Charlottesville

[David Lockmiller]

(08-21-2017 04:02 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Additionally, Michael Burlingame includes the quote in Abraham Lincoln: A Life. Burlingame's footnote reads:

"Reminiscences of John W. Forney in a lecture delivered in November 1865 before the Ladies’ Soldiers’ Aid Society of Weldon, Pennsylvania, New York Evening Post, 30 November 1865."

Roger, I think that Abraham Lincoln's public words in support of John W. Forney regarding General "Stonewall" Jackson may also be a sort of "return of favor" done in kind.

Michael Burlingame’s “Abraham Lincoln: A Life,” Volume II, pages 224-225 (text differs slightly because it is copied from unedited final-book version on Knox College website).

A prolonged negotiation no longer seemed possible after December 19, when Lord Lyons informally showed Seward the dispatch from Lord Russell insisting on the release of Mason and Slidell and demanding a response within one week. Four days later, the British envoy officially submitted Russell’s document, giving the administration until December 30 to reply. On December 18, Seward and Lincoln visited the Navy Yard to see Commander John A. Dahlgren, whom the president regarded highly and in whom he confided. (Lincoln told a friend, “I like to see Dahlgren. The drive to the Navy Yard is one of my greatest pleasures. I learn something of the preparation for defence, and I get from him consolation and courage.”) Dahlgren noted in his diary that “I never saw the President or Mr. Seward more quiet or grave. The British affair seems to weigh on them.”

That same day, at Lincoln’s urging, John W. Forney, editor of the Philadelphia Press, published a dispatch arguing that war with the British would be catastrophic and that therefore “the Administration may be compelled to concede the demands of England, and, perhaps, release Messrs. Mason and Slidell. God forbid! – but in a crisis like this we must adapt ourselves to stern circumstances, and yield every feeling of pride to maintain our existence.”237 The president had told Forney: “I want you to sit down and write one of your most careful articles, preparing the American people for the release of Mason and Slidell. I know this is much to ask of you, but it shows my confidence in you, my friend, when I tell you that this course is forced upon us by our peculiar position; and that the good Queen of England is moderating her own angry people, who are as bitter against us as our people are against them. I need say no more.”238

Two days later, the president and Seward conferred about the crisis. No record of their meeting remains, though it seems likely that Seward explained the British position. The following day, Lincoln confessed that he “feared trouble.” He now confronted a dilemma: if the Confederate envoys were released, it would outrage public opinion in the North; if he did not, Britain might declare war and break the blockade.

237 Washington correspondence, by “Occasional,” 18 December, Philadelphia Press, 19 December 1861. Forney made similar arguments in later dispatches dated 29 and 30 December. Ibid., 30 and 31 December 1861.

238 Forney’s Progress, 4 September 1884, typed copy, David Rankin Barbee Papers, Georgetown University.

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