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Great Britain was never going to war with the United States, and directly send military forces to North America to fight in a war. Great Britain had a greater grasp on war and its costs, something the Confederate founding fathers never correctly estimated. Great Britain suspected the Confederacy had taken on an impossible task, by raising the question in early 1862, of how the Confederacy was going to protect all of its territory.
Even if Lincoln had lost the election in 1864, the war would not automatically end. By the time McClellan took office in 1865, Lee was near surrender.
Peace was never at hand in late 1864. The Confederacy would never have accepted the loss of Missouri, Kentucky, western Virginia, Tennessee, Maryland, the U.S. Territory of New Mexico. This was area that the Confederacy could never hold, and peace would mean the end of slavery in these areas. Peace in late 1864 would have severely weakened slavery, and the area where it existed. Far greater damage, than what existed in 1861.
With a negotiated peace, would one just assume the U.S. would give these mentioned territories back to the Confederacy? Is there any reason to believe, the U.S. would not continue to hold New Orleans? I doubt the Confederacy had time to negotiate peace by late 1864. They could delay the military end of the war; the Confederacy was now unable to win the war on the battlefield, and win back lost territory.
Great Britain was never going to war with the United States, and directly send military forces to North America to fight in a war. Great Britain had a greater grasp on war and its costs, something the Confederate founding fathers never correctly estimated. Great Britain suspected the Confederacy had taken on an impossible task, by raising the question in early 1862, of how the Confederacy was going to protect all of its territory.
Wrong.
In 1862 the British were making very serious preparations for war with the United States.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Wrong.
In 1862 the British were making very serious preparations for war with the United States.
What were those "preparations"?
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
In 1862 the British were making very serious preparations for war with the United States.
They were not making preparations because they sided with the Confederacy, but because of the Trent Affair. They prepared for the possibility, but Lincoln let Mason and Slidell go, and it all ended. Not that Mason and Slidell did any good in Europe anyway. The European nations still refused to get directly involved.
__________________ "The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize." George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796
Prior to the Civil War, relations with the UK could obviously have been better. From 1812 through the Civil War, Britain had to forsee at least the possibility that a war with the United States could erupt.
The expansionists clearly thought that fighting the UK over the Oregon Territory might be worthwhile (what was that, 54 50 or fight?, something like that). So clearly the British have to be at least somewhat ready to fight.
Nevertheless, during the Civil War, specifically in late 1861 (perhaps as late as early 1862), Britain does send 11,000 +/- soldiers to Canada and does put the fleet on a war footing due to the Trent Affair.
I view Britain's actions as clearly 'saber rattling'
Obviously Lincoln apologizes and the Emancipation Proclamation will preclude both intervention and recognition.
In 1862 the British were making very serious preparations for war with the United States.
I feel a very great need to barf right about now. Where is the nearest commode?
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
I remember a thread in the "What If" posts discussing what military damage the British could do, especially with the fleet stationed in the Carribean. Apparently in the short term, quite a lot.
That's not quite the same as actually commiting to war with the US. In the late summer and September of 1862, Lord Palmerston was discussing whether the British should offer their services as peace brokers. If the British had made this offer, been rejected by the North, and gone on to recognize the Confederacy, it would have been a great boost for Southern chances.
After Antietam and the retreat of Lee's army from Maryland the moment passed, although Gladstone would go on to make his famous statement that the South "had made a nation." But Palmerston wasn't considering military intervention at this point, and never did again.
The contest between Union and Confederate representatives over the construction of commerce raiders and the infamous "Laird Rams" is fascinating cloak and dagger stuff. Where's the historical novel? Charles Francis Adams did threaten war over the rams.
If Union armies had remained stalemated in 1864, and Lincoln lost the election, then the South might have fared better with a McClellan adminstration.
Notice how much the progress of the armies affect all else. Lee is on a rampage in 1862, scaring off McClellan and smashing Pope, then invading Maryland, and the British perk up. Antietam marks the end of the Maryland campaign, British interest fades. Grant is stalled at Petersburg, Sherman apparently at Atlanta, and McClellan is politically riding high, Sherman takes Atlanta, and Lincoln is in the ascendency.
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
So, as stated earlier, some troops were sent to Canada to beef up the military establishment, as a result of the Trent Affair(as we can see by the date of the engraving on the London Illustrated News). Lincoln wisely let's Slidell and Mason go, and tempers cool.
Large segments of the British population supported the North, and in the absence of any real reason to fight, British military intervention was seldom likely.
England did what the English do.They weren't looking for a scrap, but they prudently took steps, just in case. Makes good sense to me. Fortunately, Lincoln shuffled appropriately and England took it in the intended spirit. John Bull was not anxious to pitch in, and he was very likely relieved that he was not required to do so.
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
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