A Report on Civil War America: Sir James Fergusson's Five-Week Visit

A REPORT ON CIVIL WAR AMERICA: Sir James Fergusson's Five-Week Visit Edited by Elisabeth Joan Doyle In August, 1861, Sir James Fergusson, Conservative member of Parliament for Ayrshire and veteran of the Crimean War, sailed from Liverpool, England, for the New World. He was twenty-nine years old and anxious to see for himself the vast areas of the Western Hemisphere which he had never visited.1 One of the four sons of Sir Charles Dalrymple Fergusson and his wife, Lady Helen Boyle, Sir James had been educated at Rugby, 1845-1850, and had attended Oxford University as a student in University College. He left without a degree, however, to enter military life, accepting a commission in the third battalion of the Grenadier Guards. As such, he served in the Crimean War and was wounded at the battle of Inkerman, November 5, 1854. At the same time that Fergusson was wounded, his neighbor James Hunter Blair, then M. P. for Ayrshire, was also wounded—fatally. On his deathbed, he urged Fergusson to leave the army and seek election to his seat. Fergusson was indeed elected, but stayed with the army until May, 1855, when his commander, Lord Raglan, persuaded him to resign his commission. On his return, he was decorated by Queen Victoria and subsequently took up his seat in the House of Commons. Though he lost it during the years 1857-1859, he was returned again in the latter year and was serving as the member for Ayrshire at the time he made his trip to North America. Landing at Halifax August 24, 1861, he toured eastern Canada and the Maritime Provinces until September 17, when, after crossing the border at Detroit, he arrived in Chicago. After spending several days there, he traveled to St. Louis, Frankfort and Louisville, Nashville, Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. 1 Sir James Fergusson, Notes of a Tour in North America ( privately printed, Edinburgh, 1861), p. 1; and William Lee-Warner, "Sir James Fergusson," in Dictionary of National Biography, Twentieth Century Supplement, II, 19-20. Sir James had property in Jamaica but had never visited the mainland. His letter is published with permission of the Trustees of the Broadlands Archives, where it was discovered during the course of a research project financed in part by a grant from the American Philosophical Society. 347 348CIVIL WAR HISTORY On October 23, he embarked for home aboard the Cunard steamer Asia. He had spent five weeks in the United States. During his visit to America, he followed up a keen interest in the Civil War, then just a few months old. Armed with numerous letters of introduction, he met Fremont; John J. Crittenden (whom he liked, though qualifying his praise with the observation that the men in the Crittenden family "chew and spit over the carpets . . . ."); Robert Anderson; Jefferson Davis; Judah P. Benjamin; Robert Toombs; P. G. T. Beauregard (whom he liked best of all); and William H. Seward (who had, he thought, a "cold and cunning expression " ) .2 In some circles, his visit was thought to have international political significance. The police superintendent of New York, John A. Kennedy , sent to Secretary Seward the translation of an item from the anti-Union National Zeitung of October 18, 1861, which proclaimed Fergusson to be a "bearer of important dispatches" to Jefferson Davis.3 Neither he nor any other source corroborates this bit of romantic embroidery. Apparently he was nothing more than one of what would become a constant stream of curious visitors from abroad who wanted to see the American Civil War for themselves. On his return to Britain (he arrived at Queenstown, Ireland, on November 3), he promptly wrote a long report of his visit to Lord Derby, leader of the Conservative party, which was then in opposition. Lord Derby passed his letter on to the Liberal Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston on November 13, with the notation that he considered Fergusson "a man of intelligence" whose views might be of possible interest to the Government. He urged Palmerston to "spare ten minutes to read it."4 The fact that Palmerston had the letter copied and retained in his files suggests that he...