September 2025 – Circa1865

The Bitterness of Surrender

Like other defeated American soldiers in the South mid-1865, Gen. Bryan Grimes dealt with illness and “grief of surrender” amid constant rumors of pending retribution at the hands of the Yankee governors. One was “a report that they would hang all officers above the rank of captain and all their property confiscated,” his wife Charlotte recalled. “We were living in a “Reign of Terror.”

The Bitterness of Surrender

“Grim scenes abounded as homeward-bound North Carolinians rode south for home [after Appomattox]. One event in particular must have made him wonder what was in store for him as a defeated soldier without the means to fight back. According to Grimes’ astute traveling companion, Thomas Devereux:

“[We came upon] an old man, Loftin Terrel, his house was on the roadside, and he was knee-deep in feathers where [Sherman’s bummers] had ripped open the beds in search of valuables. A yearling and a mule colt were lying dead in the lot, they had been wantonly shot. Old man Terrel was sitting on his doorstep, he said there was not a thing left in the house and every bundle of fodder and grain of corn had been carried off; that he had been stripped of everything he owned and had not a mouthful to eat. They had even killed his dog which was lying dead near the house.”

On Sunday, April 16, 1865, Grimes rode into Raleigh atop his trustful horse Warren. Charlotte was “delighted to see him under any conditions,” but recalled that, “he would reproach me for want of patriotism when I said so, he was so miserable over [General Joseph Johnston’s] the surrender.”

The Federals garrisoning [Raleigh] issued orders forbidding former Confederates from wearing their uniforms. For many this directive presented a dilemma, for they had no other clothes to wear and no money to purchase new one. Charlotte responded to the order by covering her husband’s brass uniform buttons with bootblack, a ruse Grimes described made him look as though he was “in mourning for the Confederacy.” The ever-resourceful Charlotte, despite Grimes’ protestations, sold several of her silk dresses for $100 and used the money to purchase his civilian clothes. “It seemed to hurt him to have to use this money,” she explained, “but I would take no denial.”

Raleigh was a very different town from the one Grimes left four years earlier. The victorious Yankees seemed everywhere . . . [and he] no money, no income . . . [and] not a cent in the world, explained Charlotte, “except for a few gold pieces he had carried all through the war.” Fortunately, Grimes’ brother William was in a position to assist the destitute couple [and] gave them “two hundred dollars in gold quilted in a belt under my corsets,” wrote Charlotte.”

(Lee’s Last Major General: Bryan Grimes of North Carolina. T. Harrell Allen. Savas Publishing, 1999, pp. 258; 260)

The Tenth Amendment

Christopher Gustav Memminger was born in 1803 in the Dukedom of Wurtemberg, the son of a Prince-Elector’s Foot Jaegers. His mother fled Napoleon’s ravaging of the German States after the death of her soldier-husband, finding refuge at Charleston, South Carolina. She then succumbed to fevers soon after their arrival and left him an orphan. The future American statesman was then admitted to Charleston’s Asylum for Orphans, entered South Carolina College at the age of 12, and graduated second in his class at age 16. Memminger passed the bar in 1825, became a successful lawyer, and served in the South Carolina Legislature from 1836 to 1860. From 1861 to 1864 he was a presidential cabinet member.

An esteemed Charleston lawyer by the 1840s, he was retained by a local synagogue to represent them in an internal quarrel, and did so very successfully and without a fee, that he received “an elegant and richly chased silver pitcher of the Rebecca pattern, nearly two feet in height, and a massive silver waiter, eighteen inches in diameter.”

This valuable memento, with other personal property, was plundered from his residence by invading soldiers of the Federal army. Notwithstanding its well-marked and unmistakable evidence of ownership, it is still held somewhere at the North as a “trophy,” or has been converted into bullion and sold by some remorseless thief.”

In opposing an offensive Massachusetts-originated House of Representatives resolution, in 1835, Mr. C. G. Memminger of South Carolina reminded his colleagues of the limitations the States placed upon the United States Constitution of 1789.

The Tenth Amendment

“The Union of these States was formed for the purpose, among other things, of ensuring domestic tranquility and providing for the common defense; and in consideration thereof, this State yielded the right to keep troops or ships of war in time of peace without the consent of Congress; but while thus consenting to be disarmed, she has, in no part of the constitutional compact, surrendered her right of internal and police; and, on the contrary thereof, has expressly reserved all powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited by it to the States.”

(Life and Times of C.G. Memminger, Henry D. Capers, A.M. Everett Waddey Co., Publishers 1893, pg. 190)

Lincoln’s RMS Trent Blunder

What is known as the “Trent Affair” occurred on November 8, 1861, when a US warship intercepted and boarded the British mail ship RMS Trent in international waters. On board were two envoys of the new Confederate States of America, James M. Murray and John Slidell, who were enroute to England, and later France. This seizure of diplomats was seen as a violation of England’s neutrality which of course sparked a serious diplomatic crisis.

Lincoln had little government and no international experience as he had served 8 years as a county representative in Illinois, and only 2 years as an Illinois State representative in the US Congress. His first reaction was to celebrate the seizure of the South’s envoys and refuse their release, until a wiser and internationally experienced William Seward convinced Lincoln of the imminent danger created by a foolish US sea captain.

Lincoln’s RMS Trent Blunder

“A British diplomat Lincoln met with on December 4 [1861] wrote his government that despite Lincoln’s simple assurance of no desire for trouble with England, he could not ignore the strong impression that the policy of the US government “is so subject to popular impulse that no assurance can or ought to be relied upon under present circumstances.” Lincoln, in his upcoming message to Congress avoided mention of the Trent Affair, but relying upon [Treasury] Secretary Cameron’s estimate of quickly enlisting 3 million men, boasted of showing the world that he could easily quell disturbances at home while protecting ourselves from foreign threats.

Despite northern braggadocio, Lincoln’s rickety war financing and knowing New York banks were about to suspend specie payments, the Trent Affair contributed greatly to the virtual collapse of his war financing which depended upon public confidence. By mid-January 1862, Lincoln was forced to issue “greenback” fiat currency, as his government was simply out of money.

By the end of the war in 1865, the north had become burdened with rampant inflation, the constant manipulation of gold prices by speculators, a morass of different bond issues and four major forms of currency – national bank notes, specie, greenbacks and individual bank notes. And the last were to be simply taxed out of existence.

In mid-December 1861, Lincoln and his cabinet discussed the serious ramifications of war with England: the threatened breaking of the blockade to reopen the cotton trade, and the blockade of northern ports. He was distressed as well by the new French monarchy in Mexico and French diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy.

And should the Confederacy achieve its independence, northern capitalists feared widespread smuggling of British goods into the north across the long border with the Confederacy and thereby crippling northern manufacturing. It could not have been lost on Lincoln and his cabinet that the American republic they now governed would not have existed without French intervention in 1781, which clearly made the difference between the American colonists’ success or failure.

In the meantime, Britain was reinforcing Canada with troops, planning invasions of the US from British Columbia and Canada West (Ontario) while US troops were occupied in the American South. Additionally, British ships would cripple northern shipping by its blockade and preying upon northern merchantmen, and not necessarily in cooperation with the South’s navy. Additionally, modern ‘Laird Rams’ being built in England posed a very serious threat as their submerged iron prows could wreak havoc with the north’s wooden blockading fleet. Though the north’s fleet was growing by late 1861, its newer ships were ‘improvised merchantmen’ for blockade duty and not steam or sail warships.

The British military sent provisional orders during the first two weeks of the Trent crisis to quickly establish an offensive base at Bermuda from which to attack the north’s blockading force. Another fleet located at Havana under Commodore Dunlop would neutralize the northern ships at Pensacola Bay while Key West and Fort Jefferson would be left to the powerful British West Indies Squadron.”

(Key West’s Civil War: Rather Unsafe for a Southern Man to Live Here. John Bernhard Thuersam. Shotwell Publishing LLC, 2022, pp. 206-207)