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Collecting Evidence in the Cause of Freedom

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Collecting Evidence in the Cause of Freedom Coy F. Cross, II. Lincoln's Man in Liverpool: Consul Dudley and the Legal Battle to Stop Confederate Warships. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2007. x + 180 pp. $28.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-87580-373-9. Reviewed by Stephen E. Towne Published on H-CivWar (June, 2007) Thomas Haines Dudley's activities as U.S. con‐ erpool to demonstrate his role in providing the sul at Liverpool in Great Britain have attracted necessary evidence needed to document Great much attention from Civil War historians over the Britain's lax role in enforcing its laws concerning years. Naval and diplomatic historians have noted belligerent activities in that country. Cross sug‐ his contributions to combating Confederate ef‐ gests that Dudley played a vital role in the diplo‐ forts to build and equip naval ships in European macy between the United States and Great shipyards, and commented on his role in U.S. rela‐ Britain, whose relations were strained nearly to tions with Great Britain during the rebellion, the point of war. Cross, who holds a Ph.D. in diplo‐ which culminated in the international arbitration matic history, positions Dudley's contributions tribunal held in Switzerland in 1872. Political his‐ within the realm of diplomacy and argues that the torians have recounted his part in Abraham Lin‐ consul and U.S. Minister to the Court of St. James, coln's 1860 Republican Party nomination for the Charles Francis Adams, "meshed into a powerful presidency. Recently, Dudley has been grandiosely team" (p. 7) in representing Washington to a credited as being "Lincoln's Spymaster" for oper‐ British government unsympathetic to the Lincoln ating a small group of detectives who scoured the administration and the U.S. government. shipyards of Liverpool and other British ports Dudley, a Camden, New Jersey attorney and searching for evidence of Confederate shipbuild‐ Republican Party operative, was appointed to the ing activity. In all, Dudley has a frm place in the consulship at Liverpool in 1861 as a reward for literature on the American Civil War, no doubt his political activities in New Jersey in helping owing much to historians' access to the extensive Lincoln reach the White House. Liverpool was collection of his consular records at the Hunting‐ Britain's major shipping and shipbuilding port at ton Library in California.[1] the time, and a consul there would be much occu‐ Historian Coy F. Cross II adds a narrative ac‐ pied with sorting out the affairs of U.S. ships and count of Thomas Dudley's consular service in Liv‐ seamen. Dudley was soon embroiled in efforts to H-Net Reviews counteract the activities of representatives of the lows, showing the British government to have Confederate government in Liverpool and other been dilatory in acting on the evidence that Dud‐ British ports to buy or build ships for Confederate ley and others collected on the ship being built in service against the United States. Led by James D. a Liverpool yard. Despite formal presentation of Bulloch, representatives of the Confederate gov‐ evidence from Adams, British officials delayed ernment (which lacked adequate shipbuilding fa‐ sufficiently for the ship to sail out of British wa‐ cilities in the South) positioned themselves in ters and arm itself, and thereafter to begin a long British and continental shipbuilding centers and career of raiding and destruction of American endeavored to buy fast and seaworthy ships to shipping. build a naval force to raid Northern sea ports, de‐ Subsequent Confederate efforts to build ships stroy Northern shipping and commerce, and in British yards met with less success. Cross de‐ break U.S. Navy blockades on Southern sea ports. votes a chapter to the failed rebel effort to launch Bulloch and the others were successful in con‐ the Alexandra in 1863, which served as the legal tracting with numerous British bankers, brokers, test case of the Foreign Enlistment Act and builders, and armaments manufacturers to buy, prompted British Prime Minister Viscount build, and equip warships for the Confederate Palmerston and Foreign Minister Earl Russell's de‐ navy. They were effective in exploiting the weak cision to define the law regarding belligerents' language of the British Foreign Enlistment Act of rights and British neutrality. Cross writes, "Per‐ 1819 to manipulate the British government's dec‐ haps Dudley's evidence, Adams's persistence, and laration of neutrality in the American Civil War, [Secretary of State William] Seward's belligerence as well as the widespread sympathy with the prompted the two British leaders to reconsider South among many Britons. their country's position" (p. 79). Cross's chapter on Cross addresses Dudley's efforts to investigate the ironclad rams under construction for the Con‐ and counteract Confederate activities in Liverpool federate navy in the Liverpool Laird shipyard fur‐ and elsewhere in a case-by-case manner, devoting ther highlights the change in British policy toward a chapter each to the major ships that the rebels Confederate efforts to operate under the unclear succeeded in buying (or failed to build) and which British law. Dudley's detectives frst reported on occupied the consul's efforts to stop. Cross frst their construction in July, 1862, only a month af‐ looks at the case of the CSS Florida, showing how ter Bulloch had contracted for them. As construc‐ Bulloch worked with British businessmen to build tion continued, Dudley pursued intelligence on and outfit the ship, while hiding their intention to them, while, at the same time, the Alexandra mat‐ make a warship for the Confederacy from both ter came to the fore with British leaders. Bulloch British and U.S. officials. However, Dudley and his and the other Confederate agents, seeing the writ‐ staff soon learned of the Confederate effort and ing on the wall with regards to the evolving posi‐ alerted British customs officers of their suspi‐ tion of the Palmerston government in the spring cions. The unarmed ship sailed out of Liverpool's of 1863, attempted to place the rams under harbor in March, 1862, with British officials un‐ French ownership and other national fags. When convinced of its intentions as a warship. The Flor‐ this ruse appeared to be successful in the eyes of ida completed its armament outside British wa‐ the Liverpool Collector of Customs, on whose re‐ ters, and proceeded to capture and destroy U.S. ports Russell based his determination that the shipping until the fall of 1864. Cross writes that British government could not stop the rams from Dudley amassed evidence of the British govern‐ leaving port, Adams wrote on September 5, 1863, ment's laxness in enforcing the provisions of its that if the British government did not stop the laws. A similar chapter on the CSS Alabama fol‐ ships, "it would be superfluous in me to point out 2 H-Net Reviews to your Lordship that this is war" (p. 108). Accord‐ making the case for Dudley being more than just a ing to Cross, however, Russell had already deter‐ "spymaster"; rather, he was "a lawyer determined mined that the rams were warships and built for to build a legal case strong enough to stop the the Confederate navy. After receiving Adams's bel‐ Confederate ships" (p. ix). Like most other Victori‐ ligerent note, he let the American "stew a bit" (p. ans, Dudley viewed the detectives he hired (with 111), but eventually informed him that the gov‐ money from his own pocket much of the time) as ernment would seize the ironclad rams in port. not "very esteemable men" (p. 39). If he was not a After a chapter entitled "Other Cruisers and spymaster, he nevertheless was not a diplomat in Ironclads," in which he discusses vessels built or the strictest sense. Evidence gathering is not bought for the Confederate government in yards diplomacy. in Scotland and France, Cross concludes with a Cross's narrative, based on chapters focused short chapter, "The Days of Reckoning." Dudley's on developments surrounding individual ships, collection of reports, affidavits, intelligence, and functions best as a series of independent essays. other information (from dockworkers; seamen; Chronological overlaps--ships took several builders; and owners of ships captured and de‐ months to build and equip, and Bulloch and his stroyed by Confederate raiders built or bought in colleagues were busy building several ships at Great Britain) served as the main evidence for the any given moment--are inevitable, and the author United States's complaint and claim against Great necessarily repeats information provided in earli‐ Britain for damages caused by those rebel ships. er chapters. The arrangement also tends to blur Dudley remained as consul at Liverpool until the outlines of the discourse between the United shortly after the conclusion of an international ar‐ States and Great Britain, showing how the two bitration tribunal in Switzerland voted, in Sep‐ governments communicated their positions, how tember, 1872, to order Great Britain to pay the those positions changed over time, and how their United States $15 million as recompense for dam‐ ultimate relationship emerged. Most importantly, ages to American shipping during the Civil War. Cross's account does not present any new infor‐ Cross concludes that "Dudley's evidence undoubt‐ mation or impart a significant interpretive depar‐ edly contributed much to the tribunal's fnal deci‐ ture over previous studies. While he cites Dud‐ sion" (p. 155). ley's records at the Huntington Library and con‐ Cross's attempt to place Dudley in the world sular records at the National Archives extensively, of international diplomacy appears tenuous. so too does he cite the work of previous historians While Dudley's information and evidence gather‐ extensively. Douglas Maynard's 1951 dissertation ing was indispensable to the eventual U.S.
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