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14
The Journal of Mississippi History
Gen. Johnson [sic] to interrupt navigation?scouts?light batteries?torpedoes?mode and place of crossing the river?how these plans may be defeated. 3. The Union sentiment in Mississippi?and how in 60 days a combined movement may be had to throw off the Jeff Davis yoke. 4. Mr. Benjamin?s operations abroad, in all their ramifications. This gentleman has twice run the blockade with dispatches for Slidell, Mason & other agents. He knows them all intimately.... He holds the commission of Mr. Benjamin, accrediting him to the various rebel emissaries in Europe, and can be induced to place their dispatches in the hands of Mr. Seward.49
General Banks was, of course, interested in meeting Claiborne?s friend. The young agent of Secretary Benjamin was spirited from ?Laurel Wood? to Banks? headquarters in New Orleans, where he was identified as Benjamin W. Sanders, the former state librarian of Mississippi.50 Banks immediately sent the young man to Washington. The success of Sanders? visit to Union headquarters was attested by a letter he sent to Banks from Havana late in January, 1864:
I avail myself of the first suitable opportunity to apprise you of the result of my mission to Washington and the manner in which I was received by the President and the Hon. Sec. of State. . . . Sec. Seward did not hesitate for a moment to approve of the plan for thwarting the enemy?s movements abroad. He adopted all my propositions.... I am here, now, enroute for England and France, and will sail for Southampton on the next steamer.61
The extent of actual assistance rendered to the Union cause by Claiborne?s activities can only be guessed. Sanders? treason, for example, doubtless would have caused considerable injury to the Confederacy had Claiborne been able to induce him to turn traitor earlier in the war before European powers became convinced of the hopelessness of southern chances for victory.
It is doubtful that Claiborne?s services to the Union were entirely divorced from his immediate economic in-
49 CDaiborne] to Banks, December 12, 1863, ibid.
Tonnarv 2. 1864, ibid.
J F. H. Claiborne at ?Laurel Wood? Plantation, 1853-1870	15
terests; at any rate, he did not allow his adventures in espionage to interfere with his business activities. He continued to produce cotton at ?Laurel Wood,? and, by engaging himself to serve as purchasing agent in the Confederacy for the Belgian consul at New Orleans, was able to transport through the lines, under a pass issued by Admiral David G. Farragut and General W. K. Emory,62 his own cotton and cotton purchased from planters on the Pearl River. The Confederate authorities did not long remain in ignorance of Claiborne?s intrigues, but in the absence of absolute proof of an overt act of trade with the enemy, they were unable to interfere. In letters written in October, 1863, Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin and Secretary of War James A. Seddon discussed Claiborne?s cotton shipments. Benjamin wrote:
I have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your favor of 29th instant, enclosing a report relative to the trade carried on by Mr. Claiborne as agent of the Belgian consul at New Orleans. The trade is one evidently illegal, and is, in point of fact, a trade with the port of New Orleans covered up under the disguise of a trade with neutral vessels ... it is necessary to have the papers now in possession of Mr. Claiborne proving the assent of the enemy?s officers to the shipment of the cotton. ... I refrain from suggesting anything on the subject of breaking up this illegal traffic, as I take it for granted that you have made up your mind what course to pursue on that point.53
Perhaps Claiborne?s position during the Civil War is best summed up by a passage in his Mississippi in which he defended the Loyalists who fled to West Florida during the American Revolution, and whose course paralleled his own: It has been the custom to denounce these men as . . . enemies of their country. Such censure would be proper when applied to
52	Pass signed by Admiral D. G. Farragut and endorsed by General W. K. Emory, May 13, 1863; and Cuthbert Bullitt, acting collector of customs, New Orleans, to Belgian Consulate at New Orleans, May 12, 1863, Claiborne Papers (Library of Congress).
53	Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, 30 vols. and index (Washington, 1894-1927), Ser. I, Vol.