A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War (4 page)

Dramatis Personae

A
MERICANS

Diplomats, Commissioners, and Agents

Charles Francis Adams
(1807–86)
UNION
—Minister at the U.S. legation in London, 1861–68; son of President John Quincy Adams; grandson of President John Adams; married Abigail Brooks and had six children: John Quincy, Charles Francis Jr., Louise, Henry, Mary, and Brooks.

Charles Francis Adams, Jr.
(1835–1915)
UNION
—Captain in the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry; later colonel of the 5th Massachusetts (Colored) Cavalry; son of Charles Francis Adams.

Henry Adams
(1838–1918)
UNION
—Author, journalist, and historian; private secretary at the U.S. legation in London to his father, Charles Francis Adams.

Edward Anderson
(1813–82)
CONFEDERATE
—Purchasing agent for the Confederate navy in England, 1861.

William H. Aspinwall
(1807–75)
UNION
—Northern shipowner, sent to England to prevent the Confederacy from purchasing ships.

August Belmont
(1813–90)
UNION
—New York financier and U.S. agent for the Rothschilds.

John Bigelow
(1817–1911)
UNION
—U.S. consul in Paris, 1861–64; minister at the U.S. legation in Paris, 1865–66.

Irvine Bulloch
(1842–98)
CONFEDERATE
—Youngest officer on CSS
Alabama;
half brother of James Dunwoody Bulloch.

James Dunwoody Bulloch
(1823–1901)
CONFEDERATE
—Chief Confederate secret service agent in England and architect of the Confederate naval acquisition program in Europe.

Clement Claiborne Clay
(1789–1866)
CONFEDERATE
—U.S. senator from Alabama, 1853–61; Confederate senator from Alabama, 1862–64; Confederate commissioner in Canada, 1864–65.

George Mifflin Dallas
(1792–1864)
UNION
—Minister at the U.S. legation in London, 1856–61.

William Lewis Dayton
(1807–64)
UNION
—Minister at the U.S. legation in Paris, 1861–64.

Edwin De Leon
(1818–91)
CONFEDERATE
—U.S. consul in Cairo, 1853–61; Confederate propagandist in England and France, 1862–64.

Thomas Haines Dudley
(1819–93)
UNION
—U.S. consul in Liverpool, 1861–65; co-head of the U.S. secret service with Freeman H. Morse.

Ambrose Dudley Mann
(1801–89)
CONFEDERATE
—U.S. assistant secretary of state, 1853–55; Confederate commissioner to Belgium, 1861–65.

William Maxwell Evarts
(1818–1901)
UNION
—New York lawyer, sent to England to liaise with Crown prosecution lawyers in the
Alexandria
trial in 1863.

John Murray Forbes
(1813–98)
UNION
—Influential businessman; sent to England to prevent the Confederacy from purchasing ships.

Rose O’Neal Greenhow
(1817–64)
CONFEDERATE
—Washington society leader and Confederate spy.

James Holcombe
(1820–73)
CONFEDERATE
—Confederate commissioner in Canada, 1864; former law professor at the University of Virginia.

Henry Hotze
(1833–87)
CONFEDERATE
—Confederate propagandist, sent to England in 1862; editor of the pro-Southern
Index.

Caleb Huse
(1831–1905)
CONFEDERATE
—Purchasing agent for the Confederate army in England.

Colin McRae
(1813–77)
CONFEDERATE
—Confederacy’s chief financial agent in Europe, 1863–65.

James Murray Mason
(1798–1871)
CONFEDERATE
—Senator from Virginia, 1847–61; Confederate commissioner in Britain, 1861–65; with Slidell, one of the two subjects of the
Trent
affair.

Benjamin Moran
(1820–86)
UNION
—Assistant secretary at the U.S. legation in London, 1857–64, and secretary, 1864–74.

Freeman Harlow Morse
(1807–91)
UNION
—U.S. consul in London, 1861–69; co-head with Thomas Haines Dudley of the U.S. secret service.

John Lothrop Motley
(1814–77)
UNION
—Historian; U.S. minister to the Austrian Empire, 1861–67.

Pierre Adolphe Rost
(1797–1868)
CONFEDERATE
—Confederate commissioner to France, 1861, and to Spain, 1862–65.

Henry Shelton Sanford
(1823–91)
UNION
—Minister at the U.S. legation in Brussels; set up U.S. secret service operations in England and then in Belgium, 1862–65.

John Slidell
(1793–1871)
CONFEDERATE
—Confederate commissioner to France; captured, with Mason, aboard the
Trent.

Jacob Thompson
(1810–85)
CONFEDERATE
—Colonel in Confederate army; head of clandestine operations in Canada.

Norman Walker
(1831–1913)
CONFEDERATE
—Major in Confederate army; shipping agent in Bermuda; husband of Georgiana Walker.

Thurlow Weed
(1797–1882)
UNION
—Adviser to Seward; unofficial envoy to France with Archbishop Hughes, Bishop McIlvaine, and General Winfield Scott, 1861.

Charles Wilson
(1818–78)
UNION
—Illinois newspaper editor; secretary to the U.S. legation in London, 1861–64.

William Lowndes Yancey
(1814–63)
CONFEDERATE
—Confederate commissioner to Britain and France, 1861–65.

Military

Nathaniel Prentice Banks
(1816–94)
UNION
—Commander of the Department of the Gulf, 1862–64.

Braxton Bragg
(1817–76)
CONFEDERATE
—Principal Confederate commander in the Western theater of the war; commander of the Department of Western Florida and the Army of Pensacola, 1861; commander of the Army of the Mississippi and the Army of Tennessee, 1862–63; chief military adviser to Jefferson Davis, 1864–65.

John Yates Beall
(1835–65)
CONFEDERATE
—Confederate privateer.

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard
(1818–93)
CONFEDERATE
—First prominent general of the Confederacy, 1861–65; hero of Fort Sumter and First Battle of Bull Run; commander in the defense of Charleston.

Ambrose Everett Burnside
(1824–81)
UNION
—Brigadier general and commander of the Army of the Potomac, 1861–63; commander of the Department of the Ohio, 1863–64; his prodigious whiskers allegedly inspired the word “sideburns.”

Benjamin Franklin Butler
(1818–93)
UNION
—Commander of Fort Monroe, 1861; administrator of the occupation of New Orleans; commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, 1863, later designated the Army of the James, 1864.

Josiah Gorgas
(1818–83)
CONFEDERATE
—Chief of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau.

Ulysses S. Grant
(1822–85)
UNION
—Commander of the Army of the Tennessee, 1862–63, and the Military Division of the Mississippi, 1863–64; commanding general of the U.S. Army, 1864–69. Known as “Unconditional Surrender Grant” because of the terms he offered to the defeated Confederates at Fort Donelson.

Henry Wager Halleck
(1815–72)
UNION
—Commander of the Department of the Missouri, 1861–62, and the Department of the Mississippi, 1862; general-in-chief of all Union armies, 1862–64; chief of staff, 1864–65; known as “Old Brains” for his treatise on military theory.

John William Headley
(1841–1930)
CONFEDERATE
—Captain in General John Hunt Morgan’s brigade; participated in the plot to bomb New York in 1864.

Thomas Henry Hines
(1838–98)
CONFEDERATE
—Spy sent to Canada, via Chicago, to recruit propagandists and fighters for the South.

James Longstreet
(1821–1904)
CONFEDERATE
—Commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, 1863; commander of the Department of East Tennessee, 1863–64; principal subordinate to General Lee, who called him “Old War Horse.” Also known as “Old Pete.”

Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson
(1824–63)
CONFEDERATE
—Commander of the 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign; corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee, 1862–63; nicknamed “Stonewall” after the First Battle of Bull Run.

Albert Sidney Johnston
(1803–62)
CONFEDERATE
—Commander of the Western Department, 1861; led the Army of the Mississippi to defend Confederate lines from the Mississippi River to Kentucky and the Allegheny Mountains.

Joseph Eggleston Johnston
(1807–91)
CONFEDERATE
—Commander of the Army of the Shenandoah, 1861; commander of the Army of the Potomac (later rechristened the Army of Northern Virginia), 1862; commander of the Department of the West, which gave him control over the Army of the Tennessee and the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana.

Fitzhugh Lee
(1835–1905)
CONFEDERATE
—Rose from lieutenant colonel of the 1st Virginia Cavalry to major general, 1861–65; nephew of Robert E. Lee.

Robert Edward Lee
(1807–70)
CONFEDERATE
—Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, 1862–65; general-in-chief of Confederate forces, 1865.

George Brinton McClellan
(1826–85)
UNION
—Commander of the Department of the Ohio, 1861; commander of the Department of the Potomac, July 1861–November 1862; general-in-chief of the Union army, November 1861–March 1862.

Irvin McDowell
(1818–85)
UNION
—Commander of the Army of Northeastern Virginia, 1861; commander of the Army of the Potomac, 1861–62.

George Gordon Meade
(1815–72)
UNION
—Commander of the Army of the Potomac, 1863–65; defeated General Lee at the Battle of Gettysburg; nicknamed “The Old Snapping Turtle” for his hair-trigger temper.

George Washington Morgan
(1820–93)
UNION
—Commander of the 7th Division of the Army of the Ohio, 1862–63; commander of the 3rd Division of the Union army’s XIII Corps, 1863.

John Hunt Morgan
(1825–64)
CONFEDERATE
—Colonel and brigadier general, 2nd Kentucky Cavalry Regiment, 1862–64; commander of the Trans-Allegheny Department, 1864; known for instigating “Morgan’s raid.”

John Singleton Mosby
(1833–1916)
CONFEDERATE
—Commanded the 43rd Battalion, 1st Virginia Cavalry (known as the Partisan Rangers), 1863–65; nicknamed the “Gray Ghost.”

John Pope
(1822–92)
UNION
—Commander of the District of North and Central Missouri, 1861–62; commander of the Army of the Mississippi, 1862; commander of the Army of Virginia, 1862.

Winfield Scott
(1786–1866)
UNION
—Commanding general of the U.S. Army, 1841–61.

Phillip Henry Sheridan
(1831–88)
UNION
—Commander of the 3rd Division, XIV Corps, Army of the Cumberland, 1862–63; commander of the 2nd Division, IV Corps, Army of the Cumberland, 1863–64; commander of the Army of the Shenandoah, 1864–65.

William Tecumseh Sherman
(1820–91)
UNION
—Brigadier general in the Army of the Tennessee, 1862; commander of the Department of the Tennessee, 1863–64; commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, 1864–65.

James Ewell Brown (“Jeb”) Stuart
(1833–64)
CONFEDERATE
—Commander of the 1st Virginia Cavalry Regiment, 1861; commander of the Virginia Cavalry Brigade, 1861–62; commander of the Virginia Cavalry Division, 1862–63; commander of the Virginia Cavalry Corps, 1863–64.

Politicians

Judah Philip Benjamin
(1811–84)
CONFEDERATE
—The second Jewish senator in U.S. history; Confederate attorney general, 1861; secretary of war, 1861–62; and secretary of state, 1862–65.

John Cabell Breckinridge
(1821–75)
CONFEDERATE
—Confederate secretary of war, 1865.

Salmon Portland Chase
(1808–73)
UNION
—U.S. secretary of the treasury, 1861–64.