A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [398]
—
Lord Lyons had not left his bedroom for more than a month, during which time Seward had continually assumed that in one more week or so the minister would reappear, looking tired, perhaps, but otherwise well. He was shocked when Lyons informed him on December 4 that he was leaving for England in two days’ time. “I agree with you that it is best that you go away for a time,” Seward answered Lyons’s note by return messenger. “And yet I feel that my cares and difficulties will be seriously increased by your withdrawal.”10
Lord Russell had hoped to keep Lyons in Washington for the duration of the war, and he was still counting on him making a full recovery after a month or two in England. He made it clear to Lyons that this was a respite rather than a transfer from his post. But the minister cared only that he was going home; he wrote to his sister, telling her to prepare an extra place for Christmas dinner.11 The doctors had diagnosed his headaches as neuralgia, and he had been warned that the pain could become worse before it went away. Fortunately, his worries about the transatlantic crossing were soothed by George Sheffield, the last of the old guard at the legation, who offered to escort the invalid home. The suddenness of the decision—there were no farewell banquets and no time to engrave a watch or some such memento—imparted a sense of crisis to the news. On December 5, the morning after he received Lyons’s note, Seward wrote to Charles Francis Adams urging him to impress on Lord Russell “how deeply this incident is regretted by this government, and how desirous we are for Lord Lyons’s recovery and return to our country.”12
A week later, on December 12, Lyons was helped up the gangplank of the China in New York by Sheffield. Within only a few hours of the minister’s departure, Seward’s fears about his burdens increasing came true. The extradition trial in Montreal of the St. Albans raiders ended suddenly after the magistrate in charge of the case, Judge Charles Coursol, ordered their discharge on grounds so technical that the explanation introduced a new and arcane area of debate for the Canadian judiciary. The pro-Southern audience in the courtroom swarmed the prisoners, cheering and shouting as they were led down the steps. By the time the news reached Lord Monck in Quebec City, the raiders had fled the area. General Dix had no qualms about sending his troops into Canada to find them. “All military commanders on the frontier” were ordered to chase and, if necessary, shoot the Confederate guerrillas “wherever they may take refuge.” But even before Dix issued his proclamation, Monck had ordered new arrest warrants. “The police are making every effort to prevent their escape,” he informed the legation.13
Monck’s attempt to demonstrate his seriousness to Seward was undermined by an incident three days later that once again involved John Yates Beall. On December 16, a small team led by Beall tried to intercept a train taking seven Confederate generals from Johnson’s Island prison to Fort Lafayette in New York. They failed to stop the train or find the generals, and two Union detectives captured Beall and another guerrilla on the American side of Niagara. “All the efforts of Confederates … had failed,” lamented Captain Headley. “Now many of our best men were in prison. Burley at Toronto. Cole at Sandusky. Young and his comrades at Montreal. Beall and Anderson in New York City. Grenfell, Shenks, Marmaduke, Cantrill and Travers at Chicago.”14
John Yates Beall suffered the same fate as Robert Cobb Kennedy, one of the New York arsonists. He was taken to New York, where he was found guilty by a military court of spying and piracy and was executed on February 24, 1865. Right up until the last moment he refused to accept the charges against him, claiming he was a Confederate naval