The British Foreign Service and the American Civil War
The British Foreign Service and the American Civil War

Author: Eugene Berwanger

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-10-21

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0813184436

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During the American Civil War, the British legation and consuls experienced strained relations with both the Union and the Confederacy, to varying degrees and with different results. Southern consuls were cut off from the legation in Washington, D.C., and confronted their problems for the most part without direction from superiors. Consuls in the North sought assistance from the British foreign minister and followed the procedures he established. Diplomatic relations with Great Britain eased tensions in the North; the British consuls in the South were expelled in 1863. Eugene H. Berwanger uses archival sources in both Britain and the United States as a basis for his reevaluation of consular attitudes. Because much of this material was not available to earlier historians of British-American diplo-macy, the author expands upon their conclusions and suggests reinterpreta-tions in light of the new information. The first comprehensive investigation of Anglo-American relations during the Civil War, The British Foreign Service and the American Civil War will interest scholars of American history and diplomatic relations.

Our Man in Charleston
Our Man in Charleston

Author: Christopher Dickey

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2016-07-26

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 0307887286

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Between the Confederacy and recognition by Great Britain stood one unlikely Englishman who hated the slave trade. His actions helped determine the fate of a nation. When Robert Bunch arrived in Charleston to take up the post of British consul in 1853, he was young and full of ambition, but even he couldn’t have imagined the incredible role he would play in the history-making events to unfold. In an age when diplomats often were spies, Bunch’s job included sending intelligence back to the British government in London. Yet as the United States threatened to erupt into Civil War, Bunch found himself plunged into a double life, settling into an amiable routine with his slavery-loving neighbors on the one hand, while working furiously to thwart their plans to achieve a new Confederacy. As secession and war approached, the Southern states found themselves in an impossible position. They knew that recognition from Great Britain would be essential to the survival of the Confederacy, and also that such recognition was likely to be withheld if the South reopened the Atlantic slave trade. But as Bunch meticulously noted from his perch in Charleston, secession’s red-hot epicenter, that trade was growing. And as Southern leaders continued to dissemble publicly about their intentions, Bunch sent dispatch after secret dispatch back to the Foreign Office warning of the truth—that economic survival would force the South to import slaves from Africa in massive numbers. When the gears of war finally began to turn, and Bunch was pressed into service on an actual spy mission to make contact with the Confederate government, he found himself in the middle of a fight between the Union and Britain that threatened, in the boast of Secretary of State William Seward, to “wrap the world in flames.” In this masterfully told story, Christopher Dickey introduces Consul Bunch as a key figure in the pitched battle between those who wished to reopen the floodgates of bondage and misery, and those who wished to dam the tide forever. Featuring a remarkable cast of diplomats, journalists, senators, and spies, Our Man in Charleston captures the intricate, intense relationship between great powers on the brink of war.

One War at a Time
One War at a Time

Author: Dean B. Mahin

Publisher: Potomac Books

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13:

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Mahin takes a look at Lincoln's role in foreign relations, and argues that he used the threat of war to prevent European nations from recognizing Confederate independence. Specific attention is given to the British relations with the Union and Confederacy, and to the reactions of both the U.S.A. and

Lord Lyons
Lord Lyons

Author: Brian Jenkins

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2014-09-01

Total Pages: 669

ISBN-13: 0773596364

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The British ambassador in Washington during the US Civil War and ambassador in Paris before and after the Franco-Prussian war, Lord Lyons (1817-1887) was one of the most important diplomats of the Victorian period. Although frequently featured in histories of the United States and Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, and in discussions and analyses of British foreign policy, he has remained an ill-defined figure. In Lord Lyons: A Diplomat in an Age of Nationalism and War, Brian Jenkins explains the man and examines his career. Based on a staggering study of primary sources, he presents a convincing portrait of a subject who rarely revealed himself personally. Though he avoided publicity, Lyons came to be regarded as his nation's premier diplomat as his career took him to the heart of the great international issues and crises of his generation. As minister to the United States he played a vital role in preserving Anglo-American peace and was a powerful voice opposing Anglo-French intervention in the Civil War. While ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, he helped to prevent French control of the Suez Canal then under construction. In France, he maintained an amiable and constructive relationship with a bitter nation struggling to reorganize itself and its constitution after the Franco-Prussian War. For many historians Lord Lyons has been difficult to ignore but hard to admire. In rescuing him as a truly important historical figure, Jenkins details for the first time the personal and public strategies Lyons employed through decades of exemplary diplomatic service on both sides of the Atlantic.

The British Diplomatic Service
The British Diplomatic Service

Author: Raymond Jones

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0889207526

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Previous accounts of the British Foreign Office have left the impression that the diplomatic service was an insignificant appendage of the Foreign Office. Jones's study redresses the balance, demonstrating that the diplomatic service was an equal if not senior partner with the Foreign Office in the execution of British foreign policy. After a brief introduction to the history of diplomacy, Jones follows the changes wrought in the service by the intense political and social pressures of the nineteenth century. Against the background of the growth of the Victorian Civil Service and the emergence of Great Britain as a world power in the age of the Pax Britannica, Jones traces the demise of the family embassy, and of a diplomacy deeply rooted in patronage, and the corresponding development of the professional, bureaucratic elite of the Edwardian era. In case studies of the Near Eastern crisis of 1839-41, the Mason Sliddell Affair of the American Civil War, and the Dogger Bank Crisis of 1904, the volume sets forth the working environment of an embassy, both before and after the communications revolution following upon the introduction of the telegraph. Also examined are the social structures of the unreformed diplomatic service and the later, professional service. The volume will be of interest to historians of diplomacy and foreign policy, to political scientists, and to students of social change.

The American Consul
The American Consul

Author: Charles Stuart Kennedy

Publisher: New Acdemia+ORM

Published: 2015-12-01

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 098643535X

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This definitive study of the U.S. Consular Service examines its history from the Revolutionary War until its integration with the Foreign Service in 1924. As a British colony, Americans relied on the British consular system to take care of their sailors and merchants. But after the Revolution they scrambled to create an American service. While the American diplomatic establishment was confined to the world’s major capitals, U.S. consular posts proliferated to most of the major ports where the expanding American merchant marine called. Mostly untrained political appointees, each consul was a lonely individual relying on his native wits to provide help to distressed Americans. Appointments were often given to accomplished authors, with notable members including Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fennimore Cooper, William Dean Howells, Bret Harte, and the cartoonist Thomas Nast. Briefly traces the history of consuls from their creation in Ancient Egypt, this volume sheds light on the significant roles American consuls played throughout history, including in the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War. This second edition continues the narrative to cover World War I, the Greek disaster in Turkey, and the early years of the Weimar Republic.