Dispatches from Bermuda: The Civil War Letters of Charles Maxwell Allen, United States Consul at Bermuda, 1861-1888
In October 1861, 39-year-old Charles Maxwell Allen left his western New York farm and family for the distant Atlantic island of Bermuda. As one of the earliest members of the Empire State’s Republican Party, Allen was chosen by the Lincoln administration to serve as the United States’ consul to Bermuda, a colony of the British Crown, even though Allen had held no previous governmental or diplomatic experience. In his role as consul, Allen’s primary responsibility was to protect the interests of U.S. commerce and her citizens abroad. In peacetime, such routine duties included aiding U.S. ships in distress, seeing to the care of ill or destitute American seamen, notarizing documents for citizens abroad and reporting back to the government on the arrival and departure of American ships. Such tranquil duties were quickly altered by war, however. Despite Great Britain’s, and therefore Bermuda’s, official neutrality regarding the stateside civil war, Allen quickly realized that most Bermudians harbored significant Southern sympathies. Since he was the Union’s only official representative on the island, Allen was immediately viewed with disdain and mistrust. “It is wonderful to see how ready they are to believe anything that favors the South and ready to disbelieve anything that favors the North,” he wrote to his wife in April 1862. Despite its formal neutrality, Bermuda quickly became a hotbed for Confederate blockade-running activity. British ships unloaded their cargoes, which were then transferred onto the smaller and sleeker Confederate blockade runners. Concurrently, Rebel ships that successfully slipped out of Southern ports with much-needed cotton and turpentine quietly transferred their goods in Bermuda onto waiting steamers for the return trip to Britain. Such activity soon forced Allen to become not only a diplomat, but a spy as well. With seemingly limitless pluck and determination, this untrained civilian slipped into the cloak and dagger world of intelligence gathering — not only as part of his onsite efforts to frustrate the Rebels, but at the same time collecting as much useful information as possible for his State Department superiors back in Washington. Such data included the comings and goings of named U.S., British and Confederate ships, the physical descriptions of these vessels and the types and value of their cargo. If he felt it reliable, Allen also included rumored destinations in his communiqués, all in the hopes that U.S. warships would one day intercept the blockade runners. With no telegraph at hand, these dispatches were often hastily written and entrusted to the captain of virtually any U.S. ship in port. Once the war ended, Allen brought his family to Bermuda where he continued to serve as diplomatic consul until his death in 1888. During those years, Allen’s stature amongst Bermudians changed from war enemy to that of an admired and respected islander. Upon his passing, local dignitaries and newspapers paid touching tribute to Consul Allen. (He is buried on the island in St. Mark’s Churchyard.) Since then, Allen’s dispatches have resided virtually forgotten on the dusty shelves of the National Archives. A handful were previously published in the Official Records, but, for the most part, this work presents these Civil War eyewitness accounts to the public for the first time. Enhancing Allen’s formal reporting are editor Glen Wiche’s well-researched annotations and informative endnotes, all of which serve to add important background and context to these letters. Two maps, seven images of Civil War-era Bermuda, and a detailed bibliography further enhance this nicely-crafted package. Taken as a whole, this book offers an important and fresh look from the Union perspective of the diplomatic intrigues that were part of the Atlantic Ocean’s blockade war. Even though this type of work may not appeal to the casual reader, serious students and scholars of the Civil War should find it a most welcome addition to their libraries. Reviewer: Paul Taylor is the author/editor of four books on the Civil War. His forthcoming biography of Union officer and engineer Orlando M. Poe will be published by Kent State University Press. Visit www.paulrtaylor.com for details. |
Illustrations, maps, appendices, endnotes, bibliography, index, 251 pp., 2008. Kent State University Press, c/o Bookmasters Inc., 30 Amberwood Parkway, Ashland, OH 44805, $32 plus shipping.