• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

29.6 Using his stage name of Wyndham, Culverwell toiled steadily in the world of provincial theater while he built up his skill and reputation. When he visited America again in 1870, it was as Charles Wyndham, one of the leading comic actors of his generation. Shortly before he was knighted in 1902, Wyndham gave a fund-raising speech on behalf of the British soldiers fighting in the Boer War: “I served with the Federal forces during the longest and most bitter conflict of modern days. Then I learned for the first time, and at first hand, what war really means, war—which if it does not make life worth the living, at least makes death worth the dying.”35

29.7 Coppell had received Mary’s distress call when he was himself at a particularly low ebb. He had been working without pay since September 1861. “I should not have troubled your Lordship on this occasion but that my individual resources … are inadequate to the present large demands upon them,” he had written to Russell on May 20. Knowing it would be some time before he received a reply, he labored at his duties with waning enthusiasm. When his letter eventually arrived in London the Foreign Office was amazed that he had never said anything before. No one had bothered to check whether the legation or London was meant to be paying his salary. Russell immediately granted him £350 per annum and a £200 war allowance.

THIRTY

“Can We Hold Out?”

A Welsh visitor to Washington—Tit for tat—Return of Lawley and Vizetelly—An intolerable stench—Battle of the Crater—The Negro regiments—Devastation in the valley

On June 22, 1864, Griffith Evans, a Welsh army veterinary surgeon stationed in Canada, called at the British legation in Washington seeking advice on how to reach the front. Lyons explained that it was doubtful Seward would give him an official pass. “Lord Lyons entertained me very hospitably,” wrote Evans. “He took my hand in both his when I left, and gave it a good shaking.” Evans felt sorry for him: “He looks a kind, good natured middle-aged man who was staggering under the burden of safeguarding the rights and liberties of nearly 3 million British subjects.” Evans was shocked to learn that crimping was never punished, nor legal redress available for the victims:

The usual mode is to drug the food or drink, whether it be alcohol or tea. The person loses consciousness and recovering some time after in a distant place finds himself dressed in the US uniform, he remonstrates but is assured he enlisted himself, finds some money in his pocket which he is told is part of his bounty, and that he has spent or lost the rest. Such are the complaints received daily. All the Embassy can do is to request the War Department to investigate the case, to give it a fair trial and report. Some are then retrieved and some not, but none of those relieved get Army compensation.1

Lyons did not discuss his civil cases with Evans. That week, British subjects in Memphis had protested to him about a rule that banned their employment unless they joined the Federal militia; a black Canadian had been arrested for breaking the state of Delaware’s ban on colored people; and Mary Sophia Hill had written to him from prison begging for his intercession. “Imagine, my Lord, a woman and a British subject so threatened,” she cried. “My object in writing this letter is to ask Your Lordship to see justice done me and to protect me until I am proved as not belonging to the Glorious Flag of Old England.”2

Consul Coppell admitted to Lyons that he had failed to visit the prisoner, but advised him, “From personal knowledge I do not think the case one for Your Lordship’s interference.”3 Lyons had no reason to doubt him, experience having taught the minister that cases such as Mary’s usually came with a long and tangled history of mutual antipathy between the prisoner and the authorities. He would not help her while there were others who were truly innocent and helpless. William Seward was amazed by Lord Lyons’s tenacious