1862 by Robert Conroy Read Free Book Online

combination.”
    “There is no such thing as a strange friendship in this city, Nathan. That is something else you will realize before long.”
    “I also met a Captain John Knollys of the British army who is now an attaché at the British embassy. He was hanging on Madame D’Estaing like he was afraid she would run away. Captain Knollys did not wear his uniform. He informed me that he was afraid he’d be lynched if he walked down the street with it.”
    “He might be right,” Scott said.
    “He also said that the British embassy is packed up and ready to leave with very short notice. He, too, feels that war is imminent. He said that Lord Lyons is virtually distraught at the prospect. Knollys seemed like a pleasant sort. It’s a shame he will be our enemy. Of course, I say that about friends who’ve sworn allegiance to the South.”
    They talked for some time about others at the reception. It was evident to Nathan that General Scott missed being the center of attention, or at least near the center.
    Scott had served fifteen presidents in his long lifetime. He had first risen to prominence in the War of 1812, and later had conquered Mexico in that unfortunate War of 1845. His campaign into Mexico City was considered by many military experts to be a tactical masterpiece. Nathan thought that to be retired and unable to lead in this greatest of American wars by virtue of his age must gall him terribly.
    Nathan changed the subject. He talked about all the others who were at the salon, such as the musicians who tried and failed to play in the background, and of the hundred or so who had been in attendance.
    “That will probably be the last of these sorts of social occasions,” Scott mused. “If war with England does come, the French will try very hard not to draw attention to themselves because of the Mexican situation, and they are the only ones interested in perpetuating Washington’s social whirls. The Lincolns will do no unnecessary socializing. Mr. Lincoln will defer to his wife, who is terrified of those sorts of events. I’m afraid there’ll only be formal receptions from now on, and, God knows, they aren’t very pleasant at all.”
    “What will happen now,” Nathan asked, “regarding your note to Mr. Lincoln?”
    “As I said before, we wait on both England and Mr. Lincoln. I am confident that the president will contact me, if only out of courtesy tinged with curiosity. I am just as confident that we will be at war with England when that time comes.”
    Viscount Lord Palmerston, prime minister of England, was quickly relearning an unpleasant truth regarding warfare in the nineteenth century. Specifically, it was much easier to declare war than to wage it.
    The Royal Navy was in relatively good shape and perfectly capable of overwhelming the far smaller and less modern Union navy. Even though there were more than three hundred vessels listed by British intelligence as warships in the U.S. Navy, the vast majority were converted civilian craft that had been renamed, had a cannon or two mounted on them, and then been sent on to blockade Charleston, New Orleans, Mobile, and other Southern ports. The fact of their existence could easily be dismissed.
    The only warships of note in the Union fleet were a dozen or so new steam sloops of war. The Union would likely use these as commerce raiders. This was a concern, as American raiders had made life miserable for British commerce in both the Revolution and the War of 1812. Royal Navy ships would have to be detached to hunt them down, and British ships could not make the same mistake as the navy did in 1812. The American sloops would be fierce combatants and likely win in battles with ships their own size. Thus, they must be overwhelmed and not dueled.
    There were rumors of ironclads being built on the Union part of the Mississippi, and at least one was definitely under construction in New York. Palmerston understood that iron and steam defined the navy of the future,