The Confederate Cruisers

AMONG the famous vessels whose names are household words, there is not one better known at the present day than the Alabama. Other ships have become memorable by their voyages or their battles ; but the notorious Confederate cruiser made no discoveries, and can be credited with no greater exploits than were performed in earlier times by hundreds of privateers. The Alabama burned and captured a few score of peaceful merchantmen; and if this had been all, she would have sunk beneath the waves of the English Channel and been forgotten. Her fame and her importance in history are due, of course, to the great events of which she was the cause. She and her two or three consorts were largely instrumental in destroying almost entirely the commerce of a great country and in bringing two powerful nations to the verge of war. They formed for years a standing grievance on the part of one great people against another, and were the subjects of endless, irritating, and perilous negotiations. They caused serious innovations and interminable discussions upon the public law of the civilized world, and finally brought the representatives of the proudest people on earth three thousand miles to offer an apology, and to agree to the Geneva arbitration, which, whatever its results, marks an era in the history of international disputes. The history of the Alabama and of the other Confederate cruisers built abroad displays the real attitude of Europe toward the United States during the civil war as nothing else can. It is this history from a wholly new point of view, the Confederate side, which Captain Bulloch has undertaken to write, in these two goodly volumes,¹ and it is only fair to say at the outset that his work is very interesting and valuable.

Captain Bulloch possesses qualities which are of great advantage to him. He was the naval agent of the Confederacy in Europe, and all the delicate and dangerous business of building a Confederate navy on the other side of the Atlantic passed through his hands. All the correspondence connected with these affairs is in his possession. Thus furnished with the amplest material, much of it new and important, Captain Bulloch has brought also to his work professional training, an agreeable style, thorough knowledge of his subject, and a painstaking spirit. He not only knows how to build and sail ships, but he can tell the story of their construction and of their cruises in simple, brief, and yet interesting fashion. The tone of the book is extremely temperate, and in the narrative portions particularly the author writes with the obvious intention of being perfectly impartial. We read many pages before we abandoned the belief that we had at last found a Southerner who took part in the late war and yet was able, after an interval of twenty years, to be thoroughly fair-minded. It must be confessed, however, that the Southerner of the generation that fought the war who, even if he has forgotten nothing, has yet learned something is still to be discovered. We were particularly disappointed in this case, because, while treating his main theme, Captain Bulloch is not only moderate in expression, but from his own point of view he is singularly fair, and his opinions of his country at the present day, although a little gloomy, perhaps, show honest and patriotic feeling. It is only when he leaves his own province that he becomes not only unjust, but also displays an ignorance which is surprising in any educated American. This is especially noticeable in his excursions into the region of general history. On page 307, vol. ii., he says, “ No Northern State emancipated its slaves, but the greater portion of them were transferred to the South by sale, and the remnant gradually disappeared.” Where the remnant disappeared to, and who constituted the large body of free negroes in the North, we are not informed, but the whole statement is ludicrously untrue. Slavery was summarily abolished in Massachusetts in 1783, by judicial decision upon a clause of the constitution of 1780, framed for that purpose. From the moment when that decision was rendered, a negro was a free man, and could no more have been sold to the South than a white man. To stop attempts at kidnapping, an act prohibiting the slave-trade was passed in Massachusetts in 1788. A similar act had already passed in Rhode Island in 1787, and soon after was adopted in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. In Pennsylvania, in 1780, acts were passed providing for gradual emancipation, prohibiting the importation and exportation of slaves, and assuring freedom to all persons born thereafter in the State, or brought into it, except runaways from other States and the servants of travelers and others not remaining more than six mouths. How the Pennsylvanians, under these acts, could have sold their slaves to the South we leave to Captain Bulloch and to the ingenious Liverpool solicitors who advised him on the Foreign Enlistment Act to determine. The Pennsylvania system of gradual emancipation was at once imitated by Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. Five States, in short, had emancipated their slaves by law before 1790. It is needless to go further. Captain Bulloch’s assertion is either a willful misstatement or a piece of unpardonable ignorance; for there is no room for sentiment or opinion on this point. It is a simple question of fact. Again, on the next page (vol. ii. p. 308), Captain Bulloch says that no Northern statesman offered or proposed any scheme for emancipation, but simply indulged in invective against the South and the slaveholder. The most superficial acquaintance with the subject would have taught Captain Bulloch, in the first place, that feasible plans of emancipation had been carried out in the Northern States, and were susceptible of imitation; secondly, that the country had teemed with schemes to get rid of slavery from the time of the Colonization Society down to the war : and thirdly, that every sensible anti-slavery man, and such leaders as Charles Sumner, would have hailed with delight any arrangement for gradual emancipation and for full compensation to which the South would have given her assent.

In another place (vol. i. p. 9), in undertaking to prove the truism that nullification and secession were doctrines which at some time or other received support in all parts of the country, Captain Bulloch intimates that they originated in New England, and begins his survey of the question with the Hartford convention. He has apparently forgotten that the doctrine of nullification, to which the Hartford convention gave the name of " interposition,” really originated in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, which emanated from the fertile brain of Jefferson and employed the ingenuity of Madison. He has also failed to remember the whiskey rebellion, and the principles enunciated by its ringleaders; the resolutions of the Patrick Henry society at the time of the Jay treaty, and the preparations in Virginia and the marshaling of Dark’s brigade in 1801 to seize the government in case Burr was chosen over Jefferson in the House of Representatives. The point is not one of much importance in this book, but Southern men ought to learn that their position is not strengthened by falsifying or stating loosely historical facts.

But there is one error of this sort which far outweighs all others. It is an assertion which Captain Bulloch constantly repeats : it is made by all Southern writers, and it is high time that it was abandoned and consigned to the dust heaps. It is the familiar and reiterated statement that the South fought for selfgovernment and freedom, and in so doing occupied the same ground as the colonies in the Revolution. This agreeable theory started as a popular cry, raised by the political leaders at the opening of the war in order to rouse the Southern people to fight. It was false then, it is false now ; and, historically speaking, it is barefaced nonsense. The Revolution was begun and carried through for self-government, in opposition to an encroaching and oppressive external power. The civil war was fought by the North to preserve the Union and to prevent the South from destroying it. The Southern States attempted to leave the Union, and thus furnished the casus belli because they had lost an election, and thereby control of the general government. The Southerners acted like children. When they did not win they refused to play. Not a single act of any kind had been committed, not a single step had been taken, not a single scheme, even, had been broached, to interfere with their self-government. They were absolutely untouched. The Republican convention had declared in favor of the rights of States, and Mr. Lincoln announced that he did not intend to meddle with the rights of the South in any way. The South did not wait to see whether the Republicans would commit an overt and obnoxious act. They did not even give the Republicans the opportunity to do anything at all. As soon as the election was decided they prepared to secede; and they seceded at the earliest possible moment. To say that abuse of the “pet institution ” was the cause of their action is idle. There was abuse on both sides. The South would not have gone to war because they were abused, any more than the North. They found they had lost control of the government legally. They could not regain it by force, and so they tried to destroy the Union. The North would have borne everything else ; but when the Union was assailed, they were determined to prevent its dissolution by force, and they succeeded. These are the plain facts; and this cant about fighting for self-government by a people who had not been interfered with in any way and who were wholly self-governing, and about a struggle for freedom the corner-stone of which was human slavery, is noxious, miserable rubbish, which we shall always be sorry to find in a respectable book, and most happy to characterize according to its deserts whenever we do find it.

There is still another point on which we think Captain Bulloch makes a mistake. He steadily and carefully belittles and slurs every Northern leader, whether civil or military. We can hardly wonder that he should feel annoyed in regard to Mr. Seward, who so successfully thwarted the plans of the Confederacy in Europe. But this is no reason that Captain Bulloch should attack Mr. Seward, repeating his abusive epithets whenever he can make an opportunity. We confess that these assaults by the Confederate naval agent upon Mr. Seward have given us an increased respect for the ability of the Secretary of State and for the vigor and effectiveness of his work. How much Mr. Seward’s vigilance hurt at the time is shown by Captain Bulloch’s outcry over it after a lapse of twenty years. At the same time, such abuse of an opponent is neither just nor generous; and when it is extended to all Northern statesmen and soldiers it becomes a serious fault of taste and temper. Captain Bulloch, for instance, goes out of his way to carp and sneer at Farragut; and so it is with all. It certainly does not improve the position of the South if the men who whipped them were such poor creatures, for no amount of superiority of resources could have supplied the lack of ability and courage which is here imputed to every one on the Northern side. If Captain Bulloch had actually fought in the war he would have been more likely to speak of his enemies in the manly way adopted by General Johnston, who says that he never had sympathy with the cheap political talk about the Federal armies; for he had been with Northern troops in Mexico, and knew them to be brave men and good soldiers.

We have dwelt at some length on these points, not directly connected with the main subject of Captain Bulloch’s work, because they are blemishes common to nearly all Southern writers on the war, and are especially objectionable in a sensible, important, and wellwritten work of this kind. The author would have been stronger and his book more valuable if he had adhered strictly to his subject, and shunned the fair and perilous field of general reflection. We think, however, that Captain Bulloch somewhat misconceives the true point raised by the chapter of history which he has written. His arguments are all devoted to showing that the Confederacy acted in a scrupulously legal way, and was thoroughly justified in every step taken by its agents in Europe. This is of no great importance. The lawfulness or unlawfulness of the Confederate actions abroad possesses nothing more than a sentimental interest for the survivors of the lost cause. The true question, and the one on which this narrative throws a great deal of light, concerns the attitude of foreign powers, and especially of England and France, toward the opposing parties in our civil war. The Confederate States needed a navy. They had entered upon a desperate struggle, and could not build ships at home. They therefore undertook to obtain them abroad. This was natural and fair, and no one can blame either the Confederacy or its agents for the attempt. Any people engaged in a war are perfectly justified in obtaining munitions of all sorts wherever they can. The business of the Confederate agents was to get ships and arms; and if in so doing they violated the laws of other countries it was, at worst, a very venial offense and one for which they cannot be rightly censured, for they acted in accordance with what they believed their first and highest duty. Be it said in passing that it was equally the duty of the United States to stop these proceedings by any means in their power, and Captain Bulloch’s petulant and offended tone, when he refers to the opposition and annoyance he experienced front the United States ministers and consuls and their agents, is excessively funny. He was there to get ships; Mr. Adams, Mr. Dudley, and the rest of the United States officers were there to prevent him : and they fought out their quarrels in their way, while great armies battled over the same issue at home.

As a matter of fact, the Confederate agents violated the law grossly in spirit, if not always in letter. The Foreign Enlistment Act was expressly designed to prevent the equipment and despatch of ships of war to belligerents. Captain Bulloch evaded it by building an unarmed ship and sending her out from one port, and dispatching her armament front another. He cites the Alexandra case and various opinions of eminent Englishmen, to show that sending out an unarmed ship intended to become at once a ship of war was not a violation of the law of England. But he fails to show that sending out the Alabama in connection with an armament from another point, and enlisting men for her in England, did not constitute a breach of neutrality. The ministers of England in due time admitted that it was.

Captain Bulloch also attempts to meet the charge of violating neutrality by crying, “ Tu quoque,” not a very good argument at best, and in this instance singularly worthless. He is led into these errors largely by his misconception of the difference between recognition as a belligerent and recognition as a nation. The Confederacy obtained the former, but not the latter. To foreign powers there were two belligerents engaged in our civil war, but only one nation. In this latter capacity the United States not only had accredited and received ministers and consuls everywhere, but they occupied a much stronger position in the eyes of the world than their adversaries, and had corresponding advantages. To all this they were fairly entitled, and of course bought arms with much less difficulty than the unauthorized agents of insurgent States having no recognized national existence. Captain Bulloch urges strongly the point that emigration was encouraged in order to obtain recruits for the Northern armies. He forgets that emigration and enlistment are two totally different things. Even if men were encouraged to emigrate to America, they were not enlisted until they reached New York; whereas the Confederate agents actually enlisted men in England, and on English ships, to light in the cause of “ liberty,” as Captain Bulloch rather unwittingly admits. He also supports his charge that the United States recruited men abroad by saying that “ whole battalions ” in the Federal armies were unable to speak English. Extravagant statements like this weaken an argument always, because they are obviously untrue.

The real facts of the case regarding the relations of foreign powers to our civil war can be very briefly stated. England and France desired to see the United States broken up. They began by helping the Confederacy in an underhand way, and waited events. Had the South prospered, they would have come out boldly and helped to precipitate the downfall of the Union. Unluckily for them, the Southern cause lost ground, and in proportion as it hurried downward England and France shut ther ports, and helped to crush the unfortunate Confederacy which they had encouraged.

The North can look back on the treatment they received from England and France with a good deal of indifference, for they obtained afterwards a fair measure of redress. The United States compelled the withdrawal of the French troops from Mexico, and the failure of the Mexican expedition drove the empire to its deserved ruin. From England we demanded an apology and a penalty, and received both. But the South has nothing but the bitter memory of interested friendship, deceitful promises, and blasted hopes as the fruit of foreign sympathy. England and France have the satisfaction of knowing that they wronged and offended both sides, without the compensation of having acted in a manly and honorable fashion.

For the first time we learn the exact attitude of France. We now know that she not only connived at aid to the South, but actually urged Mr. Slidell and others to build ships of war in French dockyards. Thus stimulated, the Confederate agents built the ships ; but when the vessels were completed the tide had turned, and then the French government compelled the sale of these all-important cruisers to other nations. Thus France stood technically clear toward the United States; but her policy was in reality outrageous. The Confederacy would never have built ships in France unless actually invited to do so by the emperor’s government. Led on and encouraged in this way, the South was at the last moment treacherously struck down, because defeat was upon her. False to the United States, false to the Confederate States, France exhibits in this connection a profligate selfishness which is not often equaled.

One merit, however, France possessed: whatever she did was plain and definite. England vacillated, and let “ I dare not wait upon I would, like the poor cat i’ the adage.” Captain Bulloch gives a history of the causes which led to the civil war, drawn from the most singular sources imaginable, the English newspapers. There is something delicious in the idea of writing American history on the authority of the cheap sneers of Blackwood and the profound learning and fair judgment of the Saturday Re view and the London Times. Captain Bulloch’s object is to show the enlightenment of English opinion, and how England came to understand that the cause of the slave-holder was the cause of liberty. He might have spared himself the trouble of making this exposition. The course of England, the country of fair play and moral ideas, was dictated by mere selfishness tempered by prudence. The aristocracy, and the upper classes generally, hailed the war between the States with delight. They saw the hated republic threatened with anarchy and ruin, going to pieces, and leaving the world for them to bustle in. Thereat they rejoiced mightily. They would have liked to recognize the Confederate States as a nation, but prudence forbade, and voices which could not be disregarded— the voices of John Bright and Richard Cobden — were fearlessly raised against it. Still they could abuse the North and sympathize with the South, and this much they did to their hearts’ content. They could connive at sending out ships of war, and this they also did, so far and so long as they dared. The Alabama escaped by a trick, as Lord John Russell admitted to Mr. Cobden ; and the cases of the Alabama and Florida were indefensible, as the same minister said to Mr. Adams. The subordinate officers of the English government at Liverpool and elsewhere were in the interest of the South. The letter of Morgan, the Liverpool surveyor, published in the first volume, shows that he, and consequently the government, knew the Alabama to be a ship of war, and were only anxious that there should be no technical violation of the law. The builders of the Southern ships were honored and applauded for their work ; and thus privateers were let loose on American commerce from English ports, to the great detriment of the United States and the great benefit of England, and without any effect on the Southern cause. Captain Bulloch is much incensed at the terms “ pirate ” and “ corsair” as applied to the Confederate cruisers. It is not easy to say what they were. They held commissions delivered on the high seas from an unrecognized government, which had not a port in which to shelter them. They differed in no essential respect from privateers ; and if we judge them, as Captain Bulloch wishes the belligerency of the Confederate States to be judged, by facts, they were only a species of letterof-marque ships. They did nothing but burn and plunder peaceful merchantmen, and the only one that fought with a ship of war was disastrously beaten. There is no use, moreover, in belittling the Kearsarge, for Winslow’s only mistake consisted in not sinking the Deerhound, and teaching British sympathizers with the South a wholesome lesson against meddling. The Alabama had a fair light, and was whipped. It is a great pity that the same cannot be said of the Florida.

Gradually, however, the policy of England changed, to the great and bitter dismay of the Confederate agents. The two big rams, innocent, unarmed things, were watched and stopped, to the intense and natural disgust of Captain Bulloch. The Shenandoah got loose, but on the whole the path of the naval agent of the Confederacy became harder and harder. England began, in fact, to live up to her international duties. The South was really as much an object of sympathy as ever, her cause was as good as it had been in 1861 and 1862, and her troops were fighting with undiminished gallantry. Unfortunately, she was rushing to defeat, and as her pace was accelerated England became more and more hostile. We do not wonder that Captain Bulloch writes bitterly of English vacillation. It is only surprising that he is so moderate. He is even now unwilling to face the truth, although he tells it frankly. There is an old epigram, written by Sir John Harrington, which covers the case: —

At the outset the cause of the South was in England the cause of liberty, of aristocracy, and of “ the gentleman,” and everybody praised it and tried to help it. But it did not prosper. Then it became treason, and the gentle would-be ally cast it out in the cold, and congratulated the victor. Cobden says in one of his letters, “ I have seen with disgust the altered tone with which America has been treated since she was believed to have committed suicide, or something like it. In our diplomacy, our press, and with our public speakers, all hastened to kick the dead lion. Now (1865) in a few months everybody will know that the North will triumph ; and what troubles me is lest I should live to see our ruling class— which can understand and respect power better than any other class — grovel once more, and more basely than before, to the giant of democracy. This would not only inspire me with disgust and indignation, but with shame and humiliation. I think I see signs that it is coming. The Times is less insolent and Lord Palmerston is more civil. . . . The alteration of tone (in the debate) is very remarkable. It is clear that the homage which was refused to justice and humanity will be freely given to success.” There could be no better statement of the case than that of Cobden. It is indeed well worth our while to look back and see, in these volumes, just what the course of the ruling classes in England was. Much has been forgotten, and it is a matter on which it is well occasionally to refresh our memories, so that we may bear in mind what the admiration and friendship of the English are worth. They admire our success; they respect a people who can fight hard, and then pay their debts at the rate of a hundred millions a year. That is the beginning and end of the whole matter. If we were to get into serious trouble again, the old policy would be repeated, and even extended, if it seemed likely to be safe and profitable. It is particularly instructive to read Mr. Gladstone’s speeches, confidently assuring the world that the South would succeed ; and it is sad to find the same gentleman, the great moral statesman, some years after declaring that he had always been a friend to the North, and that his predictions of Southern success, which were cheered to the echo when they were uttered, really meant nothing, and were full of good-will to the United States. Mr. Gladstone’s conduct represents that of the ruling classes of England. Their whole course during our civil war presents a touching example of England’s well-known affection for the weaker party in a fight. That English affection for the weak is always robust when the weaker side is likely to win, and fades away when the weaker side is driven to the wall. The one thing which England never forgives is failure ; the one thing she never fails to worship and follow is success. This is the way of the world and of nations ; but it becomes repulsive when it is accompanied with loud moral talk, professions of love of fair play, and wretched cant about always sympathizing as a people with the weaker party. The policy and the acts of England and France in regard to both sides, in our civil war, make a sorry chapter in the history of those countries, and one of which they have reason to be ashamed. Nothing, let us say in conclusion, throws more light upon this subject or gives a better idea of it than the well-written and interesting work of the naval agent of the Confederacy, which we have discussed, and which constitutes a real and important addition to the best and truest history of that exciting time.