sultation with me, and it will produce fruits, I hope."' In a letter of June 25, 1862, to Bigelow, he spoke of "our consenting to Mr. Mercier's going to Richmond " as being meaningless.'

The Tribune, of course, led the attack, and represented that Seward was using the French Minister to invite Confederates to return to their seats in the Senate.' This led Senator Grimes to introduce a resolution requesting the President to communicate the character of the suggestions that the French Minister was authorized to make from the government, or from the Secretary of State, to the Confederate authorities. Seward replied that "since March 4, 1861, no communication, direct or indirect, formal or informal, save in relation to prisoners of war, has been held by this government, or by the Secretary of State, with the insurgents, their aiders, or abettors; no passport has been granted to any foreign Minister to pass the military lines, except by the President's direction." Of course the sweeping declaration about not holding any communication, direct or indirect, with insurgents left out of view what had taken place between Seward and Gwin, Hunter, and Campbell in March and April, 1861. Seward wrote to Dayton, March 16, 1863:

"Nothing was ever more preposterous than the idea engendered here, and sent abroad to perplex Europe, that an American Secretary of State would employ a plenipotentiary of the Emperor of France to negotiate with American. insurgents, and that a plenipotentiary of such a power would accept such a mission."

This was a good reply to the false charges, but it did not show that what he had actually done was either necessary or wise.

Seward had more bitter and active enemies among the politicians than any other member of the Cabinet; yet, excepting Welles, he was the only Secretary that served throughout the administrations of Lincoln and of Johnson. There was always a strong element of pugnacity, personal hatred, or ambition in the disagreements that Chase and Blair, respectively, had with various men and factions. Therefore, Lincoln did not find it practicable to retain either of them to the end of his first term. Seward had a positive dislike for a quarrel of any sort; and, finding himself involved in one, he always tried to extricate himself in some diplomatic way. He had his failings; but his great intelligence, his affable manners, his earnest desire to serve his country, and the great value of the work he did, made it easy to overlook his mistakes and to feel that he was indispensable to the administration in the crisis.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE BRINK OF A FOREIGN WAR: BLOCKADE - RUNNING AND BUILDING CONFEDERATE WAR-SHIPS

THE Confederates did not expect to prevent a blockade, but they counted on blockade-running as a sufficient means of communication with the outside world until some foreign nation should come to their assistance. They were also confident that by sending out privateers and improvised cruisers they could destroy the commerce of the United States. And if war-ships could be obtained abroad, they alone might be able to break the blockade. Foreign capital and enterprise were soon attracted to the contraband trade with the Confederacy. It was not long before the two great powers that were complaining of the blockade, but dared not disregard it, were building different kinds of war-ships with which the Confederates hoped to sweep United States merchantmen from the seas, and to open southern ports. The serious international questions that arose in consequence brought the United States to the brink of a foreign war.

It was impossible to watch strictly all of the three thousand miles of Confederate coast-line with its one hundred and eighty-five harbor openings. At many points there were, especially in the beginning, no serious obstacles to blockade-running. Wilmington, Charleston, and Savannah, on the Atlantic, and Galveston and Brownsville on the Gulf, were the principal ports. Charleston harbor was the one most frequently entered at first, although

care was taken at an early period in the war to blockade it effectively. The numerous inlets to Wilmington made it impossible to shut off much of its commerce until the third year of the war, when the Federal government was able to stretch a long line of ships in front of the entrances.' As many as forty-two vessels entered and cleared at Wilmington in the summer of 1861, and one hundred and fifty arrived at Charleston in the six months prior to December of that year. But the size, quantities, and qualities of the cargoes of all blockaderunners at different points were not such as either to disprove the efficiency of the blockade or to supply the needs of the Confederacy.

As the blockade grew in efficiency the value of articles imported into the Confederacy rose, while that of cotton and tobacco rapidly declined. Because the possibilities of greater profit, in case of a successful voyage, about balanced the increased risks, the contraband trade did not become less tempting. At first all sorts of sailing vessels and steamboats were used; but when the Federal government increased the number of the blockaders, some of which could make good speed, only those blockade-runners with steam and of light draft, and built so as to attract little attention, were likely to escape capture.'

2 Soley, 89.

11 Wilson's Ironclads in Action, 186. 3 "The typical blockade-runner of 1863-64 was a long, low side-wheel steamer of rom four to six hundred tons, with a slight frame, sharp and narrow, its length perhaps nine times its beam. . . . The hull rose only a few feet out of the water, and was painted a dull gray or lead color, so that it could hardly be seen by daylight at two hundred yards."-Soley, 156. They could often steal past the blockaders without being noticed, and many of them were so swift that it was impossible to overtake them at sea. The R. E. Lee, which ran the blockade twenty-one times in ten months, showed what was possible. But the one thousand one hundred and forty-nine prizes, two hundred and ten of which were steamers, brought in during the war, and the three hundred and fifty-five vessels that were burned or destroyed (Soley, 44), told a more reliable story.

Capital and a venturesome spirit early became prerequisites of success. The Confederates lacked capital, but many of them possessed daring and knowledge of the coast and of the conditions at home, which made them invaluable as captains and pilots. The tastes and resources of Englishmen could supply the rest; and the proximity of Bermuda and the Bahamas gave them special advantages. Large numbers of blockade - runners were built on the Clyde, and were soon busily engaged in this contraband trade. From Bermuda to Wilmington is but six hundred and seventy-four miles; to Charleston, seven hundred and seventy-two, and to Savannah, eight hundred and thirty-four. From Nassau the distance to the same cities is five hundred and seventy, five hundred and fifteen, and five hundred miles respectively.' Havana, Cuba, was the port most used by the blockade-runners in the Gulf of Mexico. It is five hundred and ninety miles from Mobile, and five hundred and seventy from New Orleans; but after the first few months of the war the blockade of the Gulf ports as far as the mouth of the Mississippi was generally very strict. Galveston was accessible most of the time, and Matamoras, Mexico, on the Rio Grande, and opposite Brownsville, Texas, could not be closed, because it belonged to a neutral power, although it was practically a Confederate port. These foreign ports suddenly became great emporiums for cotton and for all sorts of merchandise intended for the Confederacy.

To a vessel sailing for a Confederate port the danger of capture was, as a general rule, proportionate to the distance to be traveled. Bona-fide commerce between neutral ports is, of course, not subject to interference. Hence merchants and speculators interested in running the blockade soon adopted the plan of pretending that

1 Soley, p. 36, map.