A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [256]
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Hartington’s maiden speech as the new undersecretary for war took place on May 14, 1863. He managed to arrive late for the debate—regarding a bill to regulate the country’s volunteer militias—and without his papers, but the House appeared to accept his apology once he demonstrated a sound grasp of the subject. The Confederate sympathizers in the Commons held their breath, waiting to see whether he might use the opportunity to praise the South; finally, after keeping them in suspense until the end of his speech, Hartington fulfilled their hopes by making a long and favorable comparison between English volunteer soldiers and the brave fighting men he had recently seen in the Confederacy. By itself, Hartington’s speech was a minor event, but its timing turned out to be extremely fortunate for the South, coming as it did four days before the news of Lee’s victory at Chancellorsville. James Mason’s supporters in Parliament were so elated that they immediately laid plans to rattle the government again about Admiral Wilkes and Northern interference with British ships in the West Indies. In France, a friendly meeting with the Spanish ambassador lifted Commissioner Slidell’s spirits.
It was the news of Stonewall Jackson’s death, however, that made the Confederates spring into action. They were amazed and delighted by the spontaneous outpouring of public grief in England. Newspapers carried long eulogies to the fallen hero; The Times even compared Jackson’s death to Admiral Nelson’s at Trafalgar. Flags flew at half-mast at many cotton mills. Public expressions of sympathy were hastily drawn up for Jackson’s widow. The unexpected intensity of the reaction delivered the Confederates from their despair even as it threw the U.S. legation and its supporters into deeper vexation. The querulous Liberal MP John Roebuck, whose youthful affection for America had changed in his old age to a blazing dislike, held a mass meeting in Sheffield that voted to recognize the Confederacy. A few days later, on June 1, the pro-Confederate owner of the Saturday Review, Alexander Beresford Hope, formed a committee calling itself the “British Jackson Monumental Fund.” Beresford Hope, whose vociferous support for the Confederacy stemmed from a misguided belief that its political system was more aristocratic than the North’s, announced that the fund was going to commission the Irish sculptor John Foley, designer of the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park, to make a statue of Stonewall Jackson that would be presented to the people of Virginia upon completion.21.3 Not to be outdone, publishing houses hastily called for biographies about the general. The race was won by the English governess stranded in Richmond during Lord Edward St. Maur’s visit, Catherine Hopley, who pipped the competition with her Stonewall Jackson, published in August.10
The Confederates also regarded it as a good sign that the newest of their three cruisers, the Georgia, had made contact with the Alabama in Brazil. The vessels had met in the harbor of Bahia quite by chance. “Day broke and we found ourselves very near two men-of-war,” wrote James Morgan.
What was their nationality? It seemed an age before the hour for colors arrived, but when it did, to our great delight, the most rakish-looking of the two warships broke out the Stars and Bars! “It is the Alabama!” we gasped, and commenced to dance with delight. The officers hugged one another, each embracing a man of his own rank, except the captain and myself. Like the commander, I was the only one of my rank aboard, so I hugged myself.11
The shipping magnate William Schaw Lindsay had succeeded William Gregory as the Confederacy’s chief political lobbyist in the Commons. He was a safer choice than Roebuck, less volatile and more popular among his fellow MPs. Lindsay was elated by the commotion over Jackson’s death, believing