My book The War of Constitutional Stewardship makes the case for a little-known turning point of
the American Civil War. It occurred in the Utah Territory in
1862-1863 as a brilliant Union general single-handedly invented the
counterinsurgency campaign. Without armed conflict, he kept the
Mormons in the Union, while simultaneously using all of the elements
of civil society to force the polygamous and communitarian Mormons to
start moving into the monogamous and capitalist American mainstream.
I recently re-read The Education of Henry Adams
and rediscovered his behind-the-scenes story of another key turning
point of the Civil War. It occurred in the Court of St. James in
1862-63, as Henry, then in his mid-twenties, was serving as a
volunteer personal secretary to his father, Lincoln's ambassador to
England.
This turning point is also about something that easily could have occurred, but did not. England did not offer
diplomatic recognition to The Confederate States of America.
Britain's politicians had been moving
steadily toward recognition and material aid to the South, even before the
Adamses arrived in the country. The diplomats had their own lengthy
build-up to battle, their own declaration of war, and, fortunately
for the Union side, a rapid surrender by the Brits.
Palmerston, Russell, and Gladstone were
quite ready to recognize the Confederacy. In a speech at Newcastle
Gladstone proclaimed: "Jefferson
Davis and other leaders of the South have made an army; they are
making, it appears, a navy; and they have made what is more than
either; they have made a nation." Palmsterston and Russell
approached France about mediating a peace between the combatants. If
the Confederates were to occupy Washington or Baltimore, Palmerston
wrote, "would it not be time for us to consider whether in such
a state of things England and France might not address the contending
parties and recommend an arrangement on the basis of separation?’
Russell agreed, and went further: If the North declined, "we
ought ourselves to recognize the Southern States as an independent
State."
Secretary of State William H. Seward,
who once had delusions of reuniting North and South and avoiding
civil war by starting a war with England, had by 1863 shaken off
his illusions. He worked with diligence and industry to promote the
Union abroad.
"The spring and summer of 1863 saw
a great change in Secretary Seward's management of foreign affairs,"
Henry wrote. "Under the stimulus of danger, he too got
education...In order to affect European opinion, the weight of
American opinion had to be brought to bear personally, and had to be
backed by the weight of American interests. Mr. Seward set vigorously
to work and sent over every important American on whom he could lay
his hands. All came to the Legation more or less intimately, and
Henry Adams had a chance to see them all, bankers or bishops, who did
their work quietly and well, though, to the outsider, the work seemed
wasted and the 'influential classes' more indurated with prejudice
than ever. The waste was only apparent; the work all told in the end;
and meanwhile it helped education."
Even in advance of the military
victories at Vicksburg and Gettysburg, his father the Minister was
forced to begin his diplomatic campaign. Two armored warships were
being built for the Southern navy, and Minister Adams's language grew
sharper with each demand for an official explanation.
"One began to feel that, somewhere
behind the chaos in Washington power was taking shape; that it was
massed and guided as it had not been before. Men seemed to have
learned their business...As the first great blows began to fall, one
curled up in bed in the silence of night, to listen with incredulous
hope. As the huge masses struck, one after another, with the
precision of machinery, the opposing mass, the world shivered. Such
development of power was unknown. The magnificent resistance and the
return shocks heightened the suspense."
And then the diplomatic campaign
reached its climax, with Minister Adams accusing Lord Russell of
complicity in the rebel ships, and concluding: "It would be
superfluous in me to point out to your lordship that this is war!"
The words, on the "extreme verge of diplomatic propriety,"
young Henry saw, "merely stated a fact, without novelty, fancy,
or rhetoric. The fact had to be stated in order to make clear the
issue. The war was Russell's war--Adams only accepted it."
Russell's reply was a complete surrender: "Instructions have
been issued which will prevent the departure of the two ironclad
vessels from Liverpool."
Looking back at the events of 1862-1863, Henry wrote:
"The private secretary conceived that, as Secretary Stanton had struck and crushed by superior weight the rebel left on the Mississippi, so Secretary Seward had struck and crushed the rebel right in England, and he never felt a doubt as to the nature of the battle. Though Minister Adams should stay in office till he were ninety, he would never fight another campaign of life and death like this; and though the private secretary should covet and attain every office in the gift of President or people, he would never again find education to compare with the life-and-death alternative of this two-year-and-a-half struggle in London...For once, the volunteer secretary was satisfied with his Government...in this case the English campaign seemed to him as creditable to the State Department as the Vicksburg campaign to the War Department, and more decisive. It was well planned, well prepared, and well executed."
The Education of Henry Adams has been named by the Modern Library as the best non-fiction book of the 20th century.
John Q. Murray is author of The War of Constitutional Stewardship: The 2012 Presidential Election and The Civil War in the West.
