July 19, 1861 - The secret mission to Jefferson Davis in Richmond begins

Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South will be published July 21. As it happens, that is also the 154th anniversary of the Battle of Bull Run or, if you will, First Manassas. While William Howard Russell, the great war correspondent for the Times of London, was in Washington D.C. examining preparations for the battle everyone knew would be coming soon in northern Virginia, his friend Consul Bunch in Charleston began laying the groundwork for secret talks with the Confederate government (which he loathed).

The time had come for the mission to Richmond. Bunch made his way along Meeting Street, then

William Henry Trescot

down through the covered market, which was packed with people on a Friday after­noon. His old friend William Henry Trescot had an office nearby on East Bay Street. After the usual exchange of pleasantries and the offered drink, Bunch asked, “How well do you know Jefferson Davis?”

“Why, we have very cordial relations.”

So Bunch went to the heart of the matter. He said that he and Monsieur de Belligny, the acting French consul in Charleston who had replaced the Count de Choiseul, had received dispatches that morning from their respective governments that were “of the most delicate and important character.”

“We’re instructed to make contact with the government in Richmond—but to do so through an intermediary,” Bunch said. “I cannot explain more fully except in the presence of my French col­league, but we have agreed to meet you, to give you the instructions, and ask you to become the channel of communication between us and Richmond.” According to Trescot’s notes on the conversation, Bunch said this was a step of “great significance and importance.”

That night, Trescot met with Bunch and de Belligny. Bunch read aloud the initial dispatch from Lord Russell sent in May, an official letter Lyons had sent him in early July, and a long private letter from Lyons, as well, outlining the need to have the Confederate govern­ment sign on to the three key provisions in the Declaration of Paris.

“And now you know all that I know myself,” he said.

Trescot tested the consuls to see just how far they might go. “Are you prepared for the Confederate government to make an of­ficial declaration based on your request, thus giving it implied rec­ognition in the eyes of the world?”

“No, no,” said the consuls, almost in unison. “This has to be a spontaneous declaration,” said Bunch.

“I don’t see how you can ask that,” replied Trescot. He also failed to see how the supposedly spontaneous commitment to the terms of an international treaty by an as yet unrecognized state would be binding. But the consuls were adamant about secrecy.

“If this becomes public, the United States government will revoke our exequaturs and will dismiss Lyons and Mercier from Washington,” Bunch warned. The consuls might, as private citi­zens, say this was an important step toward recognition, but even assuming the aim of the British and French governments was to reach recognition, they wanted to do it so as not to provoke a break with Washington. Lyons had been perfectly explicit about that. “This indirect way is the only way,” said Bunch.

Trescot didn’t like the sound of it. “All this secrecy that you say is essential to the negotiations takes away from the Confederate government the very same incentive you say you’re giving it.”

“We can’t make any commitments in that respect,” said Bunch. “You will find the consequences most agreeable and beneficial to the Confederate government,” de Belligny assured Trescot.

Finally Trescot agreed to accept the mission but with an explicit understanding that when he met with Davis, he would be free to advise him to accept the proposal or reject it, “as I think right.”

The ball was now in play.

July 8, 1861 - "Wicked designs of the South"; arrests in the North

From Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South, to be published July 21.

Purcell M’Quillan was an Irishman who’d been working as a clerk in a Charleston carpet warehouse, and asked for a passport from Bunch so he could go visit his father in Baltimore. When he was arrested, manacled and sent to the infamous prison at Fort Lafayette in New York harbor, M’Quillan was, like many other suspected Southern agents and sympathizers, denied habeas corpus. The

ostensible charges were spying for the rebels and trying to buy weapons, but M’Quillan was released after a few weeks following protests by Lord Lyons. He may never have been involved in anything, and it is plausible that the main reason the clerk was picked up was so Seward’s men could gather more information on Bunch.

The Charleston consul pretended to be unperturbed by all this. After all, M’Quillan was just one of so many messengers he’d sent northward. “I had some conversation with him when I gave him his passport (which I did after full inquiry, an examination on oath, etc.),” Bunch wrote to Lyons. “I asked him if he were going to Washington on his return to Charleston, and on his replying in the affirmative gave him a line to Your Lordship stating that he was a respectable young man and might be trusted with anything you might have for me. Of course he may have been buying arms for the Southern Confederacy, but I really do not believe it.” The last two pages of that letter are in code, which has not been deciphered and, from context, appear to deal with Southern plans for retribution against Britain if it does not recognize and support the Confederacy. They are summed up on the back of the document by the phrase “wicked designs of South.”

Engraving of "the political prison at Washington, corner First and A Streets" from "Harper's Weekly," courtesy of The American Library of Paris.

July 6, 1861 - Seward's spies go after Consul Bunch

From Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South, to be published July 21:

Seward saw spies everywhere, and his spies were everywhere. His police, informants, and private detectives kept a constant flow of information and allegations piling onto his desk. Legal guarantees

for suspected traitors and spies were thrown out.  When William Howard Russell met with Seward in July he accused him of running what amounted to a police state, and Seward was unapologetic. “The government will not shrink from using all the means which they consider necessary to restore the Union.” But as word got back to London of Seward’s activities, Palmerston raged against the effrontery of it all. “These North Americans,” he said, “are following fast the example of the Spanish Americans and the Continental despots. They commit all sorts of violence without regard to law, take up men and women and imprison them on mere suspicion, and rule the land by spies and police and martial law.” …

Lyons was worried. The secret mission to Richmond was approaching, but his man was already under scrutiny. “Her Majesty’s Government does not wish for an éclat here, so be particularly careful to avoid bringing one on, either as respects yourself or me,” Lyons warned Bunch on July 6.  “They have already got stories about you and the persons to whom you have given passports to the North, which I shall do all I can to put straight. They make it necessary for you to be particularly cautious.”At about the same time, Lyons wrote to Russell that he saw “symptoms of a determination here to make [Bunch] an object of attack. To withdraw his exequator would be just the sort of half-violent measure which would, I am afraid, be to Mr. Seward’s taste. It would not be an absolutely brutem fulmen [empty threat], for his recognized official character is necessary to enable him to communicate with the U.S. Blockading Squadron, and to obtain respect for messengers sent to and from him with dispatches.” Lyons concluded by saying, “I have no doubt he will manage the negotiations about the Declaration of Paris as well and as prudently as any man.” But the secrecy around the mission to Richmond was compromised before it ever started.

Seward on the cover of "Harper's Weekly" soon after he took office, courtesy of The American Library of Paris

June 23, 1861 - Confederates to Celebrate July 4

Consul Robert Bunch, Our Man in Charleston, is still trying to deal with a bit of scandal provoked by W. H. Russell's account of Southern banter about rejoining the British Empire which has now made it to the front page of "Harper's Weekly." Bunch reflects ironically on the upcoming celebration of July 4 in the Confederate States.

Bunch to Lyons, "Private": 

June 23 - ... We have had quite a tempest in a teapot concerning Russell. You will see from my letter to his namesake Ld. John what I think of it — the revelation is [uncommonly?] awkward just now as regards the [several?] states of the new Confederacy, but the fact is undeniable.

I have had many letters from Russell and his companion Mr. Ward. The last from Memphis, June 18.

I am writing to your Lordship at the coolest window in my home, hour 11:30 a.m. Mrs. Bunch is amusing herself with tying the thermometer which is just now at 93 close to me, and is running up fast. The mosquitoes are [cavorting?] blithely round my ankles which are wrapped in a pieced of gauze. You may fancy how a summer campaign with volunteer troops would "eventuate" in our rice swamps.

There has been some disputing here as to whether or no the 4th of July should sill be kept in the Southern States. The decision is in the affirmative. I have always looked upon the celebration of the day by the Americans as an amiable trait in their character, as showing a disposition to be very grateful for very little. If an Englishman still regrets the issue of the revolutionary war or is mortified by the celebration of "Independence Day," he is amply compensated for his wounded feelings—Yorktown is fully avenged — the sight of the hostile armies in Virginia ought to satisfy him.


Meanwhile, Russell is scrambling in Illinois: 

June 23—The latest information which I received today is of a nature to hasten my departure for Washington; it can no longer be doubted that a battle between the two armies assembled in the neighborhood of the capital is imminent.


Letter from Bunch to Lord Lyons, the British minister in Washington, courtesy of the Duke of Norfolk Archives, Arundel Castle, West Sussex, UK

Cartoon from Harper's Weekly courtesy The American Library in Paris

June 18, 1861 - Real fighting in the Civil War has not begun, "neither side as been put to the test"

Lord Lyons was the British minister in Washington just before and during the Civil War. Robert Bunch, Our Man in Charleston, provided his key intelligence about events in the South.

June 18, 1861 - Lyons to Lord John Russell, the British foreign secretary: … No doubt the prospects of the North are brighter than they were a month ago. But nothing has yet happened to give any clear notion of the probable [extent] and duration of the struggle.

The Long Bridge between D.C. and Virginia

The perseverance of neither side has yet been put to the test. No military engagement has taken place — and consequently the effect of defeat or victory on the spirit of the two divisions of the country can only be conjectured. Hitherto the North has advanced gradually into Virginia without opposition, but if the advance is to go on at the same rate it will take about half a century to get on to Florida. On the other hand, we have been again threatened with an attack upon Washington, and no doubt if President Davis could move his troops with rapidity, such an attack would have a fair chance of success. But the same causes which oblige General Scott to be so nearly immoveable no doubt operate as forcibly with his antagonists. Lack of means of transport, lack of Commissariat, lack of trained soldiers. Unless one side make up their minds to a dash at Richmond, or the other at Washington, we may go on in the present state of uncertainty all the summer, and even much longer.

            If this be, so we shall probably also remain in the same uncertainty about the conduct of the Cabinet of Washington toward Gt Britain, and prudence must, I am afraid, lead us to consider ourselves at any moment open to a Declaration of War. Any symptom of disunion between England and France, any necessity on the part of the Cabinet of some or some of its members to around popular passion, or pander to it, might bring on a war. …