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William Howard Russell and the Confederacy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2009
Extract
The Times of London had kept a close watch on the developing American sectional conflict of the 1850s. Despite charges of ignorance which were persistently levelled against it, the quality of its American intelligence in the years leading up to the war remained consistently high. Since 1854 a young New York lawyer, Bancroft Davis, had provided informative weekly reports on political, diplomatic and economic affairs, whilst between July 1856 and December 1857 the paper possessed in Louis Filmore an experienced and talented Special Correspondent in the United States. After Lincoln's election, however, it became clear that Davis, who was based in New York City, was not up to dealing with a political crisis of the magnitude of secession and to this end William Howard Russell, the hero of the Crimea and the most famous reporter of his day, was despatched to the United States as The Times's new Special Correspondent. Russell arrived in New York on 16 March 1861 and less than a month later embarked upon what was to prove a highly successful tour of the Confederate States.
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Martin Crawford isLecturer in American History in the Department of American Studies,University of Keele, Keele, Staffordshire. He would like to thank the proprietors of The Times for permission to quote from the Printing House Square papers and also Gordon Philips, the newspaper's archivist, for his long-standing help
1 For Davis's career, see Crawford, Martin, “Anglo-American Perspectives: J. C. Bancroft Davis, New York Correspondent of The Times, 1854–1861,” New-York Historical Society Quarterly, 62 (1978), 191–217Google Scholar.
2 Filmore's visit is examined in the context of the paper's American correspondence in Crawford, Martin, “The Times and America, 1850–1865: A Study in the Anglo-American Relationship,” unpublished D.Phil. dissertation, Oxford 1979, pp. 70–75Google Scholar. Filmore, who was one of the paper's most experienced reporters, had formerly served as its representative in Berlin.
3 There are two biographies of Russell, Atkins, John Black's highly sympathetic The Life of Sir William Howard Russell C.V.O., LL.D., 2 vols. (London, 1911)Google Scholar; and the brief derivative study by Furneaux, Rupert, The First War Correspondent: William Howard Russell of The Times (London, 1944)Google Scholar. A new biography is currently being prepared by Alan Hankinson. Indispensable to the study of Russell's correspondence is The History of The Times: Vol. II, The Tradition Established (London, 1939), passimGoogle Scholar.
4 Daily Telegraph, 26 March 1861.
5 The Times, 18 March 1861. For the development of Printing House Square's attitude to the American conflict, see Crawford, “The Times and America, 1850–1865,” esp. pp. 154–99. For an excellent analysis of wider British attitudes see Crook, D. P., “Portents of War: English Opinion on Secession,” Journal of American Studies, 4 (1971), 163–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
6 The Times, 19 March 1861.
7 William H. Russell to John Thadeus Delane, 26 March 1861, Delane Papers, Printing House Square Archives. “Breakfasted with Russell and gave him my letters,” recorded John Bigelow in his diary a few days after the correspondent's arrival in New York. “His head is a little turned already by the attention he is receiving. He has never experienced such an ovation before.” 20 March 1861, Bigelow Papers, New York Public Library.
8 The Times, 16 April 1861.
9 The Times, 22 April 1861. Among Russell's sources of information during this early period were the Southern commissioners, headed by Judge John A. Campbell of Alabama, who had been sent north by the new Confederate government to negotiate independence. Russell interviewed the commissioners at their hotel on 3 April and dined with them three days later. Russell, William Howard, My Diary North and South, 2 vols. (London, 1863), 1, 86–87, 92Google Scholar.
10 Mowbray Morris to Bancroft Davis, 18 April 1861, Manager's Letter Books, Printing House Square Archives.
11 Russell, 1, 56–57.
12 William Howard Russell diary, 26 March 1861, Russell Papers, Printing House Square Archives.
13 Russell's early relationship with Seward is best pursued through his published diary, 1, 49ff. For the Secretary of State's political and diplomatic strategy during this critical period, see Ferris, Norman B., Desperate Diplomacy: William H. Seward's Foreign Policy, 1861 (Knoxville, 1976), pp. 3–14Google Scholar; and Brauer, Kinley J., “Seward's ‘Foreign War Panacea’: An Interpretation,” New York History, 55 (1974), 133–57Google Scholar.
14 William Howard Russell to Bancroft Davis, 2 April 1861, Davis Papers, Library of Congress.
15 William Howard Russell to John Bigelow, c. 14 April 1861, in Bigelow, John, Retrospections of an Active Life, 5 vols. (New York, 1909–1913), 1, 347–48Google Scholar.
16 Atkins, 2, 18–21.
17 William Howard Russell to Bancroft Davis, 14 April 1861, Davis Papers, Library of Congress. “I hear today that I am late for the fair,” Russell wrote.
18 Russell, 1, 138–141.
19 Russell, 1, 151; Martin, Isabella D. and Avery, Myrta Lockett, eds., A Diary from Dixie by Mary Boykin Chesnut (London, 1905), pp. 40–41, 15 04 1861Google Scholar.
20 Russell, 1, 157.
21 Ward, a well-known lobbyist and political insider, had gone south in order to report on conditions in the Confederacy. For his (often inscrutable) activities during this period, see Butterfield, Margaret, “Sam Ward, Alias Carlos Lopez,” University of Rochester Library Bulletin, 12 (1957), 22–23Google Scholar. Ward was in continual contact with William H. Seward during his Southern tour through the Secretary's close friend and associate, George Ellis Baker. Ward's letters, written under the pseudonym of Carlos or Charles Lopez, provide a useful commentary on Russell's progress. See in particular, Carlos Lopez to George E. Baker, 19 April, 18 June, 7 July 1861, William H. Seward Papers, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester.
22 Russell, 1, 242–46.
23 Russell, 1, 248–51; The Times, 30 May 1861.
24 Mrs. L. T. Wigfall to her daughter, 6 May 1861, Wigfall Family Papers, Library of Congress. For Russell's own memorable portrait of the Texas radical, see My Diary North and South, 1, 153–55.
25 Russell's published diary provides ample evidence of his Southern contacts, but see also General Pierre G. T. Beauregard to General Braxton Bragg, 25 April 1861, Beauregard Papers, Library of Congress, and Robert Bunch to William Porcher Miles, 4 May 1861, Miles Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
26 Russell, 1, 252–59.
27 Martin, and Avery, , eds., The Private Journal of Henry William Ravenel, 1859–1877 (Columbia, 1947), p. 74, 4 07 1861Google Scholar. See also [Jones, Sarah L.], Life in the South: From the Commencement of the War, by a Blockaded British Subject, 2 vols. (London, 1863), 1, 303Google Scholar.
28 Russell, 1, 265ff.
29 William Howard Russell to Bancroft Davis, 25 June 1861, Davis Papers, Library of Congress. In order to facilitate the transmission of his letters from the South, Russell made as much use as he could of official channels. See Robert Bunch to Bancroft Davis, 24 June 1861, Davis Papers, Library of Congress; and William Howard Russell to Lord Lyons, 21 April 1861, Lyons Papers, West Sussex County Record Office, Chichester. Bunch was the resident British consul in Charleston, and Lord Lyons the British minister in Washington.
30 Russell returned to Washington via Chicago, Niagara and New York.
31 Russell's first letter from the South, from Norfolk, appeared in The Times on 11 May 1861. Subsequent letters from Charleston, Savannah, Montgomery, Mobile and New Orleans appeared regularly in the paper from that date onwards, although there was clearly delay as Russell moved deeper into the Confederacy. The letter from Mobile dated 18 May, for example, appeared in The Times the day before a letter from the same city dated two days earlier, and there was a similar irregularity in the correspondence from New Orleans. It should be remembered that, in the days before the successful completion of the Atlantic telegraph in 1865, communications between Britain and America took at least two weeks to arrive.
32 The Times, 28 May 1861.
33 The only serious dissent from Russell's observations came over his insistence on the Southerners' desire to be governed by an English prince. See Martin, and Avery, , ed., The Private Journal of Henry William Ravenel 1859–1877 (Columbia, 1947), pp. 89–91, 18 06 1861Google Scholar. For Russell's report, see The Times, 28 May 1861.
34 See Mowbray Morris to Bancroft Davis, 30 May 1861, Manager's Letter Books, Printing House Square Archives. “In the present condition of men's minds and feelings,” The Times's manager wrote, “the life of an individual would not be deemed of any account, and I should not be surprised to hear of his being shot by some rabid patriot for some unintended slight or some fancied injury.”
35 William Howard Russell to Lord Lyons, 21 May 1861, Lyons Papers, West Sussex County Record Office, Chichester.
36 The Times, 7 June 1861.
37 The literature on Confederate disintegration is extensive: for an excellent recent account, see Thomas, Emory M., The Confederate Nation: 1861–1865 (New York, 1979), pp. 275ffGoogle Scholar.
38 Russell, 1, 197. For a description of the dinner which Petigru gave in Russell's honour, see Carson, James Petigru, Life, Letters and Speeches of fames Louis Petigru (Washington, 1920), p. 379Google Scholar.
39 Russell, 1, 277–78. See also 1, 423–24; 2, 31–32.
40 Russell, 1, 334.
41 The Times, 30 May 1861.
42 The Times, 10 July 1861. Se also 30 May 1861, and Russel, 1, 170–71, 214–15. For the classic analyses of Southern diplomacy, see Owsley, Frank Lawrence, King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of America (Chicago and London, second edition, 1959)Google Scholar, and Blumenthal, Henry, “Confederate Diplomacy: Popular Notions and International Realities,” Journal of Southern History, 32 (1966), 151–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
43 Charles Francis Adams to William H. Seward, 21 06 1861, in Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs: Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861 (Washington, 1861), p. 93Google Scholar. The Times's correspondent was also in indirect communication with the British government through Lord Lyons. Enclosing an extract of a letter from Russell, the British Minister told the Foreign Secretary that it contained “the best and indeed the only good account which I have been able to get of the state of the Southern Army.” Lord Lyons to Lord John Russell, 27 May 1861, 30/22, Russell Papers, Public Record Office, London.
44 W. L. Yancey and A. Dudley Mann to R. Toombs, 15 July 1861, Diplomatic Missions, Great Britain, Confederate States Papers, Library of Congress.
45 The Times, 9 October 1861. Russell's portrait of a unified South was also used by James Spence in his highly influential discussion of the American conflict, The American Union, third edition (London, 1862), p. 87Google Scholar.
46 Crawford, “The Times and America, 1850–1865,” pp. 243ff.
47 For Lawley's appointment, see The History of The Times, 2, 378–79. Lawley has been well treated in two studies: Hoole, Wm. Stanley, Lawley Covers the Confederacy (Tuscaloosa, 1964)Google Scholar, and, more perceptively, Jenkins, Brian, “Frank Lawley and the Confederacy,” Civil War History, 23, (1977), 144–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
48 Mowbray Morris to Francis Lawley, 31 January 1865, Printing House Square Archives.
49 See for example, The Times, 13 January 1857; 21 July 1860; 22 September 1860. Promotion of an alternative source of raw cotton would also serve the broad anti-slavery ideal to which the paper was committed. See The Times, 30 January 1857; 7 February 1859. The problem of British dependency is thoroughly examined in Silver, Arthur W., Manchester Men and Indian Cotton 1847–1872 (Manchester, 1960), esp. pp. 58ffGoogle Scholar.
50 Silver, pp. 158–62.
51 See for example, The Times, 24 January 1861. It will no longer do, the editorial noted, for Lancashire to “sit still with open mouths, expecting political economy to feed them. They must cater for themselves. New cotton fields must be established, and new establishments require organization, capital and encouragement… and we should then be relieved entirely from an alarm too serious to be trifled with and too reasonable to be styled a panic.”
52 Lord John Russell to Austin H. Layard, c. 17 September 1861, Add. Mss. 38987, Layard Papers, British Library.
53 For the embargo on cotton exports from the South during the first year of the war, see Owsley, pp. 24–42. “It would ill become England to make herself the tool of such machinations,” The Times concluded on 21 10 1861Google Scholar.
54 John Thadeus Delane to William Howard Russell, 2 August 1861, Delane Papers, Printing House Square Archives. For further confirmation, see The Times, 20 June, 17 August, 21 September, 16 November 1861.
55 See in particular, Brown, Lucy, “The Treatment of the News in Mid-Victorian Newspapers,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fifth series, 27 (1977), 26–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
56 For an excellent discussion of The Times's changing authority, see Inglis, Brian, “The Influence of The Times,” Historical Studies, 3 (Cork, 1961), 39–41Google Scholar. For the powerful influence which The Times's editorials exerted on the rest of the English press in 1861 see Keiser, Thomas J., “The English Press and the American Civil War,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Reading, 1971, esp. pp. 93ffGoogle Scholar.
57 The Times, 12 November 1861. In this article the paper did in fact acknowledge that Southern unity might not be as great as had been all along assumed, but it completely failed to pursue the idea in subsequent discussions. The occasion was the landing of Federal troops in North Carolina.
58 New York Times, 27 August 1861.
59 I have discussed the causes of Davis's resignation and its relationship to editorial policy in Crawford, “Anglo-American Perspectives: J. C. Bancroft Davis, New York Correspondent of The Times,” pp. 208–14.
60 See Atkins, 2, 112–14.
61 See The History of the Times, 2, 383–84. Gallenga's immediate explanation for his withdrawal was ill-health. See Mowbray Morris to Antonio Gallenga, 12 November, 22 December 1863, Manager's Letter Books, Printing House Square Archives. It is clear, however, that much of the underlying frustration which prompted his resignation may be found in his failure to gain permission to accompany the army. “‘No man from Printing House Square,’” William H. Seward is reported to have told Lord Lyons, “‘shall ever come within sight of the Star and Stripes (sic) banner on the battlefield.’” Gallenga, Antonio, Episodes of My Second Life, 2 vols. (London, 1884), 2, 340–44Google Scholar. See also Antonio Gallenga to William H. Seward, 3 August, 27 November 1863, Seward Papers, Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester.
62 Mackay, Charles, Life and Liberty in America, 2 vols. (London, 1859)Google Scholar. For a brief flattering portrait, see Wykoff, George S., “Charles Mackay: England's Forgotten Civil War Correspondent,” South Atlantic Quarterly, 76 (1927), 50–62Google Scholar.
63 See The History of The Times, 2, 378.
64 The Times, 16 July 1862.
65 See Crawford, Martin, “British Travellers and the Anglo-American Relationship in the 1850s,” Journal of American Studies, 12 (1978), 203–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The best single work on the Anglo-American relationship remains Allen, H. C., Great Britain and the United States: A History of Anglo-American Relations, 1783–1952 (London, 1954)Google Scholar, even if its organization and many of its conclusions seem dated.
66 For antebellum fears that the Anglo-American press would be largely responsible for any breakdown in relations between the two countries, see in particular, Strachey, Lytton and Fulford, Roger, eds., The Greville Memoirs, 1814–1860, 7 vols. (London, 1938), 7, 231Google Scholar, 1 June 1856, and James Buchanan to Mr. Marcy, 16 November 1855, in Moore, John Bassett, ed., The Works of fames Buchanan, 11 vols. (Philadelphia and London, 1908–1910), 9, 461Google Scholar.
67 Harper's Weekly, 27 July 1861.
68 The Times, 10 June 1861.
69 The Times, 6 June 1861.
70 The Times, 31 August 1861. Northern abuse of the Special Correspondent, of course, stemmed directly from his vivid portrayal of Federal demoralization at Bull Run, but it was also related to the editorial policy Printing House Square was now pursuing. See Atkins, 2, 46–78; and Crawford, “The Times and America, 1850–1865,” pp. 237–43.
71 A point forcibly made by Beloff, Max in his “Great Britain and the American Civil War,” History, 37 (1952), pp. 40–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most important modern studies of Anglo-American relations during the war are Jenkins, Brian, Britain and the War for the Union: Volume One (Montreal and London, 1974)Google Scholar; and Crook, David Paul, The North, the South and the Powers, 1861–1865 (New York, 1974)Google Scholar.
72 See for example, Henry Hotze to Judah P. Benjamin, 27 August 1863, Hotze Papers, Library of Congress; and Judah P. Benjamin to James P. Holcombe, 29 October 1863, Benjamin Letterbook, Confederate States Papers, Library of Congress. For a general discussion, see Owsley, esp. pp. 294ff.
73 See in particular, Reynolds, Donald E., Editors Muke War: Southern Newspapers in the Secession Crisis (Nashville, 1970), pp. 3–9Google Scholar, and the highly suggestive comments in the conclusion to Weir, Robert M., “The Role of the Newspaper Press in the Southern Colonies on the eve of the Revolution: An Interpretation,” in Bailyn, Bernard and Hench, John B., eds., The Press and the American Revolution (Worcester, 1980), esp. pp. 147–48Google Scholar.
74 Russell, 1, 258–59.
75 Eaton, Clement, Freedom of Thought in the Old South (New York, 1951; originally published 1940), p. 325Google Scholar.
76 See in particular, Killick, John R., “The Cotton Operations of Alexander Brown and Sons in the Deep South, 1820–1860,” Journal of Southern History, 43 (1977), 169–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
77 Henry Hotze to Judah P. Benjamin, 20 December 1862, Hotze Papers, Library of Congress.
78 The Times, 30 May 1861. For a perceptive analysis of the changing influence of slavery on British attitudes, see Lorimer, Douglas A., “The Role of Anti-slavery Sentiment in English Reactions to the American Civil War,” The Historical Journal, 19 (1976), pp. 405–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
79 See Cullop, Charles P., Confederate Propaganda in Europe 1861–1865 (Coral Gables, 1969), p. 18Google Scholar.