The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2010

U.S. consul in Antwerp, decided to pursue the matter. Quiggle, who had met Garibaldi during a tour of Italy, had previously been a Pennsylvania lawyer, state deputy attorney general and a former state senator. A Demo- crat who had been appointed to the consular post by President James Buchanan, Quiggle was then in the process of unwillingly vacating the po- sition for a potential Lincoln ap- pointee. The “Washington of Italy” Quiggle wrote to Garibaldi on June 8, 1861, saying that if the plan to join the Union armies was true, his fame would surpass that of the Marquis de Lafayette. He also assured him that many would join him to fight under the leadership of the “Washington of Italy.” The idea of a foreigner being given a command in the Union army was not far-fetched. About a quarter of Union soldiers were foreigners, and Irish, French, German and Italian soldiers had already risen to the rank of general officer in the Union Army. Furthermore, Garibaldi had lived in Staten Island, New York, in 1850, re- turning there from time to time until 1853 from his job as a sea captain. He had made many important contacts, in- cluding New York City Mayor Am- brose Kingsland, who in 1851 was instrumental, together with prominent Masons, in having a U.S. passport is- sued to Garibaldi on the basis of his “intent to become a citizen.” The pass- port has survived and is preserved in theMuseo del Risorgimento (Museum of the Unification) in Milan. Horace Greeley, the influential ed- itor of the New York Tribune and a founder of the Republican Party, was another American friend of Garibaldi’s. He wrote: “Garibaldi (is) known the world over … He will be received by all who know him in a befitting man- ner as a man of character, and for his service in behalf of liberty.” On June 27, 1861, Garibaldi an- swered Quiggle, declaring that he would accept an invitation to fight in the Union army from Pres. Lincoln — if the president intended to abolish slavery. Quiggle answered that al- though the end of slavery was not an American aim, it could be an outcome of the conflict. He followed this with another letter, intimating falsely that Garibaldi would receive a formal invi- tation to go to the United States, where the president would offer him the “highest Army commission.” Quiggle, who had been operating without instructions fromWashington, now deemed it wise to inform his su- periors of his activities. He sent copies of the correspondence to Secretary of State Seward, who almost certainly dis- cussed the matter with President Lin- coln. A Tale of Two Ministers Convinced that the recruitment of Garibaldi could not be left to a consul, Seward entrusted the task to two sen- ior diplomats: U.S. Minister to Bel- gium Henry Shelton Sanford (1823- 1891) and U.S. Minister to Italy George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882). Sanford, a native of Connecticut, had joined the Foreign Service in 1847, serving in St. Petersburg, Frankfurt and Paris (where he was chargé d’affaires in 1853). In March 1861 President Lin- coln named him minister to Belgium, his first major diplomatic appointment. Sanford would remain in Brussels until 1869, when he moved to Florida and founded the city of Sanford. Because Garibaldi lived in Italy, he came under the jurisdiction of Marsh. The Vermonter had been a congress- man from 1842 to 1848 and was instru- mental in passage of the bill establish- ing the Smithsonian Institution. Upon his return from service as U.S. minister to the Ottoman Empire (1849-1854), he had pushed the U.S. Army to use camels in the deserts of the Southwest. Once Secretary of War Jefferson Davis signed off on the idea, Congress ap- propriated $30,000, and the U.S. Army in the West was soon riding 74 camels. Sent to Rome as minister in 1861, Marsh held his post for 21 years, longer than anyone else there, before or since. In addition to his remarkable political skills, Marsh was one of the first envi- ronmentalists (along with Henry David Thoreau), as well as an acknowledged expert on Renaissance art and the English and Old Icelandic languages. Sanford was authorized to offer Garibaldi the rank of major general (the highest Army rank until Ulysses S. Grant received a third star in 1864). Sec. Seward’s instructions were to “Tell [Garibaldi] that he will receive a major- general’s commission in the Army of the United States, with its appointments, with the hearty welcome of the Ameri- can people. Tell him that we have abundant resources, and numbers un- limited at our command, and a nation resolved to remain united and free.” Though Sanford’s instructions did not name Pres. Lincoln, Seward sent a separate personal message to Sanford, saying in part, “It has been a source of sincere satisfaction to the president that circumstances have rendered him able to extend to him if desired an in- vitation which would enable him to add the glory of aiding in the preserva- tion of the American Union to the many honors which the general of Italy has already won in the cause of human freedom.” Both President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward favored efforts to recruit a seasoned foreign leader. 52 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 1 0