FDR - Jean Edward Smith [401]
9. Steeholm, House at Hyde Park 54–55.
10. Anna “Bamie” Roosevelt’s reminiscences, quoted in David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback 57 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981). Also see Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt 8–10 (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1979). Theodore, Sr., did not serve in the war in deference to his wife, Mittie Bulloch, the daughter of a prominent Georgia family. Indeed, Mittie’s brother, James Dunwody Bulloch, was the principal Confederate agent in London, and it was he who arranged for construction of the Alabama and other rebel raiders. At the same time, William Henry Aspinwall, Isaac Roosevelt’s brother-in-law, was Lincoln’s confidential agent in the British capital.
I am grateful to Professor John Y. Simon, editor of the Grant Papers, for alerting me that it was James Roosevelt who first notified the U.S. government of James Bullock’s presence in London to arrange for construction of the Alabama. On July 10, 1861, Hiram Barney, the collector of customs in New York, advised Secretary of State William Henry Seward, “These vessels will sail from Liverpool under the flag of the Confederacy and will operate upon our merchantmen and navy ships.… Of course I know not the grounds of this apprehension, but give it on Mr. Roosevelt’s authority exclusively. Mr. Roosevelt is an ardent Union man and would feel bound to denounce a brother probably to save the government, but he does not wish his name used if it can be avoided.” 2 Official Records of the War of the Rebellion (Series 2) 18. James Bullock was excluded from the general amnesty President Johnson proclaimed at the end of war and lived out his life in Liverpool. He occasionally visited the United States under an assumed name and once asked James Roosevelt to dine with him. The president’s father refused, horrified at the thought of dining with a traitor. 2 Roosevelt Letters 23n.
11. McClellan graduated from West Point in 1845 and quickly established a reputation as a brilliant engineer and mapmaker. He resigned from the army in 1855 to become superintendent of the Illinois Central. See Stephen W. Sears, George B. McClellan: The Young Napoleon 64–70, 388–390 (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1988).
12. During his wedding trip abroad in 1853, James briefly worked as Buchanan’s private secretary. Buchanan was then American minister in London. He suddenly found himself shorthanded and asked James to pitch in until additional help arrived. James admired Buchanan personally, which may have facilitated his switch to the Democrats. For FDR’s version of the episode, see President’s Personal File 3012, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library (FDRL).
13. James Roosevelt to John Roosevelt, December 23, 1865, in John Aspinwall Roosevelt’s Collection of Roosevelt Family Papers, FDRL.
14. For FDR’s notes on Leland Stanford’s purchase of Gloster, see his “History of the President’s Estate,” FDRL.
15. John Gunther, Roosevelt in Retrospect 172 (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).
16. As quoted in Ward, Before the Trumpet 52. James’s marriage to Rebecca is lovingly described in Aileen Sutherland Collins’s Rebecca Howland & James Roosevelt: A Story of Cousins, based on Rebecca’s diary. (Virginia Beach, Va.: Parsons Press, 2005).
17. Ibid. 55.
18. With respect to marrying advantageously, the Roosevelts were not unlike the Hapsburgs, of whom it was said:
Bella gerant alii! Tu, felix Austria, nube,
Nam quae Mars aliis dat tibi regna Venus.
(Let others make war. Thou, happy Austria, marry,
for Venus gives thee those realms which on others Mars bestows.)
19. Dollar conversions are from Robert G. Sahr, “Inflation Conversion Factors for Years 1700 to Estimated 2012,” Political Science Department, Oregon State University, 2002.
20. Ward, Before the Trumpet 59–60, 350–351. Eleanor Roosevelt called Bamie “one of the most interesting women I have ever known. [She] had a mind that worked as a very able man’s mind works. She was full of animation, was always the center of any group she was with.” Eleanor Roosevelt, This Is My Story 57–58 (New