A Fateful Christmas Meeting

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On Christmas morning 1861, the steps of all three Lincoln sons could be heard pounding on the floorboards of the White House. The eldest, Robert, had recently arrived home from Harvard, to join his brothers, 8-year old Tad and 11-year-old Willie. The reunion of the Lincoln clan was a bright spot on what was proving to be a less than cheery Christmas. The Union had lost several key battles, while the Confederacy seemed no closer to collapse. Then, before the president could sit down to Christmas dinner with his family, he had yet another matter to attend to: deciding whether the Union could risk war with Britain.At 10 a.m., Lincoln's cabinet filed into the White House, shaking off the damp cold that had descended on Washington. They had left the bosoms of their families to debate <a href="http://www.louisvuittonoutletukshop.co.uk"><strong>Louis Vuitton Outlet</strong></a> whether the Union could sustain a war against both Britain and the Confederacy. Correction: An invigorated Confederacy. If hostilities broke out, Britain would likely renounce its neutral stance and side with the South, extending it both economic and military assistance.The root of the crisis was an incident that occurred in the blue waters of the Bahamas some six weeks earlier. On Nov. 8, the American frigate San Jacinto, acting without authorization, had stopped the Trent, a British mail packet, bound for Britain. A boarding party removed two Confederate envoys, James Mason and John Slidell, who were bound for London and Paris to lobby for the Rebel cause. Rather than seize the Trent, as would have been custom under prize law, the captain of the San Jacinto sent her on her way and headed for Union waters with his prisoners.The Union greeted the capture with glee — finally, good news for a country desperately in need of it. Needless to say, the British saw things differently. London newspapers called for war. "In one month, we could sweep all the San Jacintos from the sea, blockade Northern ports, and turn to a direct and speedy issue the tide of the war now raging," wrote the London Morning Post. The British government thrashed through options for responding, most of them bellicose. Lord Palmerston, the prime minister, set the tone for discussion when he opened up the emergency Cabinet meeting called to discuss the Trent by throwing his hat on the table and declaring, "I don't know whether you are going to stand this, but I'll be damned if I do!"Deciding that American hubris needed to checked, the Cabinet recommended an ultimatum: The United States should be given one week to release the prisoners or else risk war with Britain. Such an ultimatum could not be delivered without Queen Victoria's approval — and neither the queen nor her consort, Prince Albert, found the terms to their liking. Albert, who was mortally ill, worked until the wee hours of the morning on the document, softening the language to make it more palatable, thereby increasing the likelihood the Americans would agree the release. The dispatch suggested that the captain of the Trent had been acting without orders. "Her Majesty's Government are unwilling to believe that it could be the deliberate intention of the Government of the United States unnecessarily to force into discussion between the two Governments a question of so grave a character, and with regard to which the whole British nation would be sure to entertain such unanimity of feeling." Britain had given the Union a way to save face.The dispatch with the ultimatum sailed across the Atlantic, landing two weeks later in the anxious and waiting hands of Lord Lyons, the British ambassador. Lord Russell, the Foreign Secretary, made it very clear to Lyons that Mason and Slidell had to be released: "But if the Commissioners are not liberated, no apology will suffice," he wrote in a separate message. "The feeling here is very quiet but very decided. There is no party about it: all are unanimous." If the United States failed to release the prisoners, Lyons was to sever diplomatic relations and war would be afoot.Rather than officially present the terms to Secretary of State William Seward, which would start the clock ticking, Lyons opted first for an off-the-record chat. When Seward pressed him about the possibility of an ultimatum, Lyons confessed to its existence. Seward begged to see a copy. "So much depended upon the wording of it, that it was impossible to come to a decision without reading it," Seward told him. Lyons agreed to provide a copy provided its terms remained between Seward and Lincoln. Within minutes of the copy being delivered, Seward called upon Lyons. "He told me he was pleased to find that the despatch was courteous and friendly, and not dictatorial or menacing," Lyons reported.The one-week countdown began on Dec. 23. Lyons wasn't optimistic about avoiding conflict. "There is no doubt that both government and people are very much frightened," he wrote, "but I still do not think that anything but the first shot will convince the bulk of the population that England will really go to war." In London, Russell was more sanguine, telling Palmerston, "I am still inclined to think Lincoln will submit, but not till the clock is 59 minutes past 11."The Christmas Day cabinet meeting began with a review of Britain's terms. Seward then took the floor, urging his colleagues to agree to the release of Mason and Slidell, arguing that the Union couldn't survive a two-front war. It was quite a turnabout for Seward, who had days earlier declared to a room full of people at the Portuguese legation that "We will wrap the whole world in flames!" Seward's ardor had cooled as reports began trickling in describing Britain's war preparation and the British public's thirst for it. Some 14,000 British troops had set sail for Canada, and the home fleet was being readied for battle.In his corner, Seward had Montgomery Blair, the postmaster general, and Senator Charles Sumner, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Sumner didn't usually attend cabinet <a href="http://www.louisvuittonoutletsofficial.com"><strong>Louis Vuitton Outlet</strong></a> meetings, but an invitation had been extended because of his connections and experience. From the beginning of the conflict, he had advised against war with Britain and would do so again on Christmas morning, making a plea for arbitration.Others remained opposed. "Rather than consent to the liberation of these men, I would sacrifice everything I possess," wrote Salmon P. Chase, secretary of the Treasury. His visceral reaction to releasing the prisoners was tempered, however, by concern for the economic turmoil an Anglo-American conflict would unleash. He was right to be worried. Britain would enact a blockade against Union ships — one that would be far more effective than the North's blockade of the South — and vital supplies would be embargoed. The Union was already getting a taste of what that might mean for the war effort: When news of the Trent incident reached London, the British government ordered an embargo on five ships loaded with 2,300 tons of saltpeter, the main ingredient in gunpowder. The ships would be allowed to sail for America once the Trent incident was resolved in Britain's favor.While Sumner spoke, a messenger arrived bearing France's official response. France believed that the captain of the San Jacinto had violated Britain's rights as a neutral and the United States must release the prisoners. Doing so would uphold the very rights that France and the United States had fought so hard to wrest from Britain for the past six decades. The arrival of the long-awaited news from Paris during such a pivotal meeting was pure serendipity. Seward couldn't have planned it better if he tried. France was siding with Britain, thereby providing another reason to release the prisoners.Attorney General Edward Bates, swayed by Seward and Sumner, backed releasing the prisoners. "[T]o go to war with England is to abandon all hope of suppressing the rebellion . . . The maritime superiority of Britain would sweep us from the Southern waters," he wrote in his diary. "Our trade would be ruined and our treasury bankrupt."But Lincoln, like Chase, harbored doubts about taking a conciliatory approach. At the conclusion of what became a four-hour meeting, the president proposed to Seward that they both draft arguments supporting their positions. He and Seward would then face off the next day like lawyers competing in court to win the jury's verdict.The meeting on Dec. 26 proved to be both shorter and less combative, with the cabinet quickly agreeing to the release of <a href="http://www.louisvuittonoutletstoresonlines.com"><strong>L ouis Vuitton</strong></a> Mason and Slidell. Lincoln, despite his position the day before, raised no objections. Surprised that his fiercest opponent had changed his mind, Seward asked the president what had prompted the reversal. "I found that I could not make an argument that would satisfy my own mind, and that proved to me your ground was the right one," replied the president.On Dec. 27, Seward delivered to Lyons a 26-page letter cataloging every aspect of the incident. The letter, whose tone veered between bombastic and scholarly, acknowledged that the United States had erred by not testing the legality of seizing the prisoners in an American prize court, thereby turning its back on six decades of prize law adhered to by both Britain and the United States. To resolve the matter, Mason and Slidell would be "cheerfully liberated."On Jan. 1, 1862, the Confederate envoys boarded a British warship, continuing the journey that had been so dramatically interrupted nine weeks earlier. "Those who have not seen the Americans near, will probably be much more surprised than I am at the surrender of the prisoners," Lyons wrote Russell. "I was sure from the first day that they would give in, if it were possible to convince them that war was really the only alternative."Follow Disunion at twitter.com/NYTcivilwar or join us on Facebook.Meredith Hindley is a historian and senior writer for Humanities, the magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her work also appears in The Barnes & Noble Review, Salon and Lapham’s Quarterly.