A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [276]
The Times helped the Confederates by printing an editorial on Monday, July 13, urging Roebuck to withdraw his motion. Finally Roebuck listened to the pleas from the chorus around him. That same evening he announced to the House his decision to withdraw his motion. Benjamin Moran was in the gallery, watching as the Southern lobby squirmed during Roebuck’s speech. William Lindsay spoke immediately after, telling the members that whatever else they thought of his friend, he was not a liar; the emperor truly had told them of his desire to recognize the South. The speech was “a long rambling half mad jumble,” wrote Moran, “which the House alternately laughed and jeered at. Then Palmerston rose, and while patting the two dupes on the head, expressed the hope that the unusual proceedings … would never be repeated.”7 The Confederates were never happier to see a motion die.
Charles Francis Adams attended a reception at Lord Derby’s later that night, his recent depression almost lifted by the Confederate fiasco in the Commons. The Tories pressed him for news, forcing him to admit that, like them, he was waiting for the Atlantic steamer to arrive. But when the Scotia did come, on Thursday, July 17, the reports about the battle at Gettysburg were unclear. Adams could not tell whether Lee had suffered a defeat or merely been checked for a day or so. The Times hedged but leaned toward a momentary delay. Two days later, however, Henry Adams came down to breakfast and found his father reading the victory telegram from the State Department. “I wanted to hug the army of the Potomac,” Henry wrote of his joy at that moment. “I wanted to get the whole of the army of Vicksburg drunk at my own expense. I wanted to fight some small man and lick him.” The telegram announced not only Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg but also the fall of Vicksburg.
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An uneven line of soiled white flags had signaled the surrender of Vicksburg on July 4. As the medical inspector of the XIII Army Corps, Dr. Charles Mayo was among the first wave of Federal officers sent to inspect the situation inside the town.23.1 Seven thousand mortar shells had been lobbed into Vicksburg during the forty-three-day siege. In some streets, every single house had been hit; shattered glass and wooden shards lay strewn everywhere. “The blackened ruins that had once been houses” made Mayo wonder how Londoners would fare in similar circumstances. “We knew quite well that the besieged would be unable to take charge of their own. As it was we found their sick in a most miserable plight,” he wrote. “The state of their hospitals was such that a regard for our own safety compelled us to place them in the hands of our own medical officers for instant purification and speedy abolition. They had come to the end of their resources. About 15,000 men fit for duty was all that remained of Pemberton’s army: his sick numbered 6,000 or 7,000.”8
The fighting continued, however, and although Pemberton had finally given up Vicksburg, General Johnston had no intention of surrendering the regiments under his control. He decided to make a stand at Jackson, whose citizens were still struggling to resurrect the city after its occupation in May. Frank Vizetelly reluctantly decided that it was time for him to leave the Mississippi Delta before the Federals seized control of the last railroads going east. He made it out just in time: on July 7, 46,000 U.S. troops, led by General Sherman himself, crossed the Big Black River and were only twenty miles from Jackson. But the journey quickly became a nightmare once the parched and dusty soldiers discovered that the retreating Confederates had fouled all the wells. Sherman was forced to send his mule teams back to the Big Black River to collect drinking water for his thirsty