Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

1 this was a large store and warehouse belonging to a man named Libby, who, it is said, was a friend of the Union, and the conspirators gladly ordered his property to be used for public purposes. It stands on the corner of Carey and Nineteenth streets.

2 See page 615, volume II.

3 On the 26th of May a great open-air meeting was held at Sheffield, in England, at which Mr. Roebuck, M. P., was the chief speaker. The object of the meeting was to urge the British Government to recognize the independence of the Confederate States. On this occasion the following resolution, offered by the Rev. Mr. Hopp, was adopted “by an immense majority:” “Resolved, That in the opinion of this meeting, the government of this country would act wisely, both for the interests of England and those of the world, were they immediately to enter into negotiations with the great powers of Europe, for the purpose of obtaining the acknowledgment by them of the independence of the Confederate States of North America.”

4 This association was formed in Manchester in April, 1864, and the announcement of its organization, together with a list of its officers and members, was published in the Manchester Guardian on the 9th of that month. Nearly nine hundred names appeared in the list, representing the highest and most influential classes in England — members of the House of Lords, and of the House of Commons, not a few; baronets, clergymen, lawyers, magistrates, and merchants, prominent in all parts of the country, and representing immense wealth and social and political power. Of course the funds at the disposal of that association were immense, and no one doubts that these were used without stint in furnishing the Confederate armies, through blockade runners, with large supplies of clothing, arms, and munitions of war, and so prolonged the bloody strife. Collectively, these men were, in one sense, the British Government, for they represented the ruling classes, and, as such, were professedly neutral; as individuals, acting as members of a private association, they were the British Government, making deadly war on the United States. Every right-minded Englishman condemned their iniquity, and none more keenly and effectively than the eminent Professor Goldwin Smith, in a Letter to a Whig member of the “Southern Independence Association,” in which he said at the beginning: “Your association wishes this country to lend assistance to the slave-holders of the Southern States, in their attempt to effect a disruption of the American commonwealth, and to establish an independent power, having, as they declare, slavery for its corner-stone. I am one of those who are convinced that, in doing so, she would commit a great folly and a still greater crime, the consequences of which would, in the end, fall on her own head.”