Henry S. Sanford: Diplomacy and Business in Nineteenth-Century America (review)

BOOK REVIEWS179 common. Both were of German stock and, althoughRachel's familyhad moved to western Canada, both had roots in easternPennsylvania. Both were intensely religious members of the evangelical United Brethem Church, and both kept diaries from 1858 through 1865. As editor Mohr points out, much of thevalue of thesediaries lies in the fact that, although Rachel was an exceptional woman to have earned a coUege degree, the Cormanys' views and experiences are those not of poUtical leaders but of common people. The bulk of their entries cover the Civil War years. From 1862 to 1865 Samuel served in the Sixteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, and Rachel Uved among his relatives in Chambersburg . In Samuel's entries there is a great deal of information about army Ufe and the great battles of the eastern theater of the war from the viewpoint of an earnest young man who advances from private to first heutenant and regimental adjutant. Rachel's entries during the same period convey the spirit of life on the Union homefront in aregion twice invaded by Confederate armies. To an extent these wartime accounts overshadow the earlier sections of the diaries, which nevertheless contain much of interest about life in antebeUum America. One is struck by the physical mobility of both diarists, far-flung family bonds, and the pervasiveness of reUgion. For those interested in antebellum reform, Rachel in particular provides a concrete example of how a straightforward desire to do good as an indication of spiritual worth could stimulate involvement in a variety of reform activities. Mohr and his associate, Richard E. Winslow III, have carefully arranged the diaries so that blocks of time covered by each diarist are presented alternately to form chapters. They have kept the original spelling and punctuation; they provide brief but helpful explanatory notes, and an exceUent index, which gives easy access to areas of interest. Few who consult the diaries will desire to wade through aU of this thick volume, but those who do wiU be rewarded by an entertaining, intimate story of two intertwined individuals during a period of national crisis. Stanley Harrold South Carolina State College Henry S. Sanford: Diplomacy and Business in Nineteenth-Century America. ByJoseph A. Fry. (Reno, Nevada: University ofNevada Press, 1982. Pp. xi, 226. Paper, $9.25.) A glance at Henry S. Sanford's career might lead one to think him a typical diplomat-promoter of the mid-nineteenth century, that period of loose State Department practices and an expansive, risk-taking economy . He served his country as legation secretary in Paris during the early 1850s and minister to Belgium during the Civil War; and for his own profit he became involved in ventures connected with Caribbean guano, sea-island cotton, sugar, oranges, and Florida real estate. During the 1880s he combined the two activities in publicizing a Congo com- 180civil war history merical association for Leopold II of Belgium, who needed American recognition for the colony he intended to establish. Sanford got him that recognition and became the main force in a United States delegation to the Berlin Congo Congress of 1884—an uncharacteristic American venture into European colonial tangles. Unfortunately Sanford was an infinitely better diplomat than promoter . Fry argues convincingly that Sanford and John Bigelow, the better-known American consul general at Paris during the Civil War, were the two key figures of Union diplomacy on the Continent, yielding overall precedence only to Charles Francis Adams, thepeerless minister to Britain. As a businessman, Sanford made enough money from guano to last him most of his Ufe, but in the other ventures he showed himself too guUible, impulsive, fond of display, and unwilling to devote patient months and years to development work in the field. To be sure, he was burdened with a lovely, extravagant wife, who flatly refused to live in America, and, as aresult, hemadeover seventy-fiveAtlantic crossings in fifty years. His biographer remarks cogently that Sanford was really a career diplomat born before his time, with ingratiating manners, an observant eye, and a flair for international relations, but too few poUtical connections at home. Fry has given us a model biography of a third-rank American historical figure with many interesting facets. His...