A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [122]
Life for all the occupants of the American legation was slowly returning to normal. People had stopped inviting them, Henry told Charles Francis Jr., “on the just supposition that we wouldn’t care to go into society.” The drought ended with a dinner at the Argylls’ on January 17. The evening passed far more enjoyably than the U.S. minister expected; Gladstone sat next to him and showed genuine interest in his views, and the guest on his other side praised him for “my conduct during the difficulties.” But Adams’s enjoyment was curtailed when the conversation turned to Seward and his now infamous quip to the Duke of Newcastle. “I feel my solitude in London much more than I do at home,” Adams wrote in his diary a short time later. “The people are singularly repulsive. With a very considerable number of acquaintances, I know not a single one whose society I should miss one moment.”16
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Adams did not know the true state of affairs in Washington, and Seward did not wish to enlighten him. The Trent was only one of many crises that threatened the administration during the winter of 1862. Criticism of the Federal government’s lack of progress was growing ever louder, with Lincoln receiving the largest share of the blame. The border states had not been secured, and the vast Army of the Potomac encamped around Washington had yet to do anything other than drill. Its leader, General McClellan, remained bedridden with typhoid. The War Department was riddled with incompetence and corruption and the Treasury had run out of gold, leaving Secretary Chase with no alternative but to print more money. On the night of January 10, Seward received a summons to the White House. There he found Chase, Assistant Secretary of War Peter Watson, and two generals gathered in a solemn huddle around the president. They had to act now, Lincoln told them, and find a way to produce victories or face the possibility “of our being two nations.”17 Frustrated by the generals’ objections, Lincoln decided he would issue a presidential order for all naval and military forces to begin an advance on February 22, regardless of obstacles or delays.
The president’s frustration presented an opportunity for Seward to strengthen their relationship at a time when his own allies were deserting him in droves. “There is a formidable clique organized against Mr. Seward,” the attorney general noted in his diary on February 2. “I do not think I heard a good word spoken of Mr. Seward as a Minister even by one of his own party,” observed Trollope of his time in Washington. “He seemed to have no friend, no one who trusted him.”18 Frank Blair, the powerful congressman from Missouri, complained to colleagues that Seward was “selfish, ambitious and incompetent” and apparently more concerned with fighting England than the South.19 A senator attacked Seward for being “a low, vulgar, vain demagogue.”20
Seward gave loyal service to Lincoln; while Mary Lincoln seemed incapable of fulfilling the role of confidante, the former contender for the White House found that he could adapt to the role with ease. Seward could not solve the president’s military problems, but he was able to smooth the way for the secretary of war’s departure on January 14, 1862, and the appointment of Edwin Stanton. The new secretary was arrogant and devious but, in contrast to Cameron, was efficient and would attack the department’s problems with energy. The amiable but useless Cameron chose to spend his forced retirement in Russia, where he replaced the equally useless Cassius Clay as minister.
Simultaneously with Cameron’s removal, some flicker of life appeared in the North’s military machine. On January 14, the