Lincoln, Seward, and US Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era by Joseph A. Fry;

Author:Joseph A. Fry;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Published: 2019-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

5

SEWARD AND EMPIRE, 1865–1869

I.

In June 1869, following the end of his tenure as secretary of state, William Henry Seward embarked on the first of two remarkable trips. Out of public life for the first time since 1830, Seward had turned sixty-eight in May and suffered from rapidly advancing paralysis in his arms and hands—a condition that required the aid of two personal attendants by 1871. Still, the indomitable New Yorker spent virtually all of the period between June 1869 and October 1872 in continuous and demanding travel. During these two and one-half years, he visited four continents and left behind observations that formed the essence of a 720-page travelogue that sold more than sixty thousand copies.1

What prompted this aging, physically handicapped statesman to undertake such challenging and draining odysseys? Seward explained to his neighbors in Auburn, New York, that “at my age, and in my condition of health, ‘rest was rust,’ and nothing remained, to prevent rust, but to keep in motion.” He was also indulging the lifelong intellectual curiosity and love of travel that had prompted extended European tours in 1833 and 1860 and a four-week cruise of the Caribbean in 1867. The second of his valedictory trips, which stretched around the world, also allowed him to spend time with Olive Risley, a twenty-five-year-old family friend of whom he had grown quite fond. Seward was lonely following the death of his wife and daughter in 1866 and unquestionably enjoyed the attention and company of this young woman, but there was nothing untoward about their relationship. Still rumors circulated that his relations with Olive were not just fatherly and platonic and that a marriage was imminent. To quell such gossip, he legally adopted the young woman in November 1870 as they traveled across China.2

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