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Chapter 21:
The French in Mexico.
Grant always regarded the
French occupation of
Mexico and the establishment of the
Empire of
Maximilian as a part of the attempt to subvert our own Republic, and his indignation at the course of Napoleon III on this continent, was both active and outspoken even during the war. I often heard him declare at
City Point that as soon as we had disposed of the
Confederates we must begin with the Imperialists; and when the
Rebellion was actually crushed, it became his first object to insure the expulsion of the
French from the neighboring country.
On the first day of the
Grand Review at
Washington in 1865, he hurried
Sheridan off to
Texas, not leaving him time to witness the conclusion of the pageant, and gave him secret orders to watch the course of events on the
Rio Grande.
Grant, indeed, at this time, hoped that
Johnson could be induced to issue a peremptory demand for the withdrawal of the
French, and in case of non-compliance, that he would at once offer armed assistance to the Republicans.
With this hope the
General-in-Chief moved a large body of troops to the frontier, and
Sheridan understood that he was not to be over-cautious about provoking the
Imperial forces on the other side.
But the
Government of
Johnson did not share
Grant's views.
It is probable that the
President himself might have been brought to concur in them, but
Seward was entirely opposed to the course that
Grant recommended.
It was the
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difference between the soldier and the diplomatist.
Grant was for prompt action, peremptory demands, menaces, and, if necessary, war, though he did not believe that war would be necessary.
Seward hoped to accomplish the same object by waiting for events, by skillful management, by diplomatic notes and protocols.
Besides this,
Seward may have thought the province his own, that he was entitled to bring about the result in his own way and achieve the triumph that belonged to his own Department.
At any rate he did his best to thwart the plan proposed by
Grant, and as he was in the
Cabinet, and besides in harmony with the
President's domestic policy, he won the day. His views finally controlled the action of the
Government.
It was some little while, however, before the contest was decided, and when
Grant first found the influence of the
Secretary hostile, he was not at all discouraged, although displeased.
Since he could not have the assistance of
Seward, he resorted to means of his own devising.
For he was very much in earnest, and believed that dilatory diplomacy might result in the establishment of an empire in
Mexico.
Three months after the close of the war he sent
General Schofield, in whose ability and discretion he had great confidence, on a peculiar errand.
Schofield was nominally ordered to make an inspection of the troops on the
Rio Grande, but he was furnished with a leave of absence with permission to visit
Mexico.
This had been granted with the concurrence of the
President, who had full knowledge of the object in view.
At the same time
Grant wrote to
Sheridan that there must be a large amount of captured ordnance in his command, as well as ‘similar articles’ left there by discharged Union soldiers.
Sheridan was directed to send none of these ‘articles’ to the
North.
‘Rather place them,’ said
Grant, ‘convenient to be permitted to go into
Mexico, if they can be got into the hands of the defenders of the only government we recognize in that country.’
He continued:
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I hope General Schofield may go with orders to receive these articles, but if he does not I know it will meet with general approval to let him have them, if contrary orders are not received.
It is a fixed determination on the part of the people of the United States, and I think myself safe in saying on the part of the President also, that an empire shall not be established on this continent by the aid of foreign bayonets.
A war on the part of the United States is to be avoided, if possible, but it will be better to go to war now, when but little aid given to the Mexicans will settle the question, than to have in prospect a greater war sure to come if delayed until the empire is established.
We want, then, to aid the Mexicans without giving cause of war between the United States and France.
Between the would-be empire of Maximilian and the United States all difficulty can easily be settled by observing the same sort of neutrality that has been observed toward us for the last four years. This is a little indefinite as a letter of instructions to be governed by. I hope with this you may receive these instructions in more positive terms.
With a knowledge of the facts before you, however, that the greatest desire is felt to see the Liberal Government restored in Mexico, and no doubt exists of the strict justice of our right to demand this and enforce the demand with the whole strength of the United States, and your own judgment gives you a basis of action that will aid you. I will recommend in a few days that you be directed to discharge all the men you think can be spared from the Department of Texas, where they are, giving transportation to their homes to all who desire to return.
You are aware that existing orders permit discharged soldiers to retain their arms and accoutrements at low rates, fixed in orders.
This letter was delivered to
Schofield to carry to
Sheridan.
It was on the 25th of July, 1865, that
Grant wrote: ‘It is the fixed determination of the people of the
United States that an empire shall not be established on this continent by the aid of foreign bayonets’; and on the 6th of September following
Mr. Seward wrote to
Mr. Bigelow, our Minister to
France: ‘We do not insist or claim that
Mexico and the
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other States on the
American continent shall adopt the political institutions to which we are so earnestly attached, but we do hold that the people of those countries are to exercise the freedom of choosing and establishing institutions like our own, if they are preferred.’
The difference in tone and language between the soldier and the statesman was indicative of the difference in the means they desired to employ —to accomplish, nevertheless, the same end.
Grant did not write to
Schofield again for nearly a year, but on the 24th of March, 1866, he said to that officer:
I have never written to you since your departure, for two reasons: First, because I was afraid to send through the mails, lest the letter should fall into the hands of the French authorities.
Second, because I could not say anything which would be agreeable to Mr. Seward, and did not like, therefore, to send by his mail.
I might add a third reason and say that Mr. S. keeps the whole question between the United States and Mexico so befogged that I know nothing really to write upon the subject that you do not learn from the papers of the country.
It looks to me very much as if Mr. Seward's policy was to hold the Government and let the Imperial establishment take its chances for success or failure.
If he has a partiality in the matter, I think it leans to Imperial success.
In this matter, however, I may do him injustice.
One thing is certain, however, with the present policy, and it looks as if it was to continue, the friends of the Liberal Government of Mexico can do nothing to help it. Under these circumstances I would say there is no necessity for your remaining longer abroad, unless your instructions require it. . . . If I was to try to give you any positive information in regard to our relations with Mexico, or with the man who keeps troops there, I could not do so. I could say nothing more consoling to the Emperor of the French than what I have here stated, nor nothing more distasteful to him than that the American people are united in their determination that his reign on this continent shall cease.
Another election will probably bring this latter fact clear before his vision.
I regret that his expulsion had not been the closing scene in the
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great struggle through which the country has just passed, and which he contributed largely to protract.
It will be noticed that
Grant speaks of the expulsion of the ‘
Emperor of the
French,’ evidently regarding the
Mexican potentate as only the tool of his great prototype in
France.
On the 20th of July, 1866,
Grant wrote to
Sheridan:
Your dispatch relative to selling the arms at Brownsville to the Liberals was referred by me to the President, strongly recommended.
I also saw the President in person about it, who said: “Why can't we let them have them?”
The subject will be up before the Cabinet to-day, and as Seward is absent, I am in hopes it will be decided to let them go. Whether this is done or not the Liberals are now getting arms.
I got the Secretary of the Treasury to give clearances for a large lot of arms for Brownsville, for export beyond the limits of the United States.
Some are now on the way, and others will follow.
There has been entirely too much lukewarmness about Washington in Mexican affairs.
I am afraid that it may yet cause us trouble.
It looks to me very much as if Napoleon was going to settle the European quarrel in his own way, thus making himself stronger than ever before.
If he does, will he not compel Austria to sustain the Imperial Government with such aid as he will give?
This looks to me to be the danger to apprehend.
You and I should, and we have done it, aid the Liberal cause by giving them all the encouragement we can. A Minister to the Liberal Government has been confirmed, but he is idling about Washington, waiting for Mr. S. to give him his instructions.
On the 30th of July
Grant wrote again to
Sheridan: ‘Since the repeal of our neutrality laws I am in hopes of being able to get authority to dispose of all our surplus ammunition within your command to the Liberals of
Mexico.
Seward is a powerful practical ally of
Louis Napoleon, in my opinion, but I am strongly in hope that his aid will do the
Empire no good.’
On the 9th of October he said:
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Enclosed I send you two letters furnished me by the Mexican Minister.
One is from the agent of the Liberal Government of Mexico, and the other is an intercepted letter fully explaining itself.
How far the agent may judge the objects of Santa Anna and Mr. Seward correctly I do not know.
But I do not believe that either of these parties is favorable to the Liberal cause.
My own opinion is that the interest of the United States and duty is to see that foreign interference with the affairs of this continent are put an end to. There is but one Government in Mexico that has ever been recognized by the United States, and we must respect the claims of that Government and advance its interests in every way we can. It is probable that you may have an opportunity of judging the designs of Santa Anna should he attempt to send a force to the Rio Grande.
Should his designs be inimical to the Government of Mexico with which we are at peace, the same duty in obedience to our own neutrality laws compels us to prevent the fitting out of expeditions hostile to that Government that existed in the case of the Fenian movement against our Northern neighbor.
There is but one party, one Government in Mexico, whose complaints or wishes have claim to respect from us. No policy has been adopted by our Government which authorizes us to interfere directly on Mexican soil with that country, but there is nothing that I know of to prevent the free passage of people or material going through our territory to the aid of the recognized Government.
Our neutrality should prevent our allowing the same thing when the object is to make war upon that Government, so long as we are at peace with it.
It would be hard for the most accomplished doctor of laws to turn the neutrality acts both ways more skillfully to suit his own purposes.
Yet who can contest the logic of
Grant's reasoning or the justice of his conclusions?
But however profoundly he disapproved of
Seward's course,
Grant had no desire to criticise or censure a member of the
Government before the country.
He had a soldier's regard for official propriety, and besides he could not but entertain a genuine admiration for many points in
Seward's
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character as well as for his public services.
On the 31st of October he wrote again to
Sheridan:
Since the publication of your letter of the 23d inst., to Brevet Brigadier-General Sedgwick, it may be possible that you or I may be called on for a copy of the instructions under which you gave such instructions.
My letter of the 9th of October contained some passages which it would not be well to give to the public, and were confidential, though it gives authority for just the instructions you have given to General Sedgwick, barring perhaps calling Maximilian a buccaneer.
I have thought it proper to renew my letter to you for official record, leaving out the objectionable passages [those referring to Seward]. Do not understand me as shrinking from the responsibility of the letter I wrote to you. On the contrary, I am delighted with your letter.
It will have a great effect in sustaining the cause of Juarez both by encouraging his adherents and by discouraging other factions.
In view of the fact that Max and the French are about going out of Mexico, it might have been well to have left out the term buccaneer.
If, however, the explanation is called for, I will be glad even of the use of that expression.
Thus the matter dragged along for nearly two years,
Grant doing everything in his power to hasten the result at which he was aiming, and
Seward opposing
Grant's measures if not his object, in every possible way. In conversation with journalists and other leaders and makers of opinion
Grant constantly sought to create a public feeling in favor of demanding the withdrawal of the
French.
I remember on one occasion, at a reception given to him at the Union League Club in New York, he so far departed from his custom and did violence to his ordinary inclination as to force himself to utter a few words in public, almost a speech, indicating how strongly he desired the intervention of our Government.
The country, however, did not respond very ardently to these utterances, and I have no doubt now that
Seward's
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policy was more in accord with the general sentiment.
The nation did not feel so keenly as
Grant on the subject, nor did it apprehend the danger that he saw in delay.
There was a prevalent belief that
Louis Napoleon's object in
Mexico had been frustrated when
Lee surrendered, and that the
French were certain to withdraw if allowed to do so without unnecessary humiliation.
Indeed, had the nation been polled the majority would probably have endured the establishment of a monarchy in
Mexico rather than have engaged at that time in another war.
Nevertheless the departure of the
French and the downfall of
Maximilian were doubtless accelerated by the urgency of
Grant and the knowledge that
Napoleon had of
Grant's popularity and influence.
The French Minister to the
United States, the
Marquis de Montholon, was married to an American, and doubtless reported the situation to his master.
Grant took good care that the envoy should know his views.
I visited the Montholons frequently, and he instructed me to bring up the subject often and to be explicit in expressing his opinions.
In 1867 the
French were finally withdrawn and
Maximilian was left to his fate.
He was speedily captured, and then a determined effort was made to save his life.
Foreign Governments addressed our own on the subject, and
Mr. Seward made a formal application to the Mexicans in the
ex-Emperor's behalf.
But the
Liberal Government took the ground that Imperial pretenders must learn that they carried their lives in their hands when they attempted to overthrow the
Mexican Republic, and that the traitor was as guilty who mounted a throne as if he had endeavored to overturn one.
Maximilian was tried like any other individual who sought to subdue the institutions of the
State; he was found guilty and shot— a lesson that usurpers will long remember.
Grant concurred in the abstract justice and the political propriety of the act. Attempts were made to induce him to recommend clemency,
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for his influence would have been very great with the Mexicans, who knew how ardently he had supported their cause, but he sternly refused to interfere.
Indeed, his indirect advice to the
Mexican Minister at
Washington, doubtless communicated to his Government, was in favor of meting the same punishment to a crowned offender as to humbler culprits.
I state this on
General Grant's authority.
He never forgave the Bonapartes.
When he was in
England and a guest at my house, he received an invitation from
Mr., now
Sir Algernon Borthwick, the proprietor of
The Morning Post, a man of political and social importance, and who had been a staunch friend of Napoleon III.
The party was a breakfast in the country to meet the Prince Imperial;
Grant declined the invitation politely; he said to me that he was unwilling to show any courtesy of a significant character to the son of the man who had so injured this country in the moment of its greatest peril.
I went to the party, for
Borthwick had always been civil to me, and when I was presented to the
Prince he inquired very courteously about
General Grant.
On my return I repeated his remarks, for I always told my chief whatever was said to me about him, of whatever character; but he was in no degree mollified.
He was never good at concealing emotions of a harsher character, and disliked to the last all hollow courtesies.
The Empress heard some of his criticisms and retaliated in kind.
In the last months, almost the last weeks, of
Grant's life, when he was closing his eyes upon the dissensions and rancors of this world, after he had forgiven the
South and spoken kindly even of
Rosecrans and
Jefferson Davis, he still retained an implacable dislike for
Louis Napoleon's acts and character.
In the concluding pages of his Memoirs—written under the very shadow of the scythe of the Destroyer —may be found these lines:
I did not blame France for her part in the scheme to erect a monarchy upon the ruins of the Mexican Republic.
That was the
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scheme of one man without genius or merit.
He had succeeded in stealing the Government of his country and made a change in its form against the wishes and interests of his countrymen.
He tried to play the part of the first Napoleon without the ability to sustain that role.
He sought by new conquests to add to his empire and his glory; but the signal failure of his scheme of conquest was the precursor of his own overthrow . . . . The third Napoleon could have no claim to having done a good or just act.
