United States and the Trans Atlantic Powers During the Civil War Essay

Many Confederates believed that Britain and France were almost certain to intervene in the war and secure Confederate independence. In retrospect, we know that the Confederacy's efforts failed to attain intervention. However, the Confederacy's efforts came very close to success, particularly regarding Britain. Several factors worked for and against intervention and the anti-intervention factors eventually became so powerful that there was no intervention.

One important factor was Britain's and France's heavy reliance on the cotton exports from the South for their textile mills.[footnoteRef:1] Cotton production and export from the Southern states had steadily grown until it became a significant supplier of cotton for the mills of Britain and France by the mid-Nineteenth Century.[footnoteRef:2] In the Confederacy's estimation, stoppage of cotton exports would create financial "upheaval" for Britain and France, as hundreds of thousands of workers were thrown out of work by the lack of cotton.[footnoteRef:3] While it is true that the North established naval blockades to prevent the Confederacy's export of cotton and import of arms, ammunition and other vital supplies,[footnoteRef:4] and while it is also true that the blockade eventually became a highly effective weapon against the Confederacy, [footnoteRef:5] in the war's initial months, the blockade was "notably porous."[footnoteRef:6] Consequently, in the earliest months of the war, the Confederacy could have successfully exported most of its 1860 cotton crop.[footnoteRef:7] Nevertheless, the Confederacy abruptly stopped exporting cotton to Britain and France, believing that an abrupt and total stoppage would make it much likelier that those two countries would diplomatically recognize the Confederacy, intervene in the U.S. Civil War and either fight on the side of the Confederacy or force the Union to negotiate peaceful secession for the Confederacy.[footnoteRef:8] [1: Steven E. Woodworth, This Great Struggle: America's Civil War (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2011), 67.] [2: Ibid.] [3: Ibid.] [4: Ibid., 68.] [5: Ibid.] [6: Ibid.] [7: Ibid.] [8: Ibid., 68-9.]

Other than the Confederacy's reliance on the importance of cotton, there were several factors working for and against intervention. A second factor, this one working against Britain's and France's intervention, was official neutrality. Britain and France officially adopted stances of neutrality during the U.S. Civil War;[footnoteRef:9] however, the lack of Confederacy cotton did cause considerable hardship to the textile workers and related industries in France and Britain. A third factor or set of factors, these supporting intervention, were that Britain's upper class noticed and resented America's growing wealth and power, exerted considerable influence over British government, believed that the U.S. would surpass Britain as a world power if the growth continued unchecked,[footnoteRef:10] and British governmental leaders were reportedly secretly happy about Lee's early victories in Virginia.[footnoteRef:11] After those victories, there was some discussion among British leaders about finally diplomatically recognizing the Confederacy; however, British leaders decided to wait and see whether Lee would continue to be victorious.[footnoteRef:12] A fourth factor, this working for intervention, was a diplomatic incident called "The Trent Affair" between the Union