San Jacinto. On the high seas he overhauled the British
mail steamer, Trent. Aboard her were two Confederate diplomatic
agents, James M. Mason and John Slidell, who had run the blockade from
Charleston to Havana and were now on their way to England. Wilkes took
off the two Confederates as prisoners of war. The crowd in the North
went wild. "We do not believe," said the New York Times, "that the
American heart ever thrilled with more sincere delight."
The intemperate joy of the crowd over the rashness of Wilkes was due in
part to a feeling of bitterness against the British Government. In
May, 1861, the Queen had issued a proclamation of neutrality, whose
justification in international law was hotly debated at the time and was
generally denied by Northerners. England was the great cotton market of
the world. To the excited Northern mind, in 1861, there could be but one
explanation of England's action: a partisan desire to serve the South,
to break up the blockade, and to secure cotton. Whether such was the
real purpose of the ministry then in power is now doubted; but at
that time it was the beginning of a sharp contention between the two
Governments. The Trent affair naturally increased the tension. So keen
was the indignation of all classes of Englishmen that it seemed, for a
moment, as if the next step would be war.
In America, the prompt demand for the release of Mason and Slidell was
met, at first, in a spirit equally bellicose. Fortunately there were
cool and clear heads that at once condemned Wilkes's action as a gross
breach of international law. Prominent among these was Sumner. The
American Government, however, admitted the justice of the British demand
and the envoys were released.
Relations with the United States now became a burning issue in
English politics. There were three distinct groups in Parliament. The
representatives of the aristocracy, whether Liberals or Conservatives,
in the main sympathized with the South. So did most of the large
manufacturers whose business interests were affected by cotton. Great
bitterness grew up among the Northerners against both these groups,
partly because in the past many of their members had condemned slavery
and had said scornful things about America for tolerating it. To these
Northerners the Englishmen replied that Lincoln himself had declared
the war was not over slavery; that it was an ordinary civil war not
involving moral issues. Nevertheless, the third Parliamentary group
insisted that the American war, no matter what the motives of the
participants, would, in the event of a Northern victory, bring about the
abolition of slavery, whereas, if the South won, the result would be
the perpetuation of slavery. This third group, therefore, threw all its
weight on the side of the North. In this group Lincoln recognized his
allies, and their cause he identified with his own in his letter to
English workmen which was quoted in the previous chapter. Their leaders
in Parliament were Richard Cobden, W. E. Forster, and John Bright.
All these groups were represented in the Liberal party, which, for the
moment, was in power.
In the Cabinet itself there was a "Northern" and a "Southern" faction.
Then, too, there were some who sympathized with the North but who felt
that its cause was hopeless--so little did they understand the relative
strength of the two sections--and who felt that the war was a terrible
proof of the uselessness of mere suffering. Gladstone, in later days,
wished to be thought of as having been one of these, though at the time,
a famous utterance of his was construed in the North as a declaration
of hostility. To a great audience at Newcastle he said in October, 1862:
"We may have our own opinions about slavery; we may be for or against
the South; but there is no doubt that Jefferson Davis and other leaders
of the South have made an army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and
they have made, what is more than either--they have made a nation."
The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, wished to intervene in the American
war and bring about an amicable separation into two countries, and so,
apparently, did the Foreign Secretary, Lord John Russell. Recently, the
American minister had vainly protested against the sailing of a ship
known as 290 which was being equipped at Liverpool presumably for the
service of the Confederacy, and which became the famous Alabama. For two
years it roved the ocean destroying Northern commerce, and not until
it was sunk at last in a battle with the U. S. S. Kearsarge did all the
maritime interests of the North breathe again freely. In time and as a
result of arbitration, England paid for the ships sunk by the Alabama.
But in 1862, the protests of the American minister fell on deaf ears.
It must be added that the sailing of the Alabama from Liverpool was
due probably to the carelessness of British officials rather than to
deliberate purpose. And yet the fact is clear that about the first of
October, 1862, the British ministry was on the verge of intervening to
secure recognition of the independence of the Southern confederacy. The
chief motive pressing them forward was the distress in England caused by
the lack of cotton which resulted from the American blockade. In 1860,
the South had exported 615,000 bales; in 1861, only 10,127 bales. In
1862 half the spindles of Manchester were idle; the workmen were out of
employment; the owners were without dividends. It was chiefly by these
manufacturing capitalists that pressure was put upon the ministry,
and it was in the manufacturing district that Gladstone, thinking the
Government was likely to intervene, made his allusion to the South as a
nation.
Meanwhile the Emperor of the French was considering a proposal to
England and Russia to join with him in mediation between the American
belligerents. On October 28, 1862, Napoleon III gave audience to the
Confederate envoy at Paris, discussed the Southern cause in the most
friendly manner, questioned him upon the Maryland campaign, plainly
indicated his purpose to attempt intervention, and at parting cordially
shook hands with him. Within a few days the Emperor made good his
implied promise.
The month of November, 1862, is one of the turning-points in American
foreign relations. Both Russia and England rejected France's proposal.
The motive usually assigned to the Emperor Alexander is his hatred of
everything associated with slavery. His own most famous action was the
liberation of the Russian serfs. The motives of the British ministry,
however, appear more problematical.
Mr. Rhodes thinks he can discern evidence that Adams communicated
indirectly to Palmerston the contents of a dispatch from Seward which
indicated that the United States would accept war rather than mediation.
Palmerston had kept his eyes upon the Maryland campaign, and Lee's
withdrawal did not increase his confidence in the strength of the South.
Lord Russell, two months previous, had flatly told the Confederate envoy
at London that the South need not hope for recognition unless it could
establish itself without aid, and that "the fluctuating events of
the war, the alternation of defeat and victory," composed such a
contradictory situation that "Her Majesty's Government are still
determined to wait."
Perhaps the veiled American warning--assuming it was conveyed to
Palmerston, which seems highly probable--was not the only diplomatic
innuendo of the autumn of 1862 that has escaped the pages of history.
Slidell at Paris, putting together the statements of the British
Ambassador and those of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, found in
them contradictions as to what was going on between the two governments
in relation to America. He took a hand by attempting to inspire M.
Drouyn de L'huys with distrust of England, telling him he "HAD SEEN...a
letter from a leading member of the British Cabinet...in which he very
plainly insinuated that France was playing an unfair game," trying to
use England as Napoleon's catspaw. Among the many motives that may
well have animated the Palmerston Government in its waiting policy, a
distrust of Napoleon deserves to be considered.
It is scarcely rash, however, to find the chief motive in home politics.
The impetuous Gladstone at Newcastle lost his head and spoke too soon.
The most serious effect of his premature utterance was the prompt
reaction of the "Northern party" in the Cabinet and in the country.
Whatever Palmerston's secret desires were, he was not prepared to take
the high hand, and he therefore permitted other members of the Cabinet
to state in public that Gladstone had been misunderstood. In an
interview with Adams, Lord Russell, "whilst endeavoring to excuse Mr.
Gladstone," assured him that "the policy of the Government was to adhere
to a strict neutrality and leave the struggle to settle itself." In the
last analysis, the Northern party in England was gaining ground. The
news from America, possibly, and Gladstone's rashness, certainly, roused
it to increased activity. Palmerston, whose tenure of power was none too
secure, dared not risk a break that might carry the disaffected into the
ranks of the Opposition.
From this time forward the North rapidly grew in favor in British public
opinion, and its influence upon the Government speedily increased.
Says Lord Charnwood in his recent life of Lincoln: "The battle of
Antietam was followed within five days by an event which made it
impossible for any government of this country to take action unfriendly
to the North." He refers of course to the Emancipation Proclamation,
which was issued on September 23, 1862. Lord Charnwood's remark may
be too dramatic. But there can be no doubt that the Emancipation
Proclamation was the turning-point in Lincoln's foreign policy; and
because of it, his friends in England eventually forced the Government
to play into his hands, and so frustrated Napoleon's scheme for
intervention. Consequently Lincoln was able to maintain the blockade
by means of which the South was strangled. Thus, at bottom, the crucial
matter was Emancipation.
Lincoln's policy with regard to slavery passed through three distinct
stages. As we have seen, he proposed, at first, to pledge the Government
not to interfere with slavery in the States where it then existed. This
was his maximum of compromise. He would not agree to permitting its
extension into new territory. He maintained this position through 1861,
when it was made an accusation against him by the Abolitionists and
contributed to the ebb of his popularity. It also played a great part
in the episode of Fremont. At a crucial moment in Fremont's career, when
his hold upon popularity seemed precarious, he set at naught the
policy of the President and issued an order (August 30, 1861), which
confiscated all property and slaves of those who were in arms against
the United States or actively aiding the enemy, and which created a
"bureau of abolition." Whether Fremont was acting from conviction or
"playing politics" may be left to his biographers. In a most tactful
letter Lincoln asked him to modify the order so as to conform to the
Confiscation Act of Congress; and when Fremont proved obdurate, Lincoln
ordered him to do so. In the outcry against Lincoln when Fremont was at
last removed, the Abolitionists rang the changes on this reversal of his
policy of military abolition.
Another Federal General, Benjamin F. Butler, in the course of 1861, also
raised the issue, though not in the bold fashion of Fremont. Runaway
slaves came to his camp on the Virginia coast, and he refused to
surrender them to the owners. He took the ground that, as they had
probably been used in building Confederate fortifications, they might be
considered contraband of war. He was sustained by Congress, which passed
what is commonly called the First Confiscation Act providing that slaves
used by Confederate armies in military labor should, if captured, be
"forfeited"--which of course meant that they should be set free. But
this did not settle what should be done with runaways whose masters,
though residents of seceded States, were loyal to the Union. The War
Department decided that they should be held until the end of the war,
when probably there would be made "just compensation to loyal masters."
This first stage of Lincoln's policy rested upon the hope that the Union
might be restored without prolonged war. He abandoned this hope about
the end of the year. Thereupon, his policy entered its second stage. In
the spring of 1862 he formulated a plan for gradual emancipation with
compensation. The slaves of Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and
the District of Columbia were to be purchased at the rate of $400 each,
thus involving a total expenditure of $173,000,000. Although Congress
adopted the joint resolution recommended by the President, the "border
States" would not accept the plan. But Congress, by virtue of its
plenary power, freed the slaves by purchase in the District of Columbia,
and prohibited slavery in all the territories of the United States.
During the second stage of his policy Lincoln again had to reverse the
action of an unruly general. The Federal forces operating from their
base at Port Royal had occupied a considerable portion of the Carolina
coast. General Hunter issued an order freeing all the slaves in South
Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. In countermanding the order, Lincoln
made another futile appeal to the people of the border States to adopt
some plan of compensated emancipation.
"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
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 neglected it."
This persuasive attitude and reluctance to force the issue had greatly
displeased the Abolitionists. Their most gifted orator, Wendell
Phillips, reviled Lincoln with all the power of his literary genius,
and with a fury that might be called malevolent. Meanwhile, a Second
Confiscation Act proclaimed freedom for the slaves of all those who
supported the Confederate Government. Horace Greeley now published in
the "New York Tribune" an editorial entitled, "The Prayer of Twenty
Millions." He denounced Lincoln's treatment of Fremont and Hunter and
demanded radical action. Lincoln replied in a letter now famous. "I
would save the Union," said he, "I would save it the shortest way under
the Constitution.... If I could save the Union without freeing any
slave, 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."
However, at the very time when he wrote this remarkable letter, he had
in his own mind entered upon the third stage of his policy. He had
even then discussed with his Cabinet an announcement favoring general
emancipation. The time did not seem to them ripe. It was decided to wait
until a Federal victory should save the announcement from appearing
to be a cry of desperation. Antietam, which the North interpreted as a
victory, gave Lincoln his opportunity.
The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to the States in arms against
the Federal Government. Such States were given three months in which to
return to the Union. Thereafter, if they did not return, their slaves
would be regarded by that Government as free. No distinction was made
between slaves owned by supporters of the Confederacy and those whose
owners were in opposition to it. The Proclamation had no bearing on
those slave States which had not seceded. Needless to add, no
seceded State returned, and a second Proclamation making their slaves
theoretically free was in due time issued on the first of January, 1863.
It must not be forgotten that this radical change of policy was made in
September, 1862. We have already heard of the elections which took
place soon after--those elections which mark perhaps the lowest ebb of
Lincoln's popularity, when Seymour was elected Governor of New York, and
the peace party gained over thirty seats in Congress. It is a question
whether, as a purely domestic measure, the Emancipation Proclamation was
not, for the time, an injury to the Lincoln Government. And yet it was
the real turning-point in the fortunes of the North. It was the central
fact in the maintenance of the blockade.
In England at this time the cotton famine was at its height. Nearly a
million people in the manufacturing districts were wholly dependent
upon charity. This result of the blockade had been foreseen by the
Confederate Government which was confident that the distress of
England's working people would compel the English ministry to intervene
and break the blockade. The employers in England whose loss was wholly
financial, did as the Confederates hoped they would do. The workmen,
however, took a different course. Schooled by a number of able debaters,
they fell into line with that third group of political leaders who
saw in the victory of the North, whatever its motives, the eventual
extinction of slavery. To these people, the Emancipation Proclamation
gave a definite programme. It was now, the leaders argued, no longer a
question of eventual effect; the North had proclaimed a motive and that
motive was the extinction of slavery. Great numbers of Englishmen of all
classes who had hitherto held back from supporting Cobden and Bright now
ranged themselves on their side. Addresses of praise and sympathy "began
to pour into the Legation of the United States in a steady and ever
swelling stream." An immense popular demonstration took place at Exeter
Hall. Cobden, writing to Sumner, described the new situation in British
politics, in a letter amounting to an assurance that the Government
never again would attempt to resist the popular pressure in favor of the
North.
On the last day of 1862 a meeting of workingmen at Manchester, where the
cotton famine was causing untold misery, adopted one of those New
Year greetings to Lincoln. Lincoln's reply expressed with his usual
directness his own view of the sympathetic relation that had been
established between the democratic classes of the two countries:
"I know and deeply deplore the sufferings which the workingmen at
Manchester, and in all Europe, are called to endure in this crisis. It
has been often and studiously represented that the attempt to overthrow
this Government, which was built upon the foundation of human rights,
and to substitute for it one which should rest exclusively on the basis
of human slavery, was likely to obtain the favor of Europe. Through
the action of our disloyal citizens, the workingmen of Europe have been
subjected to severe trials, for the purpose of forcing their sanction to
that attempt. Under the circumstances, I cannot but regard your decisive
utterances upon the question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism
which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country. It is indeed
an energetic and reinspiring assurance of the inherent power of truth,
and of the ultimate triumph of justice, humanity, and freedom. I do not
doubt that the sentiments you have expressed will be sustained by your
great nation; and, on the other hand, I have no hesitation in assuring
you that they will excite admiration, esteem, and the most reciprocal
feelings of friendship among the American people. I hail this
interchange of sentiment, therefore, as an augury that whatever else may
happen, whatever misfortune may befall your country or my own, the peace
and friendship which now exists between the two nations will be, as it
shall be my desire to make them, perpetual."