• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

67. James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes (eds.), Private and Confidential: Letters from British Ministers in Washington to the Foreign Secretaries (Selinsgrove, Pa., 1993), p. 273, Lyons to Russell, December 23, 1861.

68. Palmer (ed.), Selected Letters of Charles Sumner, vol. 1, pp. 88–89, Charles Sumner to Francis Lieber, December 24, 1861.

69. Ibid. Opinion remains divided on the issue. At one extreme are those who believe that the North would have crushed the Royal Navy, destroyed “the façade of British military preeminence,” and rocked “the foundations of British economic primacy”; at the other are those who invisage humiliation for the North and swift independence for the South. The strength of these wildly divergent arguments depends, in part, on how long the war might have continued. Nevertheless, the evidence does suggest its own story, one in which all sides come out the worse for wear—except for the South. See, e.g., Russell F. Weigley, A Great Civil War (Bloomington, Ind., 2000), p. 81; Andrew Wellard, “After the Trent, or Third Time Lucky?,” Crossfire, 62 (April 2000).

70. Beale (ed.), The Diary of Edward Bates, p. 216. Meanwhile, in England, people were beginning to worry that her naval superiority was not nearly superior enough. On the same day as the U.S. cabinet discussions, The Times warned that the North had extraordinary maritime resources. Furthermore, “Our adversaries will lose not a moment after the declaration of war in pressing forward the construction and equipment of cruisers and it must be expected that many of these vessels will, as in the last war, elude the blockade and prowl about the ocean in quest of prey.… It is quite possible that while England is ruling undisputed mistress of the waves a Yankee frigate may appear some fine morning off one of our ports and inflict no slight damage upon us.”

71. James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (London, 1988), p. 444. The result of the crisis was the Legal Tender Act of February 1862, which—inter alia—created a national paper currency, unleashed the power of government bonds, and provided the treasury with the money to pay its bills.

72. The way Seward framed the discussion, the Trent was really a continuation of the old impressment argument—the one that had led to war in 1812. Then it was over Britain stopping American ships and removing British deserters. Now, alleged Seward, the United States had inadvertently performed a similar violation that he was delighted to rectify, and in so doing, establish once and for all a fifty-year-old American principle. It was complete legal nonsense. The Trent had nothing to do with impressment. But the argument sounded stirring and patriotic, and was guaranteed to go down well with the public. Seward threw in a couple of other arguments for good measure, about ambassadors and dispatches being fair game on the high seas, and other such dubious nonsense.

73. David H. Donald, Lincoln (New York, 1995), p. 323.

74. Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 592, December 26, 1861.

75. Many years later, Trollope wrote in his autobiography: “I was at Washington at the time, and it was known there that the contest among the leading Northerners was very sharp on the matter. Mr. Sumner and Mr. Seward were, under Mr. Lincoln, the two chiefs of the party. It was understood that Mr. Sumner was opposed to the rendition of the men, and Mr. Seward in favour of it.… I dined with Mr. Seward on the day of the decision, meeting Mr. Sumner at his house, and was told as I left the dining room what the decision had been.” Anthony Trollope, An Autobiography, ed. Michael Sadleir (New York, 1923), p. 166.

76. Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals (New York, 2005), p. 400. See Logan (ed.), Collected Letters of Harriet Martineau, vol. 4, passim, for Martineau’s references to the plans and the advice.

77. Pease and Randall (eds.), The Diary of Orville H. Browning, December 27, 1861, p. 519.

78. Barnes and Barnes (eds.), Private and Confidential, p. 274, Lyons to Russell, December 31, 1861.

79.