Eyewitness by Proxy: Nelson M. Beckwith's Evaluation of Garibaldi, September 1861

EYEWITNESS BY PROXY: NELSON M. BECKWITH'S EVALUATION OF GARIBALDI, SEPTEMBER 1861 Joseph A. Fry During the late summer of 1861, President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Henry Seward offered Giuseppe Garibaldi a command in the Union army. Henry S. Sanford, the United States minister resident to Belgium, traveled to Italy in August and ultimately proffered the rank of major general to the old Italian hero. Garibaldi, whose ambitions focused on the capture of Rome rather than Richmond , declined, saying he would accept nothing less than the position of commander-in-chief together with the discretionary authority to emancipate the slaves. This bizarre episode has stirred the interest of historians for more than seventy years.1 By editing a September 1861 letter from Nelson M. Beckwith to Paul S. Forbes, Professor Herbert Zettl has provided the most recent scholarly commentary on the incident .2 Beckwith, an American businessman residing in Paris, claimed to have accompanied his friend Sanford to Italy, and he rendered a detailed report of the trip, a penetrating and unflattering evaluation of Garibaldi and avivid description of the famed guerrilla fighter's humble household. The author wishes to thank Richard H. K. Vietor, who helped secure a copy of the original Beckwith correspondence with Forbes, and also Paul E. Burns and Thomas C. Wright for reading and commenting on the manuscript. 1 H. Nelson Gay, "Lincoln's Offer of a Command to Garibaldi: Light on a Disputed Point of History," Century Magazine 75 (Nov. 1907): 63-74; Charles F. Adams, Jr., "Lincoln's Offer to Garibaldi," Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 3d ser., 1 (1908): 321; Charles C. Tansill, "A Secret Chapter in Civil War History," Thought: Fordham University Quarterly 15 (June 1940): 215-24; Howard R. Marraro, "Lincoln's Offer of a Command to Garibaldi: Further Light on a Disputed Point ofHistory,"Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 36 (Sept. 1943): 237-70; R. J. Amundson, "Sanford and Garibaldi," Civil WarHistory 16 (Mar. 1968) :40-45;JosephA. Fry, "The Messenger to Garibaldi: Henry S. Sanford and the Offer of a Union Command to Giuseppe Garibaldi," Essays in History 17 (1972-73): 37-50; Herbert Mitgang, "Garibaldi and Lincoln," American Heritage 26 (Oct. 1975): 34-39, 98-101; Herbert Zettl, ed., "Garibaldi and the American Civil War," CivU War History 22 (Mar. 1976): 70-76. 2 Zettl, "Garibaldi and the American Civil War," pp. 70-76; the original ofthis letter is in the Forbes Collection, Gl-19, Baker Library, Harvard University. Civil War History, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1 Copyright«1982 by The KentState University Press 0009-8078/82/2801-0004 $01.00/0 66CIVIL WAH HISTORY According to Beckwith, he journeyed with Sanford to Turin and remained there as a close adviser for "3 weeks."3 This stay ostensibly enabled him to influence Sanford's decision to send Garibaldi an exploratory letter before personally visiting the general's rocky isle of Caprera, to discern Garibaldi's attempted use of the potential American offer as leverage for pressuring King Victor Emmanuel II into a more aggressive Roman policy, to recount the king's conversation with Garibaldi's messenger, and to learn of theking's approval for Garibaldi's trip to America. At this point (although Zettl's editing partially obscures Beckwith's actions),4 Beckwith alleged that he returned to Paris while Sanford continued on to Caprera and made the abortive offer to Garibaldi. Beckwith's letter to Forbes also described this portion of Sanford's trip in some detail, including the specifics of Sanford's exchange with Garibaldi, the Italian's unsuitability for service in America, and a vivid portrayal of the stark, barren environment on Caprera. Both Beckwith's authoritative tone and his explicit complaint of having "wasted near a month on this business" convey the impression of an eyewitness account. In verbally relating the episode to John Bigelow, the United States consul general in Paris, Beckwith explicitly confirmed this impression. Omitting the important detail of having returned to Paris after three weeks, he told Bigelow that when the king granted Garibaldi permission to go to America, "Sanford and I went down to Caprera and made the offer he had been authorized to make...