A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [263]
Lyons was longing for a respite from the daily grind of appeals and rejections. He half hoped that the rumors of an imminent attack by the Confederates were true. “There is some chance of communication between Washington and the North being interrupted, as it was at the beginning of the war,” Lyons wrote to his sister on June 16. “The interruption of my correspondence for a few days would be a most enjoyable relief to me.”35 But he suspected there was no real danger, except to Lee. Lyons thought the general had made “a perilous move” by launching another invasion, even though the mere suggestion of his coming had created panic in Washington. Sir Percy Wyndham was ordered out of his bed and told to round up all available horsemen for the city’s defense.
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21.1 It was the second tragedy to strike the Lewis family. Lewis’s daughter had died in childbirth some weeks before, leaving the infant son to be brought up by her grieving husband, William Vernon Harcourt. The double loss (Lewis had been like a father to Harcourt) led to Harcourt’s temporary withdrawal from public life. He stopped writing his pro-Northern essays, which had appeared in The Times under the pen name “Historicus,” and remained a widower until 1876, when he married Elizabeth Motley, the daughter of the American historian John Lothrop Motley.
21.2 John had disappeared while leading a reconnaissance mission at Vicksburg. A friend on the Federal side made inquiries but could find no record of his capture. An investigation after the war found evidence that he had run into a Federal scouting party, which shot him and dumped his body.
21.3 The wealthy Beresford Hope and his brother-in-law Lord Robert Cecil, the future Marquis of Salisbury and prime minister, were both haunted by the fear that American-style democracy might one day infect British politics. But whenever Beresford Hope adopted a cause, he embraced it with fanatical intensity. He romanticized the South to an absurd degree, publishing three pamphlets in support of its independence. “I honestly and entirely believe,” he wrote, “that the cause which will tend to the confirmation of all the evils of slavery, is that of the North, and that the cause which is most likely to prove a benefit to the slave, and in the end relieve him of his shackles, is that of the South.” A. Beresford Hope, The Remnants of the American Disruption, p. 44 (London, 1862). The statue of Stonewall Jackson was not finished until 1874, but Beresford Hope had remained committed to the project and paid the shipping costs. The unveiling ceremony took place in Richmond, Virginia, the following year in front of fifty thousand people, including many survivors of Jackson’s cavalry.9
21.4 Forbes and Aspinwall were two wealthy businessmen and philanthropists who had arrived in the spring bearing $10 million in government bonds. Seward had sent them to England on a secret mission to purchase any ships that could be used by the Confederates for their navy. Only a handful of people were meant to know the details, but Forbes and Aspinwall had been in England for less than a week when The Times received a tip-off. Thwarted by their exposure, they gave a considerable portion of their money to Consuls Dudley and Morse for their espionage operations—with more immediate and probably far more effective results.
21.5 Several months went by as the case moved slowly down the chain of command until it reached the colonel of the 5th New York Cavalry. He discovered