Britain in The American Civil War | Britain American Civil War

Britain In The American Civil War

Great Britain was officially neutral throughout the American Civil War, 1861–65. Elite opinion tended to favour the Confederacy, while public opinion tended to favour the United States. Large scale trade continued in both directions with the U.S., with the Americans shipping grain to Britain while Britain sent manufactured items and munitions. Immigration continued into the U.S. British trade with the Confederacy was limited, with a little cotton going to Britain and some munitions slipped in by numerous small blockade runners. The Confederate strategy for securing independence was largely based on the hope of military intervention by Britain and France, which didn't happen; intervention would have meant war with the United States. A serious diplomatic dispute with the United States erupted over the "Trent Affair" in 1861; it was resolved peacefully in a few months. A long-term issue was the British shipyard (John Laird and Sons) building two warships for the Confederacy, including the CSS Alabama, over vehement protests from the United States. The controversy was resolved after the Civil War in the form of the Alabama Claims, in which the United States finally was given $15.5 million in arbitration by an international tribunal for damages caused by British-built warships. The British built and operated most of the blockade runners, spending hundreds of millions of pounds on them; but that was legal and not the cause of serious tension. In the end, these instances of British involvement neither shifted the outcome of the war nor provoked the U.S. into declaring war against Britain. The United States' diplomatic mission headed by Minister Charles Francis Adams, Sr. proved much more successful than the Confederate missions, which were never officially recognized.

Famous quotes containing the words civil war, britain, american, civil and/or war:

“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)

“It is crystal clear to me that if Arabs put down a draft resolution blaming Israel for the recent earthquake in Iran it would probably have a majority, the U.S. would veto it and Britain and France would abstain.”
—Amos Oz (b. 1939)

“When an American heiress wants to buy a man, she at once crosses the Atlantic. The only really materialistic people I have ever met have been Europeans.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)

“If we love-and-serve an ideal we reach backward in time to its inception and forward to its consummation. To grow is sometimes to hurt; but who would return to smallness?”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 3 (1962)

“Armageddon. The slaughter of humanity. An atomic war no one wanted, but which no one had the wisdom to avoid.”
—Edward L. Bernds (b. 1911)