transferred his whole army to the south side of the James River.[220] He failed to surprise Petersburg on the 16th of Jane, and he then formed an entrenched camp on the angle between the James River and the Appomattox. Lee had now forced him to describe more than half the circuit of Richmond, and, in spite of all his sacrifices, he was no nearer his objective point. Concerted movements by Butler on the James River and by Hunter in the neighbourhood of Lynchburg were foiled by the Confederates, and Grant’s next attack on Petersburg on the 26th of July was repelled. In September, however, he pushed his left wing across the Welden Valley, and menaced the remaining communications between Richmond and the South. The Confederate General Early about the same time effected a diversion by crossing the Potomac, and threatening Washington and Baltimore, but he was driven back by Sheridan. Richmond, however, was now invested by 100,000 enemies, and night and day the thundering of cannon broke on the ears of its inhabitants.
In the west the Federals were more successful. Sherman, starting with a splendid army from Chattanooga in May, drove Johnston before him towards Atalanta, which was evacuated by the Confederates on the 27th of September. The Confederate General, Hood, however, by a rapid movement passed round Sherman’s right wing, and cut his communications with the North. Whenever Sherman attacked him, Hood turned towards Alabama. Then the daring and original idea occurred to Sherman to quit Atalanta—which could not be conveniently held while Hood hovered over his rear—and march straight onwards through Georgia to the sea. He left Thomas with 20,000 men to hold Hood in Tennessee, whilst he himself with 50,000 men proceeded to devastate Georgia by fire and sword. His march was marked by a track of desolation from forty to fifty miles broad. As the year closed he received the capitulation of Savannah, and demonstrated to the world by his marvellous strategy that the Southern Confederacy was like a nut with a hard shell, but no kernel inside. It is the mark of genius to convert defeat into victory, and this was the feat that Sherman achieved when Hood, by cutting his communications with the North, suggested to him the daring stroke by which he pierced the very vitals of the Confederacy. It need hardly be said that Sherman’s march through Georgia was represented to the English people by many aristocratic organs as a retreat, and that his abandonment of Atalanta, when Hood worked round his right, was hailed by Society as a supreme disaster for “the bubble Republic.” At sea the Federals were also fortunate. In June the United States ship of war Kersarge sank the Alabama near Cherbourg, and the Wachusett captured the Florida, though by a violation of the laws of neutrality, in the harbour of Bahia. Confederate partisans from Canada had made futile raids on the territory of New York, thereby increasing the animosity of the Americans against England. The Canadian authorities no doubt arrested the raiders, but they also discharged them because of some technical flaw in their jurisdiction. President Lincoln in July called out a fresh draft of 500,000 men for service, and this did not tend to make the war popular at the beginning of the year. The enormous sacrifices of life which Grant’s strategy involved, also strengthened the hands of the Peace Party or Democrats. When arrangements had to be made for choosing Presidential candidates there was a strange cleavage of Parties. The old Abolitionists nominated General Fremont. The Republican Party, however, at the Baltimore Convention, nominated Mr. Lincoln. The Democrats, on the other hand, selected General McClellan. His manifesto practically meant that he desired negotiations to be opened up for the purpose of restoring the Union with slavery on the old footing—but the Union must be restored. This alienated a strong faction of Democrats, who were for peace at any price—even at the price of cutting the Slave States adrift—and dissolving the Union. General Fremont withdrew, and it was soon evident, especially when news of Sherman’s successes came in, that Mr. Lincoln, as the representative of the national war policy, was the popular favourite.
Very early in the year, on the 8th of January, the Queen had the gratification of learning that a son and heir had been born to the Prince and Princess of Wales. The event was not expected by her Majesty till March, so that no preparations had been made by the Queen or her Household, at Frogmore—where the Princess was staying at the time—for the accouchement. “There was no nurse,” writes Lord Malmesbury in his Diary, “no baby-linen, and no doctor, except Mr. Brown, the Windsor physician, who attended [the Princess] and brought the child into the world, for which it is said he will be made a knight and receive £500. Lady Macclesfield was fortunately in waiting, and as she has had a great many children, she was probably of use. Lord Granville was the only Minister in attendance, having come to dine with the Prince, and there was not time to summon the others, as the Princess was not ill more than three hours. She had been to see the skating, and did not return to Frogmore till four o’clock, soon after which she was taken ill.”[221] A telegram was sent to the Queen at Osborne immediately after the birth of the little Prince, and next day Frogmore was a scene of busy excitement—Ministers of State and the chief members of the nobility thronging in large numbers to offer their congratulations to the Prince of Wales. All over the kingdom the birth of the Prince was hailed with demonstrations of joy, and in London, when the news was announced, the Tower guns fired a double Royal salute. On the 10th of March, the first anniversary of the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, their child was christened in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace, the Queen being present on the occasion. The King of the Belgians was also there, and among the company were the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Palmerston, many Ministers of State, and nearly all the representatives of Foreign Courts. The King of the Belgians and Princess Helena represented the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, who were sponsors, the others being the Duchess of Cambridge; the Dowager Duchess of Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg; Prince John of Sleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg representing the King of Denmark; the Grand Duchess of Mecklenberg-Strelitz representing the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; Prince Alfred and the Duke of Cambridge. Crimson velvet, panelled with gold lace, covered the altar of the chapel. The splendid church plate was displayed, and seats covered with crimson and gold were arranged within the rail for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and the officiating clergy. Over the altar was hung a rich piece of tapestry, representing the Baptism of our Saviour. A fluted white plinth, picked out with gold, supported the font, which was a tazza of silver-gilt, the rim representing the flowers and leaves of the water-lily, whilst a group of cherubs were shown playing round the base. The Queen, who was dressed in black silk and crape, formed a sombre figure in this brilliant assembly. The Lord Chamberlain and the Groom of the Stole conducted the infant Prince into the chapel, his Royal Highness being carried in the arms of his nurse, Mrs. Clark, and attended by the Countess of Macclesfield, one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales. The little Prince wore the same robe of rich Honiton lace which had been used for his father at his christening. When the Archbishop came to that part of the service for naming the child, he asked how it should be named. The Queen answered quite audibly, “Albert Victor Christian Edward,” and his Grace accordingly baptised it in these names. After the ceremony was over the company proceeded to the Green Drawing-room and the Picture-gallery, and shortly afterwards partook of a cold luncheon with the Royal Family in the supper-room. In the evening the Prince and Princess of Wales gave a banquet at Marlborough House, where some embarrassment was said at the time to have been caused by Count Bernstoff, the Prussian Minister, refusing to drink the health of the King of Denmark. This incident was for a few days eagerly canvassed by the gossips of clubland, but Bernstoff himself always denied the tale. In fact, he was so much annoyed by the persistency with which it was repeated in Society that he sent an official contradiction to Earl Russell.[222] Among the baptismal gifts one of the most striking was that which was presented by the Queen to her little grandson. It was a beautiful little statuette of the Prince Consort, made to the Queen’s design, and with inscriptions written by herself. The Prince’s figure is clad in gilt armour, copied from the effigy of the Earl of Warwick, in St. Mary’s Church, Warwick, and he is represented as Christian in the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Round the plinth is the verse from Timothy—“I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” On the stump of an old oak behind the figure rests Christian’s helmet, while hard by are the lilies of purity which one always associates with old pictures of the Pilgrim. Beneath the plinth and in front of the entablature of the pedestal is the inscription, “Given to Albert Victor Christian Edward on the occasion of his baptism by Victoria R., his grandmother, and godmother, in memory of Albert, his beloved grandfather.” Appropriate verses written by Mrs. Protheroe, wife of the rector of Whippingham, the Queen’s parish church at Osborne, are inscribed on three of the panels. Beneath the front panel, over the figures 1864, are inscribed in large letters the Prince’s name, and the dates of his birth and baptism. Figures of Faith and Hope, in oxidised silver, stand at the right and left side of the work, and in a third niche behind is the figure of Charity. At the side of each figure are lilies in enamel, and on the frieze over the figure of Faith are the words, “Walk as he walked in—Faith,” the last word being inscribed beneath the figure. This pretty conceit is carried all through. For in the same way one reads, “Strive as he strove in—Hope,” and over the third group one reads, “Think as he thought in—Charity.” To the right of the Prince of Wales’s shield is an infant boy looking up at a full-blown rose on a perfect stem, and beside it a white lily, whilst over the baby fingers droop a cluster of snowdrops, emblematic of the dawning flower-life of the year. The rose, shamrock, and thistle are worked into the background.
THE ROYAL NURSERY, OSBORNE.
(From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde.)
The day after the ceremony at Buckingham Palace was marked by a catastrophe which seriously shocked the Queen. The Bradfield reservoir of the Sheffield Waterworks burst, and the letting loose of its pent-up waters spread desolation far and wide all along the river from Bradfield to Sheffield. Whole villages were swept down the Valley of the Don, and places once populous were suddenly converted into a swamp of mud, with here and there a broken mill wheel left to mark the site of what had once been a happy hive of industry. Some of the streets of Sheffield itself were flooded, and low-lying, open spaces were turned into lakes dotted with islands formed by rubbish heaps. Wreckage of all kinds and the corpses of the drowned marked the track of the current. The disaster was appalling in the suddenness of its occurrence. The first intimation that hundreds of people had of it was the lifting up of their beds by the water as they lay asleep in their homes. In Sheffield, during the stillness of the night, those who were awake said they suddenly heard an unearthly roar which increased in volume, that this was succeeded by a hissing noise, as of angry waves dashing on sharp and beetling crags, and then by weird shrieks, soon followed by the rush of a panic-stricken crowd, flying with their families from the neighbourhood of the river for safety, and crying, “Oh, God! the flood! the flood!” Some 270 lives were lost, and property to the value of £1,000,000 was destroyed. A relief fund was at once started both in Sheffield and in London, and on the 16th of January Mr. Roebuck, M.P. for Sheffield, received the following letter, which testified to the sympathetic interest with which the Queen had read the accounts of what had happened:—
“Sir,—I have had the honour to submit to her Majesty the Queen your letter received last night. Her Majesty had already directed me to make inquiry whether any subscription had been commenced for the relief of the sufferers by the fearful calamity which has occurred near Sheffield. The Queen has commanded me to inform you that it is her Majesty’s intention to contribute £200 towards the objects advocated in your letter. Her Majesty has commanded me to add the expression of her deep sympathy for the poor persons thus suddenly overwhelmed with grief, and exposed to suffering of every description in consequence of this unexpected and dire calamity. As I am not aware of the name of the treasurer, I shall be very much obliged to you if you will take the trouble to forward the enclosed cheque to the proper quarter.
“I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient humble servant,
“C. B. Phipps.”