Norwich bulletin., 1921-07-12
ODD INCIDENTS IN AMERICAN
 HISTORY
RUSSIA AND THE CIVIL WAR

RUSSIA AND THE CIVIL WAR Since the American civil war there has been a great amount of controversy as to the part Russia played in that con aiet and as to the meaning of the Czar sending ships to American water with sealed orders. This. controversy has been waged with renewed interest since the present European war. and especially with an effort to prove that Russia was the friend of the North during this trying period
 When there was an evidence that the United States might become disrupted in the early part of the sixties, naturally all the foreign countries, Who had reason to fear our competition and growing pow CT. was in favor of doing anything to bring about such a disruption. England and France our two greatest competitors, were foremost, il is thought, in wishing to see the United tates dissolved, and it was claimed that they were preparing to intervene. Russia was asked to join in | this intervention, but she refused, and in answer her fleet was sent to New York | harbor as well as to San Francisco with sealed orders.
 It is further claimed that the com mander of the New York fleet was in l l sian legation at Washington, and the | Russian minister was also in daily com munication with Secretary Seward, and | that if Louis Napoleon of France made any further move toward intervention, the Russian admiral was instructed to | break his seal and read his orders These | orders were as follows: Report to Ab- rahsm Lincoln for further orders.'' | On the face of it such an order would seem rather unusual that the ruler Of one country would order his admiral with his fleet to report to the ruler of another country.
 T'ne mission of this Russia fleet has never been disclosed officially Through out the winter of 1883 and 1864 a Rus sian feet under the command of Ad- niral Lesoffskey, lay in New York har- bor.
 The following statement, by Thurlow | Weed, may be found in his "Life,' Vol. II, 5S4-547: Sitting in my room one day after dfnned Admiral Farra gut said 1 to his Russian friend. Admiral Lesonsky :: Why are you spending the winter here in idleness?' I am here replied the Russian, Under sealed orders. to be brok- en in a contingency that has not yet oc- cured
 During the conversation the Rus sian admiral admitted that he had re eeived orders to break the seals ii l during the rebellion we become in volFed in a war with foreign nations
 Weed adds The latter revelation is eorroborated hy a we1-known New York gentleman, who was in St. Pc tersburg when the rebellion began anG who, during an unofficial call upor Prince Gortschakof, was shown b, the chancellor an order written in Al exander's own hand directing his ad miral to report to President LincelI for orders in case England or Franc, made move
 Bison, in his History of the United States says "Carious motives fo the action of Russia were given. tn most plausible of which is that tn l CrlmeaH war has left with .her bitter ness towards France and England" It is quite likely that much of tn | 1 fFiendliness expressed by the writer referred to was presumption for
 careful investigation of English Cabi
 net affairs at the period would indi
 cate that there had been no coalition
 The late William E. Gladstone, in letter to Henry Clews, the Amer banker; dated May 30, 1889, says: "A
 a member of the English Cabinet, an nearly its sole survivor, I can stat that it never at any time dealt wit
 the subject of recognizing the South
 ern States in your great civil war, ex 3 cept when it learned the propositio e of the Emperor Napoleon III, and de clined to entertain that propositie
 without qualification, hesitation, dela
 or dissent"
 Henry Clews has. further stated tha when the Grand Duke Alexis, with . Russian squadron, was in New Tor . in 1871, he told Etr. Clews that ''ther
 was no foundation for the story ths
 the. squadron of 1883 had come to hel
 us in warfare if needed
 What the willy Gortsehakoff ma : have said to Curtain, or to Weed f unnamed New York man, and why | : said 1t, in one case long after tf
 was was over and the other case abol
 the time it began, is not known. It
 known, however, that Europe dipl y mats sometimes stray wide of u t truth to accomplish a purpose. TT : sealed order story is probably myt Il for had it not been it is. most like
 that our owh Government would n.
 have been slow to let our people kno the facts.
 :. (Tomorrow = The First Indian New
 paper)