Part 53 (1/2)
But if the British Government was now quietly operating upon the theory of an ultimate Northern victory, or at least with the view that the only hope for the South lay in a Northern weariness of war, the leading British newspapers were still indulging in expressions of confidence in the South while at the same time putting much faith in the expected defeat of Lincoln at the polls. As always at this period, save for the few newspapers avowedly friendly to the North and one important daily professing strict neutrality--the _Telegraph_--the bulk of the metropolitan press took its cue, as well as much of its war news, from the columns of the _Times_. This journal, while early a.s.suming a position of belief in Southern success, had yet given both sides in the war fair accuracy in its reports--those of the New York correspondent, Mackay, always excepted. But from June, 1864, a change came over the _Times_; it was either itself deceived or was wilfully deceiving its readers, for steadily every event for the rest of the year was coloured to create an impression of the unlimited powers of Southern resistance.
Read to-day in the light of modern knowledge of the military situation throughout the war, the _Times_ gave accurate reports for the earlier years but became almost hysterical; not to say absurd, for the last year of the conflict. Early in June, 1864, Grant was depicted as meeting reverses in Virginia and as definitely checked, while Sherman in the West was being drawn into a trap in his march toward Atlanta[1211]. The same ideas were repeated throughout July. Meanwhile there had begun to be printed a series of letters from a Southern correspondent at Richmond who wrote in contempt of Grant's army.
”I am at a loss to convey to you the contemptuous tone in which the tried and war-worn soldiers of General Lee talk of the huddled rabble of black, white, and copper-coloured victims (there are Indians serving under the Stars and Stripes) who are at times goaded up to the Southern lines....
The truth is that for the first time in modern warfare we are contemplating an army which is at once republican and undisciplined[1212].”
At the moment when such effusions could find a place in London's leading paper the facts of the situation were that the South was unable to prevent almost daily desertions and was wholly unable to spare soldiers to recover and punish the deserters. But on this the _Times_ was either ignorant or wilfully silent. It was indeed a general British sentiment during the summer of 1864, that the North was losing its power and determination in the war[1213], even though it was unquestioned that the earlier ”enthusiasm for the slave-holders” had pa.s.sed away[1214]. One element in the influence of the _Times_ was its _seeming_ impartiality accompanied by a pretentious a.s.sertion of superior information and wisdom that at times irritated its contemporaries, but was recognized as making this journal the most powerful agent in England. Angry at a _Times_ editorial in February, 1863, in which Mason had been berated for a speech made at the Lord Mayor's banquet, _The Index_ declared:
”Our contemporary is all things to all men. It not only shouts with the largest crowd, according to the Pickwickian philosophy, but with a skill and daring that command admiration, it shouts simultaneously with opposite and contending crowds. It is everybody's _Times_[1215].”
Yet _The Index_ knew, and frequently so stated, that the _Times_ was at bottom pro-Southern. John Bright's medium, the _Morning Star_, said: ”There was something bordering on the sublime in the tremendous audacity of the war news supplied by the _Times_. Of course, its prophecies were in a similar style. None of your doubtful oracles there; none of your double-meaning vaticinations, like that which took poor Pyrrhus in[1216].” In short, the _Times_ became for the last year of the war the Bible of their faith to Southern sympathizers, and was frequent in its preachments[1217].
There was one journal in London which claimed to have equal if not greater knowledge and authority in military matters. This was the weekly _Army and Navy Gazette_, and its editor, W.H. Russell, in 1861 war correspondent in America of the _Times_, but recalled shortly after his famous letter on the battle of Bull Run, consistently maintained after the war had ended that he had always a.s.serted the ultimate victory of the North and was, indeed, so pro-Northern in sentiment that this was the real cause of his recall[1218]. He even claimed to have believed in Northern victory to the extent of re-union. These protestations after the event are not borne out by the columns of the _Gazette_, for that journal was not far behind the _Times_ in its delineation of incidents unfavourable to the North and in its all-wise prophecies of Northern disaster. The _Gazette_ had no wide circulation except among those in the service, but its _dicta_, owing to the established reputation of Russell and to the specialist nature of the paper, were naturally quite readily accepted and repeated in the ordinary press. Based on a correct appreciation of man power and resources the _Gazette_ did from time to time proclaim its faith in Northern victory[1219], but always in such terms as to render possible a hedge on expressed opinion and always with the a.s.sertion that victory would not result in reunion. Russell's most definite prophecy was made on July 30, 1864:
”The Southern Confederacy, like Denmark, is left to fight by itself, without even a conference or an armistice to aid it; and it will be strange indeed if the heroism, endurance, and resources of its soldiers and citizens be not eventually dominated by the perseverance and superior means of the Northern States. Let us repeat our profession of faith in the matter. We hold that the Union perished long ago, and that its component parts can never again be welded into a Confederacy of self-governing States, with a common executive, army, fleet, and central government. Not only that. The principle of Union itself among the non-seceding States is so shocked and shattered by the war which has arisen, that the fissures in it are likely to widen and spread, and to form eventually great gulfs separating the Northern Union itself into smaller bodies. But ere the North be convinced of the futility of its efforts to subst.i.tute the action of force for that of free will, we think it will reduce the Southern States to the direst misery[1220]....”
Such occasional ”professions of faith,” accompanied by sneers at the ”Confederate partisans.h.i.+p” of the _Times_[1221] served to differentiate the _Gazette_ from other journals, but when it came to description and estimate of specific campaigns there was little to choose between them and consequently little variance in the effect upon the public. Thus a fortnight before his ”profession of faith,” Russell could comment editorially on Sherman's campaign toward Atlanta:
”The next great Federal army on which the hopes of the North have so long been fixed promises to become a source of fearful anxiety. Sherman, if not retreating, is certainly not advancing; and, if the Confederates can interfere seriously with his communications, he must fall back as soon as he has eaten up all the supplies of the district.... All the enormous advantages possessed by the Federals have been nullified by want of skill, by the interference of Was.h.i.+ngton civilians, and by the absence of an animating h.o.m.ogeneous spirit on the part of their soldiery[1222].”
Hand in hand with war news adverse to the North went comments on the Presidential election campaign in America, with prophecies of Lincoln's defeat. This was indeed but a reflection of the American press but the citations made in British papers emphasized especially Northern weariness of Lincoln's despotism and inefficiency. Thus, first printed in _The Index_, an extract from a New York paper, _The New Nation_, got frequent quotation:
”We have been imposed upon long enough. The ruin which you have been unable to accomplish in four years, would certainly be fully consummated were you to remain in power four years longer. Your military governors and their provost-marshals override the laws, and the _echo of the armed heel rings forth as dearly now in America as in France or Austria. You have encroached upon our liberty without securing victory, and we must have both_[1223].”
It was clearly understood that Northern military efforts would have an important bearing on the election. The _Times_ while expressing admiration for Sherman's boldness in the Atlanta campaign was confident of his defeat:
”... it is difficult to see how General Sherman can escape a still more disastrous fate than that which threatened his predecessor. He has advanced nearly one hundred and fifty miles from his base of operations, over a mountainous country; and he has no option but to retreat by the same line as he advanced. This is the first instance of a Federal general having ventured far from water communications. That Sherman has. .h.i.therto done so with success is a proof of both courage and ability, but he will need both these qualities in a far greater degree if he is forced to retreat[1224].”
And W.H. Russell, in the _Gazette_, included Grant in the approaching disaster:
”The world has never seen anything in war so slow and fatuous as Grant's recent movements, except it be those of Sherman.
Each is wriggling about like a snake in the presence of an ichneumon. They both work round and round, now on one flank and then on the other, and on each move meet the unwinking eye of the enemy, ready for his spring and bite. In sheer despair Grant and Sherman must do something at last. As to sh.e.l.ling! Will they learn from history? Then they will know that they cannot sh.e.l.l an army provided with as powerful artillery as their own out of a position.... The Northerners have, indeed, lost the day solely owing to the want of average ability in their leaders in the field[1225].”
On the very day when Russell thus wrote in the _Gazette_ the city of Atlanta had been taken by Sherman. When the news reached England the _Times_ having declared this impossible, now a.s.serted that it was unimportant, believed that Sherman could not remain in possession and, two days later, turned with vehemence to an a.n.a.lysis of the political struggle as of more vital influence. The Democrats, it was insisted, would place peace ”paramount to union” and were sure to win[1226].
Russell, in the _Gazette_, coolly ignoring its prophecy of three weeks earlier, now spoke as if he had always foreseen the fall of Atlanta:
”General Sherman has fully justified his reputation as an able and daring soldier; and the final operations by which he won Atlanta are not the least remarkable of the series which carried him from Chattanooga ... into the heart of Georgia[1227].”
But neither of these political-military ”expert” journals would acknowledge any benefit accruing to Lincoln from Sherman's success. Not so, however, Lyons, who kept his chief much better informed than he would have been if credulous of the British press. Lyons, who for some time had been increasingly in bad health, had sought escape from the summer heat of Was.h.i.+ngton in a visit to Montreal. He now wrote correctly interpreting a great change in Northern att.i.tude and a renewed determination to persevere in the war until reunion was secured.
Lincoln, he thought, was likely to be re-elected:
”The reaction produced by the fall of Atlanta may be taken as an indication of what the real feelings of the people in the Northern States are. The vast majority of them ardently desire to reconquer the lost territory. It is only at moments when they despair of doing this that they listen to plans for recovering the territory by negotiation. The time has not come yet when any proposal to relinquish the territory can be publicly made[1228].”
The _Times_, slowly convinced that Atlanta would have influence in the election, and as always clever above its contemporaries in the delicate process of face-about to save its prestige, arrived in October at the point where it could join in prediction of Lincoln's re-election. It did so by throwing the blame on the Democratic platform adopted at the party convention in Chicago, which, so it represented, had cast away an excellent chance of success by declaring for union first and peace afterwards. Since the convention had met in August this was late a.n.a.lysis; and as a matter of fact the convention platform had called for a ”cessation of bloodshed” and the calling of a convention to restore peace--in substance, for an armistice. But the _Times_[1229] now a.s.sumed temporarily a highly moral and disinterested pose and washed its hands of further responsibility; Lincoln was likely to be re-elected:
For ourselves we have no particular reason to wish it otherwise. We have no very serious matter of complaint that we are aware of against the present Government of America.
Allowance being made for the difficulties of their position, they are conducting the war with a fair regard to the rights of neutral nations. The war has swept American commerce from the sea, and placed it, in great measure, in our hands; we have supplied the loss of the cotton which was suddenly withdrawn from us; the returns of our revenue and our trade are thoroughly satisfactory, and we have received an equivalent for the markets closed to us in America in the vast impulse that has been given towards the development of the prosperity of India. We see a great nation, which has not been in times past sparing of its menaces and predictions of our ruin, apparently resolved to execute, without pause and without remorse, the most dreadful judgments of Heaven upon itself. We see the frantic patient tearing the bandages from his wounds and thrusting aside the hand that would a.s.suage his miseries, and every day that the war goes on we see less and less probability that the great fabric of the Union will ever be reconstructed in its original form, and more and more likelihood that the process of disintegration will extend far beyond the present division between North and South.... Were we really animated by the spirit of hostility which is always a.s.sumed to prevail among us towards America, we should view the terrible spectacle with exultation and delight, we should rejoice that the American people, untaught by past misfortunes, have resolved to continue the war to the end, and hail the probable continuance of the power of Mr. Lincoln as the event most calculated to pledge the nation to a steady continuance in its suicidal policy. But we are persuaded that the people of this country view the prospect of another four years of war in America with very different feelings. They are not able to divest themselves of sympathy for a people of their own blood and language thus wilfully rus.h.i.+ng down the path that leadeth to destruction[1230].
Sherman's capture of Atlanta did indeed make certain that Lincoln would again be chosen President, but the _Times_ was more slow to acknowledge its military importance, first hinting and then positively a.s.serting that Sherman had fallen into a trap from which he would have difficulty in escaping[1231]. The _Gazette_ called this ”blind partisans.h.i.+p[1232],”