Stars and Stripes Forever

DRIFT TOWARDS WAR

The Cabinet members were at loggerheads and arguing violently. So involved were they that they did not even notice when the door opened and the President appeared. Abraham Lincoln looked on in silence for a moment, hearing the raised voices, seeing the fists clenched tight in anger. He sat by the door and listened closely to the arguments and counterarguments, but did not speak himself. Minutes passed before he was noticed and his presence acknowledged. He stood and joined the others at the table. When the arguments broke out again he spoke loudly enough to silence the contention.

“It is Christmas Day, gentlemen, Christmas Day. Best wishes to you all.”

There were muttered thanks as he changed his chair to his rightful place at the head of the table. He waited patiently until he had their attention before he spoke again.

“I know that this is the day when you all wish to be with your families — as I with mine. Nevertheless I have called you here because this must also be a day of decision. Tomorrow morning a message will be sent to Lord Lyons about the Trent Affair. We are now gathered to decide just what that message will be. Mr. Cameron — you look disturbed.”

“I am, Mr. President. As Secretary of War I am charged with the defense of the country and the subjugation of the enemy. As you well know we have had our successes and we have had our failures. We must look forward only to a future of great sacrifices if our cause is to succeed. It will not be an easy one. For victory in this struggle we will need every man in the army that we can find. Every factory must work at full output. Therefore I believe that it would be folly beyond belief if, in the middle of a war against a determined enemy, we would be so unwise as to risk the possibility of a second war at the same time.”

“There is no such possibility!” Attorney General Bates shouted. “Even the dunderhead British are not so stupid as to go to war over a matter so petty as this one. They have received no harm, suffered no losses. They are just in a pique. In 1812 we went to war because we had just cause. They were stopping our ships and impressing our seamen. Even though we were sorely tried we still did not then rush into war but tried to avoid it. We suffered humiliation time and time again and did not declare war until there was no alternative, no other choice. Now we have a most minor affair with one ship halted, two enemies of our country taken, the ship released. This is a tempest in a teapot and will eventually die away as all storms, no matter how fierce, eventually do. It is impossible that this incident could lead to a war with Britain. Impossible!”

“I agree with you completely,” Gideon Welles said. “As Secretary of the Navy I was charged with capturing these traitors before they could do harm to our country. Acting in the finest tradition of this service Captain Wilkes did just that. The American people consider him a hero and have been feting him with honors. Do we turn their joy to Dead Sea ash at the command of a foreign power? Do we knuckle under to threats and commands to our sovereign state? Do we betray this great sailor’s labors in his country’s cause? The public and the newspapers would not permit it. I say that we should not, will not, and cannot!”

“I would go even beyond that,” Seward said. “As Secretary of State I have long suggested the possibility of a diversionary foreign war to reunite this divided country. Now we have one being forced upon us and we would be wise not to oppose it.”

Lincoln shook his head. “I have never agreed with you on this matter, as you know. Even if we consider the possibility, I find that going to war with some small Central American country is a far different matter from being involved in a war with a powerful country that is supported by a world-spanning Empire. We must find better reasons than this if we are to halt a spreading fire of hatred.”

Voices were raised in anger and only Lincoln grew silent. He listened to what was being said until he had heard the opposing arguments in greatest detail. Only then did he speak.

“Gentlemen — I regret to say that we have reached a stalemate. If I were to take a vote now on a course of action, by my observation we would be a house divided. But we must be unanimous in our decision. Therefore I suggest a compromise. We will send a message to the British that we will not be bullied. We will tell them that we appreciate their position and respect it. We will consider releasing those men to continue their voyage — but only if the threats and commands are removed from their dispatch. We will suggest that Lord Palmerston meet with Charles Adams, our much-respected minister in London, in a concerted effort to reach agreement on the wording. If this is done, honor will be served and peace confirmed. What say you to this proposal?”

Stanton hurried to speak as other voices were raised. “I for one say yes. A copy of our message should go to Adams as soon as possible, along with various drafts and proposals that we here do agree to. War will be averted and honor saved. Let us subscribe to this proposal with a single voice — then return to our loved ones on this most sacred of family days.”

One by one the doubters were convinced, drawn to a mutual and satisfactory conclusion.

“A day’s work well done,” Lincoln said, smiling for the first time this day. “Hay and Nicolay will draw up the documents and present them to us tomorrow morning for approval. I am sure that this compromise will satisfy all the parties concerned.”

Lord Lyons, the British representative in the American capital, glowered at the communication and was not satisfied in the slightest. He stood at the window staring out in anger at the frozen and repellent landscape and the endless falling snow. This response was neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring. It neither accepted nor rejected the ultimatum. Instead it suggested a third and contentious rejoinder. However, since the demands had not been rejected out of hand, he could not hand over his passports as he had been ordered to do. The matter was still far from being settled. He must present this response to Lord Palmerston and could already feel that individual’s wrathful reaction. He rang for his servant.

“Pack my bags for a sea voyage.”

“You will remember, sir, you asked me to do that some days ago.”

“Did I? By Jove I do believe that you are right. Did I not ask you as well to keep record of ship movements?”

“You did indeed, your Lordship. There is a Belgian barque, the Marie Celestine, now taking on cargo in the port of Baltimore. She will be departing for the port of Ostend in two days time.”

“Excellent. I will take the cars to Baltimore in the morning. Arrange it.”

He must return to London at once; he had no other choice. But there was the ameliorating factor that at least he would be out of this backwoods capital and, for a time at least, in the clement city at the heart of the mightiest Empire on earth. One whose drastic displeasure these frontiersmen must be ready to surfer if their truculence prevailed.

Lord Lyons was indeed correct, at least about the weather in Britain. It was a weak and watery sun which shone on London this same December day — but at least it shone. Charles Francis Adams, the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James, was happy to be outdoors and away from the endless paperwork and the smoky fires. The servants in the homes he passed must have been up at dawn to sweep and wash the Mayfair pavements: the walk was a pleasant one. He turned off Brook Street and into Grosvenor Square, climbed the familiar steps of number 2 and tapped lightly on the door with the handle of his walking stick. The manservant opened it and ushered him through to the magnificent sitting room where his friend awaited him.

“Charles — how kind of you to accept my invitation.”

“Your invitation to dine with you, Amory, was as a rainbow from heaven.”

They were close friends, part of the small number of Americans resident in London. Amory Cabot was a Boston merchant who had made his fortune in the English trade. He had been a young man when he had first come to this city to represent the family business. The temporary position had become permanent when he had married here, his wife a member of a prominent Birmingham manufacturing family. Now, alas, his wife was dead, the children far from the family seat. But London was his home and Boston a distant part of the world. Now in his eighties, he watched his business with a benign eye and let others do the hard work. While devoting most of his attention to whist and other civilized diversions. The servants brought pipes and mulled ale as the friends talked idly. Only when the door had closed did Cabot’s features darken with worry.

“Is there any new word of the crisis?”

“None. I do know that the newspapers and public opinion at home is still very firm on the matter. The traitors are in our hands and there they must stay. Setting them free would be unthinkable. There has been no response from Washington as yet to the Trent memorandum. My hands are tied — there is nothing that I can do on my own — and I have no instructions. Yet still this crisis must be averted.”

Cabot sighed. “I could not agree more. But can it be done? Our countrymen are incensed but, as you well know, matters are no better here in London. Friends I have known for years shut their doors to me, harden their faces should we meet. I’ll tell you something — it is like the War of 1812 all over again. I was here then as well, kept my head down and rode it out. But even then most of my friends and associates did not turn on me as they are doing now. They felt that war had been forced upon them and they fought it with great reluctance. Why a few, the more liberal of them, even sympathized with our cause and thought it to be a singularly stupid war. Not brought about by circumstance but by arrogance and stupidity. No shortage of that at any time. But it is far different now. Now the anger and hatred are fierce. And the newspapers! Did you read what the Times wrote?”

“Indeed I did, the so-called ‘City Intelligence.’ Said outright that Lincoln and Seward were attempting to hide the spectacle of their internal condition by embarking on a foreign war. Utter hogwash!”

“As indeed it is. But the Daily News is even worse. They write that all Englishmen believe that Seward, in some manner they did not reveal, had arranged the entire Trent Affair himself.”

Adams’s pipe had gone out. He rose and used a spill to relight it from the fire, exhaled pungent Virginia smoke. “What bothers me more than the newspapers are the politicians. The traditional Whig elite, like our mutual acquaintance the Earl of Clarendon, actually hate democracy. They feel it threatens their class system and their power. To them the Unites States is the bastion of the devil, a perversion that is best wiped out before it can contaminate the underclasses here. They would cheerfully welcome a war against our country.”

“The Queen as well,” Cabot said glumly, taking a long swig from his tankard as though to wash some bad taste from his mouth. “She approves of all this, actually predicts the utter destruction of the Yankees. She blames us for Prince Albert’s death, you know, irrational as the thought is.”

“It goes beyond words. I walked along the Thames on Christmas Day. Even on that feast day they were working flat out at the Tower of London — packing firearms. I counted eight barges that were filled that single morning.”

“Can nothing more be done? Must we sit by helplessly while the United States and Great Britain march to their doom? Is foreign intervention not possible?”

“Would that it were,” Adams sighed. “The Emperor Louis Napoleon has quite charmed Queen Victoria. And he agrees with her that America must bend the knee. The French are at least behind him in this. They see Britain as the traditional enemy and welcome any trouble here. Then of course there is Prussia and the other German states. All related some way or other to the Queen. They will do nothing. Russia holds no love for the British after the Crimean War — but the Czar will not intervene on America’s behalf. He is too stupid in any case. No, I am afraid that we are alone in the world and can expect no outside help. Something terrible is happening and no one seems to have discovered a way to avoid it.”

Black clouds had come up to obscure the sun and the room grew dark. Obscured their spirits as well and they could only sit in silence. Where would it end, where would it end?

A brisk walk from this house on Grosvenor Square to Park Lane would take one to the most famous address in London. Appsley House. Number 1, London. The carriage from Whitehall stopped there and the footman opened the door. Grunting with the effort, wincing with the pain from his gouty foot, Lord Palmerston clambered down and hobbled into the house. A servant took his coat and the butler opened the door and admitted him to the presence.

Lord Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, perhaps the most famous man in England; surely the most famous general alive.

“Come in, Henry, come in,” the voice said from the wingchair before the fire. A thin voice, high-pitched with age, yet nevertheless still containing echoes of the firmness of command.

“Thank you, Arthur. It has been quite a time.”

Lord Palmerston eased himself into the chair with a sigh. “You are looking good,” he said.

Wellington laughed reedily. “When one is ninety-two it does not matter how one looks, rather that it is of paramount importance that one is there to be looked at at all.”

Thin, yes, the skin drawn back over the bones of his skull to further accent the mighty Wellington nose. Conky, his troops had called him affectionately. All dead now, all in their graves, the hundreds of thousands of them. When one reaches the ninth decade one finds that there are very few peers left.

There was a slight click as a silent servant placed a glass on the table at Palmerston’s elbow.

“The last bottle of the last case of the ’28 port,” Wellington said. “Been saving it for you. Knew you would be around here one of these days.”

Palmerston sipped and sighed. “By gad that is music, heavenly music not drink. To your continued good health.”

“May your toast be a true one. 1828, you remember that year?”

“Hard to forget. You were Prime Minister and I was the new boy in the Cabinet. I’m afraid that I was not as cooperative as I should have been at the time…”

“Water under the bridge. When one slowly approaches the century mark many things become no longer important. Since my illness in ’fifty-two I have the feeling that I am living on borrowed time and I mean to enjoy it.”

“It was a time of great concern — ”

“For me as well, I assure you. I was at death’s door — but that dread portal never opened. Now, to business. It cannot be the port nor the reminiscences that bring you here today. In your note you said that it was a matter of some importance.”

“It is. I assume that you read the newspapers?”

“You assume wrong. But my secretary does read to me from most of them. I imagine that you are referring to this matter with the Americans?”

“Indeed I am.”

“Then why are you here?’

“I have been asked to come. By the Queen herself.”

“Ahh,” Wellington said, stirring in the chair, pulling at the rug with skeletal hands where it had slid down. “My dear Victoria. She was quite an attractive child, you know. Round-faced and pink and bubbling with energy. She often came to me for advice, even after her marriage and coronation. For one with so little promise, with such a strange childhood, she has outdone herself. I believe that she has become a Queen in deed as well as name. What does she wish of me now?”

“Some sage advice, I believe. She is battered from all sides by conflicting opinions as to how the Americans must be treated. She herself believes that they are responsible for Albert’s death. But she also fears to let her emotions rule her head.”

“She is alone in that,” Wellington said with some warmth. “There is far too much hysteria about. Too much hysterical emotion and no attempt at logical thought. People, the press, the politicians. They all clamor for war. During my military career I always considered politicians to be self-serving and more loyal to their party than they were to their country. When I began my political career I discovered that my earlier opinion was far more correct than I could have possibly imagined. Now they bay for a reckless and needless war.”

“And you do not? Viscount Wellington and Baron Duoro.”

“Baron Duoro, conferred after Talavera. Only victors receive titles. You are deliberate in your choice of titles and remind me of my military career.”

“I do.”

“I prefer to remember my political career when considering this matter before me. I have always been for non-intervention in foreign affairs, you know that. It is terribly easy to begin wars, terribly difficult to stop them. We have not been invaded, none of our countrymen has been hurt, none of our property destroyed.”

“An English ship was stopped on the high seas. A most illegal act — and two foreign nationals taken from her.”

“I agree — a most illegal act. By international law the packet should have been taken to a neutral port. There it would be determined what the correct procedure would be. The two countries concerned would have their day in court. If this had been done, and the two men handed over to the Americans, why you would have no case at all against them. So why not let the lawyers in? If illegality is what we are talking about. There are enough of them around and I am sure that they would love to have a go at this one.”

“Is that what you want me to tell the Queen?”

“Not at all. I am sure that the time is too late for lawyers. Someone should have thought about this a very long time ago.”

“What would you have me tell her then?”

Wellington settled back into his chair, breathed out a low sigh.

“What indeed. On all sides the good and the great, as well as the low and the stupid, bay for war. It will be hard for her to go against that tide, particularly since she is inclined that way herself. And you have told me that she blames the Americans and this Trent Affair for her husband’s death.”

“She does indeed.”

“She was always good at languages. But other than that she was not a very bright little girl. Breaking into tears quite often and quite prone to give in to emotional fits. You must tell her to look into her heart and think of the countless thousands now alive who will die if war comes. Tell her to put rational thought ahead of emotion. Not that I think she will listen. Tell her to seek peace with honor if she can.”

“It will be difficult.”

“Nothing in warfare or politics is easy, Lord Palmerston. You shall tell Her Majesty that she must think most seriously of the consequences, if this matter is allowed to proceed in the future as it has in the past. I have seen too much of battle and death to take relish in it. Here, have another glass of port before you leave. You’ll not taste wine like that again in your lifetime.”

The old man’s eyes closed and his breath was a soft sighing. Palmerston finished the last of the port, sighed as well himself at pleasures spent. Then rose, quietly as he could, and saw himself out.