Frederic Bernal (1828-1924)

From Transcribing and Interpreting Documents
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Frederic Bernal (1828-1924), British Consul, in Baltimore during the Civil War

draft biographical essay

Working Chronology & Sources

Google Drive files


Research Images are from

The British National Archives and

The Maryland Historical Society

London School of Economics Library,

COLL MISC 0821 - Bernal; Frederick (1828-1924) scrapbook

clipping from Shipping World, September 9, 1896




Notes and Transcriptions:


1858/01-12 Carthagena, BNA FO55/141


1861/01-12 Carthagena, BNA FO55/160


1861/01/13, PRO 30/22/32, Bernal to Baltimore


1861/01-12, BNA FO5/784


1861/10/16 Recommends Contraband to emigrate to Jamaica


1862/01-12, BNA FO5/847


1863/01-12, BNA F05/910


1863/01/0212  PRO 30/22/37, Emancipation Proclamation, etc. (selections from Lord Lyon's private correspondence)

1863/09/26 Bernal's report on the possible invasion from Canada


1864/01-12, BNA FO5/974


1864/01/26- , PRO30/22/38, (selections from Lord Lyon's private correspondence with Earl Russell), discusses capture of British Citizens and Blockade Runners.


1864/06/03-, FO83/400, no. 359, Consular Conventions and Bernal's dispute with the Military Commission over testifying. Note that the following dissertation  by Robert O. Faith, Dr. Faith  did not examine Lord Lyon’s or Bernal’s original correspondence at the British National Archives.  In it he would have found that Lord Lyon’s knew that Hall was trading with the Confederacy.  Rescuing the two women was a ruse.  The question not yet answered was how was he captured and where?


From:

‘THIS DESPOTIC AND ARBITRARY POWER’: BRITISH DIPLOMACY AND RESISTANCE IN THE HABEAS CORPUS CONTROVERSY OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR

A Dissertation

Presented to

The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron

In Partial Fulfillment

Of the Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Robert O. Faith

May, 2018


ff: 181-183:


Although the Lincoln administration had readily released British prisoners arrested under habeas suspension since the first year of the war, Union officials did not prove as lenient with British prisoners once they were convicted by military commissions. In one particular case, Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt made it clear that Britons arrested and tried by the military for serious offenses would not be spared punishment merely on account of their nationality. In a seven-day trial that began on May 30, 1864, Richard M. Hall, a Canadian prisoner at Fort McHenry, was tried by military commission for violation of the laws of war in conducting illegal trade and correspondence with the Confederacy. Sometime between January 29 and March 8, 1864, Hall had unlawfully crossed Union lines into the Confederacy by running the Union blockade from Norfolk, Virginia, and he was apprehended by Union authorities shortly after returning to Baltimore in early March.43


In his testimony, Hall defended his running the blockade by maintaining that he was merely curious to see the state of conditions in the Confederacy, and had also intended to escort two Canadian women back to Canada from Charlottesville, Virginia. Union authorities doubted Hall’s testimony, suspecting .


42 See the consolidated cases of Robert Archibald, Robert Pringle, Archibald McKay, George McFarland, Alexander McFarland, Archibald McFarland, and Thomas Cook, all in case file MM 1953, RG 153, NARA. For a general discussion of this problem, see Neely, Fate of Liberty, 24-26.


43 Commission testimony in the Case of Richard M. Hall, case file LL 2067, folder #1, RG 153, NARA.


Page: 182


that he was really a Confederate spy. Hall had in his possession a certificate of British nationality and a pass from James Seddon, the Confederate Secretary of War, which allowed him to pass through Confederate lines. After a thorough examination of Hall’s trunks, an officer “succeeded in obtaining evidence most convincing” that Hall “intended by his visit to lay the foundation of large smuggling operations with the South.”44


For weeks after Hall’s arrest, both Lord Lyons and Consul Bernal in Baltimore were unable to secure a report on the case from Union military officials. In his final statement before the commission, Hall played up his British nationality, and pled guilty to the charge but not the specification, admitting to running the blockade but stridently denying any intention of conducting illegal trade and correspondence with the Confederacy.45


Despite his testimony, the commission remained convinced of Hall’s intentions to establish commercial ties with Southern firms, finding Hall guilty of the charge and specifications and sentencing him to four months imprisonment and whatever additional time necessary to pay off a $6,000 fine. But this did not stop the British minister in Washington from trying to mitigate Hall’s sentence. On July 8, 1864, Lyons delivered to the State Department a petition on Hall’s behalf from the Mayor and other prominent citizens of Montreal, who pled that the Lincoln administration remit Hall’s oppressive fine on account of the long prison sentence that he had already served.46


44 Maj. H. Hayner to Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace, March 21, 1864, in case file LL 2067, folder #1, RG 153, NARA.

45 Statement of Richard Hall in case file LL 2067, folder #1, RG 153, NARA.

46 F.W. Seward to Joseph Holt, July 8, 1864; Lyons to William H. Seward, June 27, 1864, both in case file LL 2067, folder #3, RG 153, NARA. The petition from Montreal citizens, dated June 30, 1864, may also be found in this file.


Page:  183


In the end, however, British intervention failed to save Hall from punishment. Reporting on the case to Lincoln, Holt confided his suspicion that Hall was simply hiding behind his British nationality, and argued against granting leniency in cases in which Britons were found guilty of serious charges. The Judge Advocate General defended Hall’s trial as “an appropriate one, inasmuch as the offence—violating the laws of war— was of a military character and properly triable by a military court.” Despite British requests that Hall’s punishment be mitigated, Holt told the president that the heavy fine levied against the Briton was perfectly justified, since Hall’s primary object in going south was to establish commercial ties there. The strength of evidence in favor of Hall’s guilt should satisfy Lord Lyons “of the justice of the judgement, and render obvious the vital importance of checking violations of the laws of war by penalties at least as severe as the one imposed in this case.” To Holt, Hall’s intention to engage in contraband trade in the Confederacy rendered “aid and comfort not less substantial than would be furnished by English bayonets in English hands.” Thus, Holt concluded, Britons such as Hall who “have been detected and convicted of a persistent participation in these unlawful and treacherous practices” had to suffer punishment, and “manifold, serious and obvious considerations call for the enforcement of the full measure of the penalty imposed” on him.47


Following Holt’s recommendation, Lincoln declined to commute Hall’s sentence, and the beleaguered Briton was forced to serve his prison term and pay the $6,000 fine.48


47 Joseph Holt to Abraham Lincoln, July 12, 1864, in case file LL 2067, folder #3, RG 153, NARA.

48 Endorsement in the Case of Richard Hall signed by A. Lincoln, July 9, 1864, in case file LL 2067, folder #3, RG 153, NARA.


1864/06/03-, PRO30/22/38, Lord Lyons re: Bernal's refusal to testify before the Military Commission, etc.



1865/01-12 BNA FO5/1026


1866/01/12 BNA FO5/1069


1866/04-05 John Henry Keene vs. Frederic and Augusta Bernal



Other Sources reviewed, 2019/09:

1821 dispatches from Baltimore

Note Keene’ role with the Brotherhood of Liberty (1885-1890) and his authorship of Justice and Jurisprudence.  The title page carries the motto of the Inspector General of the Army:  Droit et Avant.  

Inspector general’s symbol adopted in 1890.  

See:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Office_of_the_Inspector_General_of_the_United_States_Army for a history of the office dating from 1777.

https://www.westpoint.edu/about/west-point-staff/inspector-general/IG-Symbol:

On 26 February 1890, the Inspector General's insignia was approved by the Secretary of War. The U.S. Army Inspector General Symbol is comprised of three parts. Each part has a specific and unique symbolic meaning. The IG symbol's parts are layered in order of precedence.

The first symbol, the Sword, represents military power and justice.

The second symbol, the Fasces, represents civil authority.

The third symbol, the Wreath, represents academic and intellectual achievement.

Emblazoned on the Wreath is the IG motto "Droit Et Avant" which is French for "First be Correct -Then Take Action" or more commonly "Be Right - Then Forward."

See: https://www.americanheritage.com/black-cadet-west-point

One morning Cadet Johnson Whittaker was found battered and bleeding, trussed to his barracks bed. Who had done it, and why?

John F. Marszalek, Jr.

August 1971

Volume

22

Issue

5

.

According to Huber, the Heraldic Section of the Quartermaster Corps, explained the significance of the design this way: the pen is to denote the recording of testimony; the sword, the military character of the Corps' mission; and the wreath, the traditional symbol of accomplishment. Curiously, the development of the insignia of the Inspector General branch parallels that of the JAGC in both time and design. Both insignia were authorized in the same year and both insignia were wreathed, resulting in a similarity of appearance. By another coincidence, the Corps' present colors of dark blue piped with white were once those of the Inspectors General. Prior to that time, the JAGD had colors of dark blue piped with light blue-then sometime during the first half of the 20th Century the colors of the two Departments were switched, for reasons no longer known

https://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/lawyer.pdf

Was the symbol on the title page of Justice and Jurisprudence  related to the racism of the Whittaker case at West Point?

??

Note that the symbol of Lippincott the publisher of Justice and Jurisprudence was: