A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [94]
Seward was responsible for recruiting one of the least likely British volunteers to appear in Washington: Major John Fitzroy De Courcy, the British magistrate on San Juan Island during the “Pig War.” De Courcy lived for soldiering, and rather than molder on the island during the ongoing stalemate, he wrote to Seward to ask if he could lead a regiment. Amazed and delighted by the irony, Seward invited him to Washington. Frances and Fanny Seward were disappointed to have the brusque soldier thrust upon them during their brief visit to the capital. Fanny, Seward’s eighteen-year-old daughter, complained that De Courcy’s presence spoiled her last evening with her father. She might have forgiven him had he been handsome, but De Courcy’s face reminded her of a rocky beach and he suffered from “an imperfection in one of his eyes.” It was typical of Seward to sacrifice the needs of his family for a moment of transient importance; but he did follow through on his promise to De Courcy, who was made a colonel of the 16th Ohio Volunteers.
Ill.9 Reconnaissance made by General Stoneman, accompanied by the Comte de Paris and the Duc de Chartres, by Frank Vizetelly.
The hostility with which Britain was regarded in the North meant that none of the British volunteers received as much attention as the Comte de Paris, the Bourbon pretender to the French throne, and his brother the Duc de Chartres. The arrival of another set of French royalty (albeit the exiled kind whose only hope of gaining military experience was to go to America) was hailed as proof of the excellent relations between the two countries. Seward waived the rules so that they would not have to take the U.S. oath of allegiance. The count entered the army as plain “Captain Paris” and his brother as “Captain Charters.” Their uncle, the Prince de Joinville, who had accompanied his nephews on the journey in order to place his son in the U.S. Naval Academy, politely turned down the offer of a command in the navy.
—
Lord Lyons ignored the spectacle of Seward paying assiduous attention to the former British magistrate of San Juan Island. Of all the provocations he had endured since August, the welcome given to De Courcy was among the least troubling. Seward “is at present very wild with Lord Lyons,” William Howard Russell remarked to Delane in September, after the secretary of state had embarrassed Lyons by leaking to the press a portion of their correspondence—selectively edited to make the minister appear arrogant and Seward patriotic.
The letters in question concerned the arrests of British subjects on charges of sedition. Seward’s power over Lyons had increased dramatically during the summer. Every case of forcible enlistment and underage volunteering went through his office, and now, since Lincoln had suspended the writ of habeas corpus for a large section of the North, Seward had gained the additional power to detain indefinitely all persons suspected of treason. “I am afraid that he takes a personal pleasure in spying and arresting,” Lyons wrote to Lord Russell in a rare outburst after Seward harangued him for an hour before casually taking out his pen and signing the release of a British prisoner.6.3 83
Lyons was relieved that the arrests for sedition were not solely confined to British subjects, though they made up almost 15 percent of the suspects in prison.84 No one was exempt, he informed the Foreign Office. Lyons had heard from his friend the English actress Fanny Kemble, who remained tied to the United States because of her two daughters, that her former husband had been arrested in Philadelphia and incarcerated without trial at Fort Lafayette in New York. The family was discovering, as had Lyons, that “it is vain to resort to the Courts of law for redress.”85 Rose Greenhow was also arrested during one of Seward’s sweeps