JOHN BIGELOW OF UNION

Page 4

Forgotten First Citizen

# 16312.74    John 7 Bigelow, son of Asa6 ( David5, David4, John3, Joshua2, John1) and Lucy (Isham) Bigelow, was born at Malden-on-Hudson, Ulster, NY on 25 November 1817. He is known as "The Forgotten Citizen" as he had an outstanding career as a lawyer, editor, appointed by President Lincoln to be Consul at Paris (1861); in 1864 from Charge d'Affaires to Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Napoleon III.
Bibliography:
Clapp, Margaret A., Forgotten First Citizen: John Bigelow (1947; repr. 1968).
Howe,Bigelow Family of America;
Biographical Encyclopedia of U.S.
Note:
Subject: John Bigelow in France during the Civil War.. I wonder where he fits in??
Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 17:57:47 -0600
From: Lynn Jones <ljones94@shaw.ca>
From:  http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/fall_2001_confederate_fleet_1

(see below for Bigelow)
                                         Fall 2001, Vol. 33, No. 3

                                         The Diplomats Who Sank a Fleet:
                                         The Confederacy's Undelivered European Fleet and the Union Consular Service

                                         By Kevin J. Foster
                                         © 2001 Kevin J. Foster

                                         Thomas Haines Dudley, the U.S. consul in Liverpool, had grown desperate. He
                                         had failed to stop one Confederate raider, CSS Florida, from departing Liverpool.
                                         He had spent months gathering information about a second suspicious vessel,
                                         reported to be a warship destined for the Confederates. Not knowing her name,
                                         Dudley referred to her by the hull number at the shipyard, No. 290. On May 16,
                                         1862, he reported the launch of the ship to Washington. A month later he reported
                                         the trial trip and the expected imminent departure of No. 290. Then Dudley
                                         traveled to London to confer personally with Charles Francis Adams, U.S.
                                         minister to the Court of St. James. Adams, recognizing the urgency, pressed
                                         British Foreign Office Secretary Earl Russell to stop the ship. Russell started the
                                         ponderous wheels of government toward resolving the question of the
                                         destination and legality of No. 290's building and departure. The British
                                         government was on the case.

                                         Dudley provided more information on July 5, including a full description of the
                                         ship's appearance along with the news that the construction was being overseen
                                         by Capt. [sic] J. D. Bulloch of the Confederate States Navy. British government
                                         officers could not act because the evidence was not in the proper form and
                                         depended upon anonymous informants. Consul Dudley consulted British
                                         attorneys and opened direct communication with the collector of customs in the
                                         Port of Liverpool and other officials. They explained the requirements of British
                                         domestic law so that the evidence could be presented in acceptable forms.
                                         Informants were persuaded to give notarized depositions. U.S. suspicions were
                                         presented in a logical, precisely legal form.1 By July 29 sufficient evidence had
                                         been presented for the law officers of the Crown to opine that "the vessel, cargo,
                                         and stores, may be properly condemned."2

                                         The order to seize the ship was given—just too late. No. 290, for the moment
                                         named Enrica, had sailed the day before. Shortly afterward, two supply ships met
                                         her in the Azores. She was armed and commissioned CSS Alabama. The raider
                                         would go on to sink more U.S. merchant vessels than any other warship before
                                         or since. Consul Dudley and Minister Adams had failed, but they had learned
                                         valuable lessons.

                                         During the American Civil War, 1861–1865, the Confederate States of America
                                         created a modern naval force within a few years. More than sixty armored vessels
                                         were begun at home; dozens of gunboats were built, and many more river and
                                         commercial craft were modified and armed. A vital component in this military
                                         buildup was the willingness of several European nations to sell arms,
                                         equipment, and ships to the South. Despite neutrality laws intended to prevent
                                         the outfitting of belligerent expeditions and warships, the South enjoyed
                                         considerable success in acquiring and arming vessels abroad. Southern efforts
                                         did not, however, meet with universal success. The Confederates desired far
                                         more vessels than reached their hands. Some of these foreign-built vessels
                                         were considered but not purchased; some were built on speculation for potential
                                         sale to the South; others were ordered but not delivered. They included ironclads,
                                         cruising ships, gunboats, torpedo boats, blockade-runners, and supply ships.

                                         Many factors kept the South from acquiring all of the ships that it was offered—or
                                         the vessels it most desired. Inexperienced diplomats, disorganization,
                                         widespread European popular opposition to slavery, uncertain credit, weak
                                         central economic planning, and competition from other ship buyers all prevented
                                         ships from reaching Confederate hands. But the greatest cause of the overall
                                         Confederate failure in Europe was the activity of the United States Department of
                                         State, particularly the consuls, a small group of dedicated government
                                         employees working abroad.

                                         Confederate ship acquisition developed haphazardly. The new national
                                         government and individual states sent a bewildering variety of diplomatic,
                                         purchasing, propaganda, and military agents to Europe. Often these agents
                                         worked at crossed purposes, driving up prices, encouraging petty disputes, and
                                         damaging their creditability. This confusion caused difficulties with governments
                                         and suppliers alike. Despite initial problems however, by the end of the conflict,
                                         many elements of a balanced modern fleet had been acquired, if not actually
                                         delivered, to Confederate hands.

                                         The Confederate naval officer in charge of acquisition in Europe was Comdr.
                                         James Dunwoody Bulloch. He arrived in Liverpool, England, on June 3, 1861,
                                         under orders to procure "six steam propellers" to act as commerce raiders. One
                                         million Confederate dollars had been appropriated for this activity, but little of this
                                         amount had arrived when Bulloch began his work. Despite financial handicaps
                                         he worked quickly. With the assistance of an Anglo-Confederate banking and
                                         shipping company, Fraser, Trenholm & Company of Liverpool, Bulloch contracted
                                         for the ships that would become CSS Florida and CSS Alabama. They were
                                         sailing vessels with auxiliary steam engines, a combination that allowed them to
                                         cruise widely for Northern merchant ships. These ships and others to follow
                                         soon earned reputations as fearsome commerce destroyers.3

                                         Bulloch's work set the pattern for most further ship purchasing by Confederates.
                                         He had to exercise extreme care to avoid violating British domestic law designed
                                         to prevent the fitting out of military vessels and expeditions in British territory. In
                                         particular, the Foreign Enlistment Act forbade British subjects from "equipping,
                                         furnishing, fitting out, or arming, of any ship or vessel, with intent or in order that
                                         such ship or vessel shall be employed in the service" of a belligerent. Penalties
                                         for violation included punishment of individuals and forfeiture of vessels.4 The
                                         law failed, however, in requiring overwhelming legal proof rather than mere
                                         suspicion before a vessel could be seized. Once the problem was recognized,
                                         the British government was reluctant to change the policy because it would tend
                                         to show culpability in allowing Florida and Alabama to escape.5

                                         Bulloch used the loophole by contracting with ordinary British, and later French
                                         and Swedish, business houses for ships, acting on behalf of the Confederate
                                         government. The vessels were designed as warships but left the building yards
                                         with no armament actually fitted. Once at sea under a British merchant captain,
                                         the prospective cruiser would be met by another vessel carrying the guns,
                                         Confederate naval and marine officers, and a large crew. After transfer, the
                                         Confederate captain placed the ship under commission and recruited a crew
                                         from among both ships' companies. This process avoided restrictions posed by
                                         existing British neutrality law by moving the actual outfitting outside British
                                         territory.6

                                         Bulloch's careful purchasing system was challenged by Union diplomats. They
                                         recognized that the legal loophole could allow entire fleets of vessels to be
                                         purchased in Europe. United States Secretary of State William H. Seward
                                         coordinated what was to become a worldwide effort aimed at hampering
                                         Confederate efforts abroad. Seward sought to prevent recognition of the rebel
                                         South as a belligerent or as a nation and to prevent as far as possible foreign
                                         trade with the rebellious states. When it suited his purposes he threatened
                                         neutrals in various ways. Seward carefully instructed U.S. ambassadors about
                                         the course he wished them to take. The ambassadors, particularly the brilliant
                                         Charles Francis Adams, U.S. minister in Great Britain, ably communicated the
                                         views of the Union administration. Adams presented a case that the British sale
                                         of warships to the South was a warlike act against the United States. Seward
                                         added veiled mention of the likelihood of Union privateers being unleashed on
                                         British ships trading with the rebellious states. Congressional debate about such
                                         a law strengthened his case. Adams clearly demanded decisive action to prevent
                                         the creation of any more Alabamas or Floridas in British shipyards. Adams also
                                         laid the groundwork for later claims against the British empire for damages
                                         caused by the building, outfitting, and sale of ships to the Confederacy.7

                                         A third branch of the Union State Department also worked aggressively to halt or
                                         hinder Confederate efforts by gathering intelligence about rebel efforts abroad.
                                         These were the United States consuls in various cities and seaports around the
                                         world. Consuls assisted trade and shipping, collecting fees for their services and
                                         submitting regular reports about everyday events as well as shipwrecks,
                                         mutinies, and piracy. Many took on new duties in wartime, providing valuable
                                         intelligence and other services useful to the Union. Consuls utilized a range of
                                         informants that included abolitionists, dockhand thugs, shipyard apprentices,
                                         members of the clergy, watermen, dock masters, unemployed mariners, and
                                         Lloyd's Register inspectors. Among the most valuable materials gathered were
                                         "intercepted letters and papers" given, purchased, and stolen by consuls and
                                         their agents. Consuls gathered and collated all sorts of information, including
                                         their estimates of the value and trustworthiness of various sources of information
                                         in reports to Washington and to each other.8 They usually sent reports containing
                                         intelligence information back to Secretary Seward in Washington, who distributed
                                         it where needed. Much of the resulting evidence of un-neutral acts was passed
                                         on to Minister Adams, who remonstrated with the British government, the most
                                         frequent offender.9

                                         Seward's office gathered, collated, and transmitted the information to the military.
                                         Some navy commands, such as the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, printed
                                         bulletins for distribution: a blockader off Charleston might know the name and
                                         description of a new blockade-runner before it could finish its voyage across the
                                         Atlantic. On rare occasions the information transmitted included plans, a sketch,
                                         or a photograph of a ship or of a notorious rebel officer.10 This consular
                                         intelligence gathering system grew from the efforts of a few individuals, working
                                         out of their own pockets, into a government enterprise that employed dozens of
                                         agents and required tens of thousands of dollars to finance.11 The consuls kept
                                         up a constant barrage of sighting reports, affidavits, vessel descriptions,
                                         repeated rumors, and supposition about Confederate activity abroad. While most
                                         of these ships did have Southern connections, many did not, and the British
                                         government was constantly investigating reports of vessels that proved to have
                                         no Confederate connections.12

                                         Communication

                                         Timely communication of important intelligence was vital to the war effort. Most
                                         communication was by mail, traveling on scheduled steamship routes. This
                                         method limited both Union and rebel communications severely, requiring a
                                         minimum of about three weeks for a reply across the Atlantic. Mail by steamer
                                         allowed regular communication but limited the frequency of trans-Atlantic
                                         messages from most points to about two or three times a week, each taking over
                                         a week to reach Washington via New York. The letters had then to be read,
                                         copied, and passed on to the Navy Department and then to the relevant
                                         blockading fleets. Letters to the Confederate leadership in Richmond took longer,
                                         going by British steamers by way of Halifax, Havana, Nassau, or Bermuda.

                                         Some consular stations used the telegraph for important messages to speed the
                                         process. However, they might be intercepted or copied in route on commercial
                                         telegraph services. Coded messages for sensitive information became
                                         common. Still, despite its utility, the expense of telegraph communication led the
                                         State Department to severely limit its use.13 Consuls also sometimes
                                         communicated directly with the Union navy when time was too short for
                                         information to be transmitted through Washington. On several occasions Samuel
                                         Whiting, the consul in Nassau, sped communications by hiring a swift pilot
                                         schooner to carry messages directly to the naval station at Key West.14 Despite
                                         the utility of the method, his entreaties to the State Department failed to produce a
                                         despatch boat for his use. His successor, Seth C. Hawley, tried harder, securing
                                         an estimate for purchase and operation of a small pilot schooner to carry
                                         despatches. His efforts were no more successful than his predecessor's, and
                                         the department never provided a despatch boat.15

                                         The first success of the Union consular espionage system prevented a small
                                         wooden steam gunboat from service with the South. Alexandra was built by
                                         William C. Miller of Liverpool as a gift to the Confederacy from Fraser, Trenholm &
                                         Company. As such it would have joined a few other Confederate vessels built as
                                         contributions to the war effort by citizens and not part of the regular procurement
                                         program. Consul Thomas H. Dudley of Liverpool gathered information directly,
                                         hired experienced legal counsel, and prepared a case based on his experience
                                         of the British legal system gained while trying to prevent the sailing of CSS
                                         Florida and CSS Alabama. Minister Adams used Dudley's information to force
                                         the British government to bring court proceedings that, while failing to seize the
                                         ship, ultimately so delayed Alexandra that the gunboat was never placed in
                                         service. The Alexandra case and its resulting newspaper coverage also brought
                                         considerable attention to Confederate operations in Great Britain and to the
                                         inadequate British neutrality laws. This attention forced the government to take
                                         decisive action to enforce neutral behavior upon its citizens during later crises:
                                         policy prevailed over law. The loss of the gunboat did little real damage to
                                         Confederate plans, but the legal precedent and attention devoted to rebel
                                         purchasing permanently hindered Southern procurement in Europe.16

                                         The Confederate agent Bulloch extended his ambitions when he contracted with
                                         Birkenhead shipbuilders, Laird and Sons, to construct two turreted ironclad rams.
                                         Bulloch based the rams upon the ideas of Capt. Cowper Coles of the Royal Navy,
                                         an outspoken British ironclad designer. They were impressive ships displacing
                                         1,423 tons (light) and were 224.5 feet long. Their iron hulls had ram bows
                                         supporting two turrets carrying 220-pounder Armstrong guns; lighter guns were
                                         mounted on raised forecastles and quarterdecks. Bark sailing rigs gave them
                                         range; powerful twin-screw engines combined with ram bows gave them ability to
                                         fight the most imposing Union ships.17

                                         But the intended use of the rams could not be hidden or misdirected. Due to their
                                         ram bows, the ships were dangerous weapons platforms even before guns were
                                         mounted. In locations around Europe, Union consuls gathered depositions and
                                         other evidence sufficient to prove the rams' connection with the Confederate
                                         government. The persistent Liverpool consul, Thomas Haines Dudley, dogged
                                         Bulloch, employing private detectives, sympathetic sea captains, knowledgeable
                                         attorneys, and Confederate turncoats. He obtained copies of Confederate
                                         correspondence and internal Laird documents to gain knowledge of Bulloch's
                                         every move. The London consul, Freeman H. Morse, managed to induce a young
                                         London mechanic to get a job in the Laird shipyards with a promise of a
                                         recommendation to a U.S. shipbuilder. (The boy's mother found out and stopped
                                         the spying by threatening to expose him and the U.S. government's role in his
                                         activities.) In London, at the Court of St. James, Minister Adams once again ably
                                         presented Dudley's evidence and explained the U.S. government's view that
                                         release of the ironclad rams might be considered an act of war.18

                                         From Washington, Secretary Seward coordinated the action by mail and
                                         telegraph to stop the rams' delivery. Both rams were seized before completion to
                                         prevent them from slipping out of the country. Even a last-minute sham sale,
                                         ostensibly to a French company for delivery to Egypt, failed to free the two ships
                                         for the south. Caught in an awkward gap between domestic law and foreign
                                         policy, the British Crown ultimately bought the Laird rams and commissioned
                                         them HMS Scorpion and HMS Wivern. Brilliant cooperation between the three
                                         main branches of the State Department had prevented two dangerous warships
                                         from reaching the Confederate navy.19

                                         The British difficulty in maintaining strict neutrality had its roots in a conflict
                                         between two principles of law. Under the precepts of international law, neutral
                                         Great Britain had an obligation to prevent the building and outfitting of armed
                                         warships for any belligerent in its ports. The critical point was that the wording of
                                         the law and accepted international practice to that time prohibited sales of armed
                                         vessels only. The tenet of domestic law that held that a defendant is "innocent
                                         until proven guilty" allowed secretly built Confederate cruisers to be dispatched
                                         from British ports because positive proof of the cruiser's destination was nearly
                                         impossible to ascertain and arming took place outside British jurisdiction.
                                         Following the commissioning of Florida and Alabama, Great Britain was forced
                                         to prevent the departure of other vessels merely on justifiable suspicion that they
                                         were violating British domestic law.20

                                         Bulloch was disappointed by the loss of the Laird rams but had already
                                         expanded his operations beyond Great Britain. Negotiations with the French
                                         government produced a conditional agreement to provide four modern wood and
                                         iron composite steam clipper corvettes for long-distance cruising. These screw
                                         corvettes would have been the equal of any U.S. Navy cruisers. Further
                                         negotiations allowed contracts for two more powerful ironclad rams. These
                                         shallow-draft ironclad wooden ships were designed with a brig sailing rig and
                                         twin-screw steam auxiliary propulsion. With the screw corvettes they could
                                         present a dangerous challenge to the Union navy on the high seas, potentially
                                         capable of overwhelming smaller squadrons on individual blockading
                                         stations.21

                                         All six ships were contracted through Lucien Arman, a shipbuilder with a seat in
                                         the French legislature and strong political connections to the Emperor Louis
                                         Napoleon III. They were built in the yards of Arman in Bordeaux and, through
                                         engine-builder and fellow legislator M. Voruz, at the yards of Jollett & Babin and
                                         Dubigeon Brothers in Nantes. The sale was understood to have been approved
                                         by the emperor and permitted by the minister of the navy. The ostensible purpose
                                         was to start a steam packet line between San Francisco and Japan and China.
                                         The armament was said to enable them to fight off pirate attacks in eastern
                                         waters and to allow potential sale to the Japanese or Chinese governments.22

                                       But Consul General John Bigelow in Paris had been preparing to ward off any
                                         shipbuilding efforts for the Confederacy in France. He had gathered rumors and
                                         credited reports from other consuls that Southern agents had contacted French
                                         shipbuilders. But Bigelow had not expected the intelligence windfall that walked
                                         into his consular office on September 10, 1863. The man, a disloyal senior
                                         shipyard employee named Trémont, offered proof in the form of incriminating
                                         documents and assurance that his information would be sufficient to force the
                                         arrest of the ships under French law. Called "Mr. X" by Bigelow, Trémont asked
                                         for twenty thousand francs, a considerable sum of money, if his material should
                                         stop the ships from reaching the Confederates. Trémont delivered twenty-one
                                         documents that proved not only that the contract was for the Confederate navy but
                                         that it was approved by the French government.23

                                         Bigelow acted quickly. He delivered the documents to U.S. Minister to France
                                         William L. Dayton. Dayton and Seward used the same approach taken with Great
                                         Britain, namely to present as full a public case as possible proving un-neutral
                                         behavior. They also subtly threatened the French adventure to install Maximilian
                                         as ruler of Mexico and to delay the lucrative French government tobacco shipment
                                         from Virginia. French Foreign Affairs Minister Edouard Drouyn de Lhuys perceived
                                         the threat, and the danger of growing Northern sentiment against France, and
                                         acted to force his emperor and country back toward a neutral posture. He forced
                                         the shipbuilders to sell all six vessels to governments then at peace. Two
                                         corvettes were sold to Peru; two corvettes and a ram were sold to Prussia; and
                                         one ram was sold to Sweden, or so the French government believed. The wily
                                         Arman had sold the ironclad to a Swedish banker, who was to sell it to Denmark.
                                         But when the Danes refused the ship, Arman was able to sell it back to the
                                         Confederacy. It was delayed so much by storms and an unwilling crew that the
                                         ironclad, commissioned CSS Stonewall, never played a part in the war.24

                                         Reports on every likely foreign shipbuilding contract were diligently transmitted to
                                         Washington. But by mid-1862, several of the most active consuls had spent
                                         small fortunes to pay informers and spies—without reimbursement by the
                                         government—and could do no more. Consul M. M. Jackson in Halifax, Nova
                                         Scotia, had used his personal funds to hire others to assist him in his
                                         intelligence gathering. When funding requirements for intelligence gathering
                                         increased beyond his personal means, Jackson sought reimbursement for his
                                         expenses in supporting this work. On December 9, 1863, he wrote Secretary
                                         Seward:

                                              I have found it necessary to employ persons at different times to procure
                                              information in relation to vessels engaged in running the blockade of the
                                              Southern ports. The Information thus offered has materially aided my own
                                              efforts and investigations and enabled me to communicate to the
                                              Department of State facts which have led to several important captures.25

                                         Consul John Young in Belfast wrote:

                                              I respectfully suggest that these times require a little outlay not provided
                                              for by law—If we were authorized occasionally to employ a private
                                              observer at our discretion the outlay would not be much and the benefit
                                              might be considerable. From the general public we can learn little, the
                                              sympathy seems to be sadly wasted on an accursedly bad cause.26

                                         When he was unsuccessful, Young wrote Seward again the next year:

                                              The only possible plan of knowing what may be going on here would be to
                                              pay a secret agent. About (Lb) per annum would do this but you are aware
                                              that I have no such fund at my disposal. I think however that I ought to
                                              have such a fund and that it would pay itself fifty times over.27

                                         The State Department found a way to meet the need by establishing a budget for
                                         secret service work by certain consuls. For instance, William T. Minor, the Federal
                                         consul in Havana, Cuba, paid several spies and informers to gather intelligence
                                         on Confederate activities. A special account, the "secret service fund," was used
                                         to pay for these activities. As an example of the high rate of pay enjoyed by spies,
                                         in December 1864 Minor paid three hundred dollars in gold to S. B. Haynes for
                                         his services during the past month.28

                                         The Confederates also ordered two groups of steam-powered spar torpedo
                                         boats from Great Britain. These included six iron twin-screw torpedo boats built in
                                         London and six more large steel torpedo boats built in Liverpool. The London
                                         torpedo boats were lightly armored and capable of partial submersion to lower
                                         their silhouette. No records have been located documenting the arrival of these
                                         vessels in Southern ports, but at least one of the boats was tested on the
                                         Thames, and three others were mentioned leaving Great Britain as deck cargo
                                         on blockade-runners. Union consuls reported these vessels to Washington and
                                         to Ambassador Adams, but they were apparently thought too minor to deserve
                                         specific complaint from the Union government. Warnings were passed to the
                                         Union navy to be on the lookout for the blockade-runners carrying these boats as
                                         deck cargo.29

                                         Bulloch was not the only Confederate naval purchasing agent to seek ships in
                                         Europe. Another officer, Lt. James H. North, was dispatched to Europe at the
                                         same time as Bulloch with a similar mission. North was sent to France with the
                                         vain hope of purchasing or borrowing one of the armored frigates of the Gloire
                                         class, the most imposing ironclads built for the French navy. Should that prove
                                         impossible, he was to order the building of "one or two war steamers of the most
                                         modern and improved description." While his French visit was a bust, ultimately
                                         North oversaw the building of the largest Confederate ship laid down during the
                                         war. He contracted with James and George Thomson of Glasgow to build a large
                                         ironclad frigate. She was to be 270 feet long, carry twenty 60-pounder rifles and
                                         eight 18-pounder smooth bores. Five hundred men would be required to crew the
                                         mammoth vessel. Union observers easily connected North's ship with the South,
                                         and she was sold at a loss to Denmark to prevent seizure.30

                                         Another Confederate agent, George Terry Sinclair, contracted with Thomsons'
                                         shipyard to build a composite iron- and wood-hulled steam auxiliary cruiser. She
                                         was reportedly built on the model of the Alabama but lengthened and improved.
                                         Named Canton while building, this ship was renamed Pampero when launched.
                                         The sale was concealed by use of a British subject, shipowner Edward
                                         Pembroke of London, who ordered the ship through Glasgow brokers Patrick
                                         Henderson and Company. Consul Underwood, with help from Liverpool consul
                                         Dudley, obtained damning evidence against the ship. British government actions
                                         following the court decision in the Alexandra case prevented delivery, and the
                                         ship languished in Glasgow.31

                                         Due to his unique position in public life, another Confederate agent, the famous
                                         oceanographer Matthew Fontaine Maury, operated in areas too rarified for
                                         Bulloch. While touring Europe, meeting the aristocracy, and receiving awards and
                                         honors, Maury was pursuing a hidden agenda of purchasing warships and
                                         perfecting a system of submarine mines for Southern harbor defense. He was
                                         aided by a network of friends, relatives, and sympathetic associates. One of
                                         these was Capt. Marin Jansen, Royal Netherlands Navy, who searched most of
                                         the prominent shipyards in Great Britain and France for potential cruisers,
                                         ironclads, and gunboats.

                                         The first vessel Jansen found was Japan, an iron brig-rigged propeller built on
                                         speculation by William Denny and Sons of Scotland. The ship became CSS
                                         Georgia and took nine prizes during a short cruise. With her iron hull foul, and in
                                         need of repair, she put into Cherbourg on October 28, 1863. Decommissioned
                                         as unfit for a cruiser, Georgia was sold June 1, 1864, for commercial service.32
                                         Another Maury purchase was the second-class screw sloop HMS Victor, built in
                                         1857, which had been declared "defective and worn out beyond economic repair."
                                         After some repairs, the sloop was renamed Scylla and slipped to sea. Once
                                         outfitted, she became CSS Rappahannock and put into Calais, France, for further
                                         repairs. There the ship was detained and prevented from receiving repairs or
                                         from recruiting a full crew, which would have blatantly violated French neutrality.
                                         Rappahannock continued in Confederate hands, rotting at dock until the end of
                                         the war.33

                                         The grandest purchase contemplated by M. F. Maury was a twin-screw, twin-turret
                                         ironclad. Maury made arrangements through Jansen with Lucien Arman to build
                                         the ironclad at his Bordeaux shipyard. Maury specified that the ship was to have
                                         sufficient seaworthiness to cross the Atlantic, a high spread of canvas, less than
                                         fifteen feet draft, and a speed of fifteen or sixteen knots. Confederate efforts
                                         aimed at diplomatic recognition and obtaining a European loan delayed and
                                         ultimately doomed this project. Confederate diplomat John Slidell stipulated that
                                         the South could only undertake to order these expensive ships in French
                                         shipyards if they would be openly built for the South. Napoleon III did not agree to
                                         the stipulation, and the ship was sacrificed to diplomatic expediency and not
                                         built.34

                                         Another raider project was the result of a secret Confederate congressional act
                                         that created a "volunteer navy" to provide privateer-like commissions to
                                         individuals and private vessels built at no cost to the government. The first such
                                         company formed, the Virginia Volunteer Navy Company, became the only
                                         company to purchase a vessel under the new act. They bought the auxiliary
                                         steamship Hawk, which had been built on speculation for sale by Henderson
                                         and Colborne of Renfrew, Scotland. Hawk was strongly built of iron, 230 feet long
                                         overall, with a lifting screw propeller and bark rig. After the purchase, the steamer
                                         was altered considerably to adapt her into a warship. The alterations and its
                                         owner, Thomas Sterling Begbie, a known blockade-runner owner, excited the
                                         interest of Union agents. They, however, did not provide enough information to
                                         justify seizure. Hawk sailed to Bermuda, where the company proved unable to
                                         carry their project forward, and she returned to Liverpool unarmed.

                                         Perhaps the most ambitious attempt to purchase finished ships involved the
                                         eight vessels of the Anglo-Chinese fleet built in Great Britain for China. These
                                         warships, called the Lay-Osborne flotilla for the leaders of the enterprise, were
                                         not accepted by the emperor of China after arriving in Chinese waters. Half of the
                                         fleet returned to Great Britain. Several others put into Bombay, where they were
                                         held until arrangements could be finalized for their sale and the payment of the
                                         crews.35

                                         There is little surviving direct evidence to connect the Lay-Osborne
                                         Anglo-Chinese fleet to the Confederacy. Circumstantial evidence supports that
                                         such a purchase was contemplated. CSS Alabama had shadowed the voyage of
                                         several ships of the flotilla from South Africa to the Strait of Malacca. The officers
                                         of Alabama and the flagship Kwang-Tung had even exchanged social visits in
                                         Simon's Bay, South Africa. A senior captain of the fleet had been a ship captain
                                         for Fraser, Trenholm & Company, the principal government business agents for
                                         the Confederacy in Europe. After the Indian government seized the ships, he
                                         returned to London and left immediately in command of the large new
                                         blockade-runner Lady Stirling. Despite the lack of contemporary evidence, the
                                         prospect of the entire mercenary fleet being sold to the Confederates led to swift
                                         action from the American diplomatic services. The British and Indian colonial
                                         governments seized the ships to prevent them from being transferred to the rebel
                                         navy. Only after the Civil War was over did the British government learn that
                                         Confederate agents had been in place in Shanghai and Bombay and that the
                                         sale might indeed have been completed. In any case, the Alabama returned to
                                         European waters alone.36

                                         The last completed delivery to the Confederacy of a warship was another product
                                         of Bulloch's attention to detail. The steam clipper Sea King had been built on the
                                         Clyde River in Scotland as a speculation intended for long-distance commerce.
                                         Her appearance attracted the attention of Union agents, but on completion Sea
                                         King was chartered by the British government to carry troops to New Zealand.
                                         Bulloch got word when she returned and traveled to see the ship. Bulloch bought
                                         the clipper and once again armed and commissioned a cruiser at sea.
                                         Commissioned CSS Shenandoah, the new cruiser worked her way from the
                                         Atlantic into the Indian Ocean, refitted in Australia, and cut a swath through the
                                         Yankee whaling fleets in the Pacific. Off Alaska, Shenandoah learned in late June
                                         1865 of the defeat of all other Confederate forces and the imprisonment of the
                                         Confederate leaders. The armament was dismantled and sent below decks.
                                         Shenandoah sailed around the world to Liverpool, where she was turned over on
                                         November 5, 1865, to the British government for return to the United States, the
                                         last intact Confederate military unit.37

                                        The Diplomats Who Sank a Fleet, Part 2
 

23. John Bigelow, France and the Confederate Navy (1888), pp. 1–15.


Modified - 01/03/2003
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Rod  Bigelow - Director
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Rod Bigelow (Roger Jon12 BIGELOW)

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