A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [150]
On May 14, Vizetelly informed readers of the Illustrated London News that he had transferred from the U.S. Army to the U.S. Navy. “The last you heard of me, [I] was waiting in St. Louis for a reply from General Halleck,” he wrote. The response to his request had been disappointing; Halleck had not officially barred him from the Army of the West, but he had forbidden him to use government transport. It amounted to the same thing, Vizetelly pointed out, since he could not paddle a canoe, “charter a steamer specially to carry me, or swim up the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers,” just to follow the army. Happily, he discovered that the naval authorities were indifferent to his presence. Vizetelly was granted permission to observe the river operations on the Mississippi.
“Leaving St. Louis late in the afternoon,” wrote Vizetelly, “I found myself steaming down its rapid current in one of those floating palaces.” There seemed to be no shore along the river; “nothing but submerged forests for miles and miles back, with here and there a clearing showing the locality of a plantation.” His destination was Fort Pillow, the last Confederate obstacle before Memphis. Vizetelly remained on board for six weeks as the Union fleet wound its way down the Mississippi River. Despite the growing heat, he was often confined to his tiny cabin, as sharpshooters hidden in the tangled thickets along the river proved to be far too accurate for safety. Vizetelly was convinced that the South was wasting her men on a losing cause. “We find that each day the North is developing her gigantic resources,” he wrote. The South had no shortage of brave men, “but her army is growing weary.” “I have spoken with numerous deserters, prisoners, and others, and they have, with few exception, expressed themselves heartily sick of the war.”30 11.1
Ill.20 Confederate sharpshooters firing from the banks of the Mississippi at the Federal fleet, by Frank Vizetelly.
At daybreak on June 6, the Union and Confederate flotillas steamed toward each other in their final confrontation. As the city of Memphis came into view, Vizetelly saw that a line of eight Confederate vessels waited to block them. High above, stretched out along the bluff in front of the Tennessee city, were thousands of spectators. Their cheers turned to wails as the Confederate fleet was smashed to pieces. “Never was a success so complete and so cheaply purchased by the victors; never an enemy so humiliated,” Vizetelly wrote in jubilation. “The stars and bars have been trailed in the dust … verily the Memphians have eaten dirt.”32
However, when the readers of the Illustrated London News next heard from their war correspondent, Vizetelly was suffering from a crisis of conscience. “Your readers must understand that I never saw anything of Southern people until I landed at Memphis,” he wrote. “A ‘peculiar institution’ of theirs had prejudiced me somewhat against them, and I believed from all I heard that the Secession movement was but skin deep after all.” But “in Memphis and its immediate neighbourhood I made it my business to mix with all classes and test their loyalty or disloyalty … all were clamouring for separation. If then, such are the sentiments of the entire South, and defeat does not bring them nearer to the Union, what is to be the result of all this bloodshed?”33 For the first time he questioned whether he had been supporting the right side.
Vizetelly was not the only Englishman to undergo a change