I have read references to this-England long suspected that the USA would want to annex Canada, and so, when the Civil War broke out, the British policy was to aid the Confederates, short of stepping on the USA Federal government’s toes. The British provided some loans, and allowed British factories to make cannons and ammunition for the rebels. But knowing that the Union would win, the became very cautious after 1863 (for fear of provoking the USA). Is there any solid proof that the British government really wanted two countries instead of the USA? I think it would have been unwise for the British to do this, since the USA was challenging the British (industrial production in the North was about equal to GB by about 1870). In any case, is there anything official that supports this idea?
No. “England” did not exist as an independent political entity at the time. The UK, on the other hand, adopted a posture of neutrality, they opposed slavery, but would have done business with an Independent south if it came to that. And by came to that, it meant that the CSA managed to make a restoration of the Union untenable by success of arms.
It should be noted that the Confederates great hope, the UK demand for cotton, was neutralized by the Manchester cotton mills switching over to Indian cotton. There was a sharp period of reduced supply, but once the Indian growers ramped up their production and the supply lines were in motion, they could go without CSA cotton indefinitely.
I’ve never heard of the UK supporting a break up of the US. Although they bought a lot of southern cotton, they did most of that business through northern businessmen.
Speaking of Manchester, there’s a statue of Lincoln in the city commemorating the correspondence between cotton workers who boycotted Southern cotton, even though they were in the middle of a cotton famine, writing;
“… the vast progress which you have made in the short space of twenty months fills us with hope that every stain on your freedom will shortly be removed, and that the erasure of that foul blot on civilisation and Christianity – chattel slavery – during your presidency, will cause the name of Abraham Lincoln to be honoured and revered by posterity.”
- Public Meeting, Free Trade Hall, Manchester, 31 December 1862.
Lincoln wrote back “…It has been often and studiously represented that the attempt to overthrow this Government which was built on the foundation of human rights, and to substitute for it one which should rest exclusively on the basis of slavery, was likely to obtain the favour of Europe…Under these circumstances I cannot but regard your decisive utterances upon the question as an instance of sublime Christian heroism which has not been surpassed in any age or in any country.”
Also worth mentioning, the Trent Affair, named for the RMS Trent which was intercepted by the USS San Jacinto, which removed two Confederate diplomats from the British ship. It was probably the closest the British and Union came to a rupture, Lincoln disavowed the actions of the ships captain and the two diplomats released (although they still failed to get the British to recognise the Confederacy as an independent nation).
The US tried to annex Canada in the war of 1812 and failed miserably (and yet declared victory at the end of the war, but then so did the British - it was an odd war). I don’t think the annexation of Canada was a real threat after that.
The British were officially neutral with respect to the US Civil War, but they were more than happy to sell weapons to both sides. The British model 1853 Enfield rifle-musket was the 2nd most popular weapon in the entire war, following only the US made model 1861 Springfield rifle-musket. At the start of the war, most of the weapon manufacturing was in the North. The Confederates quickly seized every weapon they could get their hands on, but the North was already set up to manufacture more weapons, where South production was very limited. The South struggled throughout the entire war to obtain enough weapons for use on the battlefield, even after seizing Harpers Ferry and carting off all of the machinery from the armory there.
The Austrians also supplied a lot of weapons for the Civil War, and again, more of these ended up being used by Confederates for the same reason. The Lorenz Rifle ended up being the third most popular weapon in the Civil War. The Austrians had a lot of difficulty supplying enough of these weapons, and it showed. While early Lorenz rifles were fairly decent, later ones suffered from major quality problems caused by hasty manufacturing done by inexperienced private contractors.
While British and Austrian weapons ended up more in the South than the North, you can’t really say that either country was actively supporting the Confederacy. They were just selling weapons to whoever would buy them, and since the South didn’t have enough manufacturing capability of its own, that meant that the Confederacy simply bought more foreign weapons.
Britain was kinda split about the US Civil War. The wealthy elite favored the Confederacy, but the less wealthy and more numerous lower classes favored the Union. The Confederates hoped that the British would enter the war on their side, as that would give them enough power to force the Union to recognize their independence, but that never happened. There were a lot of Confederate sympathizers in high positions in the British government, which is what may have led the Confederate leaders to believe that Britain would enter the war on their side, but Britain had its own problems in Europe at the time and wasn’t willing to involve itself too deeply in the US war (France held essentially the same position). The British prime minister publicly favored neutrality even before the war started.
Lincoln also made it clear to Britain that his position was that the Confederacy was not a legitimate government, and Lincoln told Britain that if they supported the Confederacy in any way, that Lincoln would consider it to be an officially unfriendly act against the United States, potentially leading to a declaration of war between the US and Britain.
There were a lot of Confederate sympathizers in Britain, and many of them did act to aid the Confederacy. The official government position though was one of neutrality.
The government position in London was that it would be nice if the United States was split in two - but the UK wasn’t going to stick its neck out to make it happen. Britain wasn’t going to waste its resources on a lost cause so it wasn’t going to send the Confederates any troops, money, or supplies unless it looked like the Confederates were capable of winning. And this policy also applied to giving the CSA official recognition as an independent country.
The one thing Britain was willing to do was look the other way over Confederate purchasing. Technically, international law said that neutral countries should not sell military supplies to rebellions. So Confederate purchasing agents had to show bogus documents saying that the stuff they were buying was a private non-military sale. And Britons were generally willing to accept these documents at face value even when they were highly implausible. The United States protested these sales but they continued until late in the war.
Another factor was that Russia’s position was not one of neutrality. They strongly supported the Union, and active meddling might have led to Russian intervention. Various historical interpretations have been placed on the Russian navy placing two fleets in American waters during the early days of the Civil War. Many Americans viewed it as Russian support - it appears that Russia just wanted to avoid having them trapped in the event of war breaking out in Europe.
At any rate, people tend to forget that extremely cordial relations existed between the United States and Tsarist Russia during the 19th century. They were natural allies against the traditional European powers. Russia openly backed the Union during the Civil War. The United States recognized Russian claims in the Crimean War. The Russian viewpoint, expressed by their foreign minister:
The logistics of fighting against the North probably scared them off. The Union had the largest army in the world (the Confederates were second). Any UK force attacking from Canada would be outnumbered. The Irish in the North, who were often strongly against their fighting the South, would have enlisted in droves for a chance to fight the UK, and certainly an actual invasion would mobilize those who were ambivalent about fighting the Confederacy.
And Britain had other more pressing needs. The Sepoy Mutiny in India had recently ended and the British were maintaining a large garrison there. And there was a major expedition going on in China. Britain didn’t have the troops to spare to send a large army to America.
Another factor was that King Corn was as powerful as King Cotton. Britain imported a huge amount of grain from the United States (and one of its other suppliers was Canada). If Britain and America had gone to war, there would have been large-scale food shortages and rioting in Britain.
This is one of the main reasons we bought Alaska after the war. We paid a highly inflated price for what everyone thought was empty wilderness as a payoff to Russia.
Then we found Alaska was full of gold and was worth far more than we had paid for it.
I did not know about this. Thanks!
Don’t have access to the exact figures, but the U.K. had bought, roughly, give or take, an assload of U.S. bonds during the 1850s- certainly the equivalent of billions in modern 2015 U$D- and thus had a pretty vested interest in the U.S.A. not tanking as well.
The Confederacy received the most financial aide from French bankers- not the nation itself, but from private banks. The banking firm of d’Erlanger, which had as one of its officers in its American offices the Louisiana planter John Slidell of Trent Affair fame, loaned the CSA $15 million and wanted to loan them much much more on the logic that they would be more likely to win the war AND pay back the money with a loan of $100 million whereas $15 million, even in 1862, was a drop in the bucket for a war the scale of the U.S. Civil War. Davis was inclined to accept their offer, but the Confederate Congress, ever confident (in spite of all reason not to be), decided no, they didn’t want the new nation to take on that much debt.
Davis sent emissaries to several European nations, but had his highest hopes for Napoleon III, who would never receive them. When he was in his self imposed exile in Europe after his release from prison Napoleon III offered to informally receive him and his wife at a country house, but Davis refused. Reasons given include that his wife had nothing to wear even to an informal meeting with an emperor and that Davis was insulted that it was a country home and not court, but Davis still being pissed off at Napoleon III not having received his emissaries was also almost certainly a part of it.
Davis was quite a sore loser.
Footnote to yabob’s post: one of the Russian officers who visited NYC with 12 ships was Nicholai Rimski-Korsakov. While he was there he had the inspiration that would lead to “Flight of the Bumblebee.”
There’s an interesting story involving collaboration between British businessmen and the Confederacy. The CSS Shenandoah was originally built as a British commercial vessel, but was refitted and sold to the Confederacy as a cruiser. The Shenandoah fired the last shot of the Civil War, was the only CSA ship to circumnavigate the world, and was the last to surrender a Confederate battle flag. Learning that the war was over, and fearing being hung as pirates, the crew returned to their original home port, sailed up the River Mersey, and surrendered their vessel to the mayor of Liverpool.
There’s a British book of popular history on this subject by Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire.
I didn’t care for it, like so many of 19th century Britons, rather exaggeratedly pro-America.
And now I think on it Evan John, a distinguished biographer of the Great King, wrote a book on the Trent Affair, detailing how fighting to keep peace led to Prince Albert’s early death: Atlantic Impact.
Dunno why, the US could crush any military force on the continent in the 1860s, but the British Navy could have destroyed the American Navy at the same time, and ensured the triumph of the Confederate States or any other separatists. Which would have been better for Realpolitik. And probably funny. Not that I care for the Confederates.
And of course, there’s Thomas Armstrong’s massive fiction, King Cotton. But that wouldn’t appeal to Americans, despite it’s pro-Northern, anti-slavery bias — too dated ( 1947 ), rather anodyne popular style, and too obscure for foreigners in that it’s British Northern also: Lancashire, Yorkshire and Liverpool.
And as a Trouble at t’Mill author, Armstrong practically invented many of the stereotypes we take for granted, however much they are rooted in populist romantic melodrama of the time.
He died during an international typhoid outbreak that also killed thousands of soldiers on both sides of the US Civil War and Lincoln’s son Willie in addition to however many civilians in many nations that it took out. Are they saying his death was hastened because of typhoid coming to England from the American ships?