!∀ # #∃%& ∋&( ) ∗ + &,−− ∃−./01− PUNITIVE DAMAGES Great Britain and uncertain justice in the American Civil War Simon Daniels © Simon Daniels 2001; revised 2014 1 Contents The Speech for the Prosecution ...................................................................................................... 3 The Origins of the War .................................................................................................................... 6 Enter: John Bull .............................................................................................................................. 19 The Primrose Path to Hell .............................................................................................................. 34 Acts of Neutrality ........................................................................................................................... 44 Maritime Brinkmanship ................................................................................................................. 66 The Right to Liberty ....................................................................................................................... 81 Ground Level ................................................................................................................................. 92 P A R ............................................................................................................... 95 Supplying the Soldiers of the Confederacy ................................................................................... 99 The Fatal Blunders ....................................................................................................................... 106 The Ocean Express....................................................................................................................... 110 The Alabama ............................................................................................................................... 128 The Laird Rams ............................................................................................................................ 143 Mediation or Recognition? .......................................................................................................... 146 Lincoln: 1863 ............................................................................................................................... 164 Glory Days .................................................................................................................................... 169 The Downfall of the Confederacy ................................................................................................ 175 The Geneva Conference .............................................................................................................. 187 Legacy .......................................................................................................................................... 202 AUTHORS NOTE AND BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................... 205 2 The Speech for the Prosecution VICTORIA, by the Grace of God, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, to All and Singular to whom these presents shall come, Greeting: Whereas by the First Article of a Treaty, concluded and signed at Washington on the eighth day of May, one thousand eight hundred and seventy one, between Us and Our Good Friends the United States of America, it was stipulated and agreed that, in order to remove and adjust all complaints and claims on the part of the United States, growing out of the acts committed by the several vessels which have given rise to the claims generically known as the “Alabama” Claims, and to provide for the speedy settlement of such Claims, which are not admitted by our Government, all the said Claims, should be referred to a Tribunal of Arbitration…. History is a funny sort of thing: full of names and events whose memories fade, and yet those names and events are hardly round the corner from us today. This instrument, signed by Queen Victoria on the 4th November 1871, appointed Lord Tenterden to act on the Crown’s behalf in a claim brought by the United States, who were claiming incredible damages in compensation for Great Britain’s support for the Confederacy, alleging that she had been in flagrant breach of her obligations of neutrality under international law. The arbitrators had the job to determine whether Britain broke the rules of international law. But the story is much more complex than that, for it inevitably raises an indictment that contains wider charges than mere breaches of the international laws of neutrality: That the people of Great Britain committed strong support for the people building the Confederate nation, for various reasons, not the least being profit, but also from a genuine affinity with the Southern cause, and they were damned if they were going to stay neutral. That the British Government was ensnared by conflict: underlying sympathy for 3 the Southern cause got harnessed to the people’s more active support, but this clashed with the demands of neutrality, and a dithering navigation through these dangerous waters damaged everybody in the end. Finally, the evidence will show that official Recognition of the Confederate States by Great Britain was crucial to the success of the South’s struggle, and thus Britain had it in her power to secure the independence of the Confederacy. Had Britain done so, the downstream consequences would have been enormous, however, for we would have been denied, today, the world’s peacemaker, the world’s banker and provider, the defender of democracy, and our dearest friend: the United States of America. But would this outweigh the debt which we owed to support the Constitution and the democratic rights of the Confederacy? It is an indictment best put before a jury to determine. Welcome to the Jury. Perhaps the most important thing of all to remember, is that these events are today remembered as history, and yet their origins and effects are as strong today as ever. The personal memory of those days died with the passing of the last eye-witness, and as such personal contact has been lost as surely as if the events had taken place in the dark ages. But, for those of us galloping through middle age, our great grandparents were yet children at the time of the American Civil War. ‘All our yesterdays’ were their ‘todays’, and so, perhaps, it is not surprising that you need hardly even scratch the surface of the evidence, to understand the passions and the values that motivated the protagonists, and you will find that we will each take up sides with what we hear and read. There is a vital purpose to understanding this, because we must appreciate not only the events, but also the beliefs and the actions which shaped those events, that tell us where we stand today. Like a jury we must consider the evidence: the eye- witness evidence of the people who were actually there, making the decisions, forming the opinions and the policies. We can hear from expert witnesses, too, who can help us to clarify important aspects of the picture that will enable us to draw our 4 conclusions, free of pre-conceived notions and prejudices that may have crept into our minds up until now. Only then can the jury reach a fair verdict on the charges in the indictment. Did Great Britain do right, or do wrong? 5 The Origins of the War In order to make sense of the picture, we need to look first at the origins of the war. Perhaps the best way to introduce the Origins, is through the Effects. So let’s see what effect the war still has today; you may be surprised, for it is a dramatic picture. On the 18th April, 2001, the ‘Washington Post’ carried a story: Like a lot of Mississippians who have studied the state's tortured past, Marty Wiseman understands the resolute pride of people who feel beleaguered by history. And so, as ballots were tallied in a referendum Tuesday, showing Mississippi voters overwhelmingly in favor of retaining the Confederate battle cross as a prominent feature of the state flag, Wiseman was not surprised. "I don't know if the Civil War will ever be over for us," Wiseman, a Mississippi State University political scientist, said today. "I mean, we're talking about a war that lasted for four years -- in the century before last -- and here in Mississippi, in a sense, we're still fighting it." Less than a year after the South Carolina and Georgia legislatures decided to end their states' prominent displays of the contentious Confederate emblem, and nearly a decade after Alabama's governor and a judge took similar action in that state, Mississippi has stood fast: By an almost 2-to-1 margin, voters rejected a proposed redesign of the flag, leaving their state as the only one still conspicuously flying the rebel cross. "Like the siege of Vicksburg," Wiseman joked, referring to the battles in 1862 and 1863 in which Confederate troops in Mississippi held out against Union assaults for months. There is a deep sense here that attacks on the Confederate battle flag in the South in recent years are the work of "politically correct" outsiders, Wiseman said, and "a great many people in this state just won't tolerate it." Today, members of the Mississippi Sons of Confederate Veterans, and others involved in the campaign to keep the rebel emblem on the state flag, relished their landslide win, calling it a cultural victory. 6 "I