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was clearly ignorant of the sartorial revolution that had taken place during the previous year. On the inside, every woman of means was wearing one of W. S. Thompson’s new steel crinoline cages; on the outside, they were experimenting with the new range of colors made possible by the invention of synthetic dye. (Even Queen Victoria was not immune to the changes in fashion and had worn mauve to the wedding of her eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, to Prince Frederick of Prussia in January 1858.) Lady Napier’s elegant but austere dress reflected none of these developments and yet still managed to cause a sensation, not only on account of its simple design but also because amid the unavoidable clash of magentas and fuchsias the pure white cast all other colors in the shade.

The enmity that had begun to poison social life in Washington went into suspension during the ball. The crush was so great that dancing had to take place in relays, the guests jamming the bars and corridors while they waited their turn to enter the ballroom. Decorated veterans from the Mexican War chatted sociably with bankers from New York, and the broad vowels of Mississippi intermingled with the clipped tones of Massachusetts. The reigning queens of society made a rare collective appearance: Mrs. John Slidell and Mrs. Rose Greenhow rotated around each other like brilliant stars, their orbits passing close by but never quite touching. It was said by Mrs. Greenhow’s rivals that she had adorned the British legation in much the same way as Lord Nelson’s mistress, Lady Hamilton, had adorned his ship.4

Among the few who were missing from the ball was President Buchanan, who remained at home with a head cold. William Lowndes Yancey of Alabama was also indisposed; this was perhaps fortunate, since his booming voice could overpower a brass band—particularly when warming to his twin obsessions of slavery now and slavery forever. Charles Francis Adams, the congressman-elect from Massachusetts, had also stayed away, despite his family’s long association with British-American diplomacy.pr.2 Adams despised small talk, hardly drank, and never danced. Not even the disappointment of his wife, Abigail, could overcome his reluctance to attend.

One of the highlights of the evening came when Lord Frederick Cavendish, second son of the seventh Duke of Devonshire, and the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, step-grandson of the former prime minister Viscount Palmerston, walked onto the dance floor. There were frissons among the debutantes as the two bachelors repaid many debts of hospitality accrued during their tour of America by dancing into the small hours of the morning. However, it was only in retrospect that the Napier ball became famous—not for its exalted guests or its lavish banquet, but as the last time Northerners and Southerners socialized together before the war.

—

Lord Napier’s replacement as the senior British diplomat in America, Lord Lyons, arrived in Washington at the beginning of April 1859. Even by English standards, the forty-two-year-old Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons was an eccentric character. Any display of emotion—including his own—made him uncomfortable. Women and servants tended to suffer from an excess of it, in his opinion, which made him dread close contact with either. He was reluctant to look people in the eye and knew the shoes and stockings of his servants far better than their faces. Though not a killjoy, Lyons had never developed a taste for alcohol, and smoking made him ill; this was less of a handicap in Europe, where his witty and erudite conversation made him a favorite of hostesses.5 But in Washington, his lack of interest in cigars and whiskey simply accentuated his strangeness. Napier did his best for Lyons during the short time they overlapped at the legation. With Congress in recess and mass departures from Washington already under way, he rushed to introduce Lyons to potential allies in the Senate before they scattered to their home states. But William Seward left Washington in late April to spend a couple of weeks with his family before