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What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening?
- lordgilman 4y agoThere's also an interesting paper written on the Vatican's view of the American Civil War: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25018756 https://www.jstor.org/stable/25018756
- cperciva 4y agoNot mentioned: Towards the end of the Civil War, British officers became very concerned that the large and now experienced army might turn its attention North, as they had some 50 years prior. The Civil War was thus a direct catalyst for Canadian confederation.
- pcaharrier 4y agoIn fact, there were some men (Irish nationalists) who gained military experience during the Civil War that were involved in armed raids into Canada from 1865-1871. Encyclopedia article: https://www.britannica.com/event/Fenian-raids https://www.britannica.com/event/Fenian-raids
- philistine 4y agoA direct American invasion was not a catalyst for confederation. Expansion westward was seen as vital, and America’s rapid growth made the endeavour even more vital, lest American immigrants seize Canadian land. No one feared the American army would turn north. They could have crushed Canada, but peace between Canada and the US was seen as assured as long as the UK wanted it.
- rgblambda 4y agoPerhaps not a direct catalyst as it was the Fenian Raids, in particular the battle of Ridgeway, that led to Canadian Confederation. The Fenians were largely Union Army veterans of the Civil War. Lincoln's decision to allow the formation of ethnic Irish regiments to aid recruitment allowed for the military organization and training of the Fenian Brotherhood.
- qiskit 4y agoThe US took the oregon territories from the british empire in the 1840s. Even before the civil war, the british empire was in no position to challenge the US in north america. America was focused on western expansion to the pacific before and after the civil war, not to worthless canadian tundra and the frigid arctic.
- ledauphin 4y agothis was disappointingly content-light. I'm curious about the subject, but this was barely even an introduction.
- Group_B 4y agoHere’s an article I found with more info: https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1506&context=br_rev https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1506&cont...
- kwertyoowiyop 4y agoMy chief takeaway: people who weren’t there didn’t have all the details.
- newaccount2021 4y ago
- trynumber9 4y agoIt would be interesting to know what Prussian officers thought of the battles as they soon after fought a few wars. But I can't read German.
- tokai 4y agoThey thought the Confederate and US commanders lacked training, while Stanning for Lee. And generally thought that there was not much to learn that was applicable to European wars. https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2015/01/05/a-prussian-observes-the-american-civil-war/ https://gettysburgcompiler.org/2015/01/05/a-prussian-observe...
- inglor_cz 4y agoA quote from that article: This resulted in “stiffness in the lines and clumsiness in management and direction of troops” as large divisions of the army fully relied on their higher officers to direct all movement. “The loss of an upper-level commander,” Scheibert states, “Would cripple advance and retard again in battle.” Interesting, this kind of criticism is leveled at the Russian army today.
- gunfighthacksaw 4y agoIn the Wealth of Nations (1776) Adam Smith refers to it as “an ongoing disturbance in our North American colonies” IIRC
- kaycebasques 4y ago"American Civil War" usually refers to the war in the 1860s. "American Revolution" is what we US people call the war in the 1770s.
- ElevenLathe 4y agoThat was the American Revolution. The American Civil War typically refers to the conflict of 1861-1865.
- Animats 4y ago"War of Northern Aggression".
- machinerychorus 4y agoThe south will rise again! and get its ass beat again!
- wilkestelephone 4y agoConsidering the manufacturing and ensuing migration, it’s rising one way or another. Won or lose, we still see Carpet Baggers…
- Arrath 4y agoAlternatively, "War of Southern Treason".
- wilkestelephone 4y agoHas that one common usage anywhere?
- sillyquiet 4y agoI think the real answer and probably why the article is a bit light on actual anecdotes, is that Britain or its military at the time probably didn't think much of it all, especially from a military point of view. Plus they were super busy with imperial concerns, especially in the British Raj post-1857 rebellion. The U.S., although gaining steam economically (pun intended), was still a backwater, rural, nation isolated by a whole lot of ocean (edit: I meant all this from a military point of view). I am sure the abolitionists in power in Parliament were interested in the outcome of the war from that point of view, but it was really of very little consequence to UK or Europe as a whole.
- nostromo 4y agoThe US economy overtook the UK's right around the civil war. That's also around when the US population overtook the UK's. They may have not thought much about the war, but it wouldn't be because the US had a small economy or population.
- kensai 4y agoReally? I thought that happened way after WWI. The UK economy back then had a gazillion of colonies to sustain it.
- sillyquiet 4y agoNo OP's correct, the US surpassed the UK both in population and in GDP sometime around the middle of the 19th century.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoAfter the war I'm sure they took note. The US Army of the North was then the largest army in the world. That had to be concerning. Second place? The US Army of the South.
- bombcar 4y agoLuckily the US Navy wasn't doing so hot, and so the only real places to get worried were Canada and Mexico, as neither army had worked out how to walk on water.
- jessaustin 4y agoJapan completely transformed their society, largely in response to a visit from that navy.
- umeshunni 4y agoLooks like the troop strength was 200-600K on each side. I'm not sure that would have been the largest army in the world. source: https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm#:~:text=In%20July%201861%2C%20the%20two,January%201863%20totaled%20over%20600%2C000 https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/facts.htm#:~:text=In%20July%201....
- dhosek 4y agoIt wouldn't be. Russia had a larger army. Only if you consider both sides a single army do they outnumber the Russian forces.
- mistrial9 4y agowithout facts, I would expect some central Asian horse army to have 200,000 humans, far earlier than that.. Persian and Egyptian armies were large at different times too.. sounds uninformed..
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoReally? In 1865? Which one of those was in existence and larger?
- Animats 4y agoNot enough, actually. The American Civil War was the first big war where railroads and telegraph lines allowed coordinated operations over a large area, and machine guns and repeating rifles allowed killing large numbers of advancing troops. Grant got this; he wrote "War is Progressive", meaning that there was progress through technology. This was a radical idea in military thinking at the time. Most European military leaders didn't get that until WWI. They were still trying mass charges. Which, against machine guns, absolutely does not work.
- bee_rider 4y agoIt also featured a little bit of trench warfare. I imagine the European observers who saw that were like "Huh, definitely not important, let's not come up with strategies to counter this sort of thing" and then forgot about it for the next 50 years or so.
- isk517 4y agoI mean, it had been 50 years, it wasn't like there had been another war fought 10 years prior that also devolved into trench warfare that they completely failed to learn anything from.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bilbo0s 4y agoIn fairness, I think people thought the Eastern and Southern armies fought in a "civilized" manner. It's just that the Western armies and Western generals came in, and they fought in a significantly different fashion. You can call the West of the Union more "modern". Or "pragmatic". Or maybe "barbaric" is the right word. No one wanted to be seen as being "Barbaric". Except Western armies, who really didn't care what people thought about them. (At least, not as much as they cared about their orders.)
- pbhjpbhj 4y agoI just can't see how that can be true - 'we're going to murder you all, but we're going to do it with good manners because otherwise people will think we're bad'?? It seems way more likely to be 'cargo cult' type learning where something worked for centuries and so got formalised and taught rigidly? Any good sources on this, it must have been covered on AskHistorians!?
- westcort 4y agoMy key takeaways: * Miller and Chesney’s lectures describe the course of the war up to that point, with Chesney focussing first on fighting in Virginia and then on operations in the west and south, such as Sherman’s March to the Sea * In his lectures, Chesney laments that Sherman, in his March to the Sea near the end of the war, ‘has given no voucher or note anywhere for the supplies he has seized [from civilians]’ and expresses concern about whether the North and South could be reconciled, given the brutality of the conflict * The combat between the Monitor and the Merrimac, notable for being the first clash between ironclad ships, is referenced but purposely not discussed because ‘the result has not influenced the military progress of the war’ * In some cases, the conduct of the Civil War was used by British officers to justify their own opinions of how the UK should prepare its military for future wars * The RUSI lectures demonstrate the challenges of following a war as it is occurring from a distance, the disappointment with the Union’s military performance early in the war and the manner in which foreign conflicts were mobilised to justify the policies of people like the Duke of Cambridge
- denton-scratch 4y agoIs Chesney the Guards officer that is portrayed in the "lost cause" movie Gettysburg?
- denton-scratch 4y agoUm, no, sorry. Appparently that was Lt. Colonel Arthur Fremantle of the Coldstream Guards.
- Hayvok 4y agoThe Civil War in America absolutely dominated the British national conversation, especially in the early years of the war. Politicians followed the conflict closely, and there were even several debates in Parliament over British policy toward the conflict. Frequently discussed was a line that a lot of Americans would recognize today, of "when should Britain get involved??" because of the destructiveness of the conflict. Prime Minister Palmerston & Foreign Secretary Russell spent a lot of time maneuvering and deflecting calls for Britain to get involved or pick a side. A few other bits I found surprising when studying this topic— 1. Some British MPs were very pro-Confederate, and pushed for recognition of the Confederacy as a real country in Parliament. 2. British war correspondents were on the ground with both Union and Confederate armies, and sent regular dispatches to British newspapers. 3. British (and other European) officers regularly volunteered on *both* sides. 4. It was fashionable for a time in Britain to be pro-Confederate. Confederate propagandist networks *in* Britain brilliantly played down slavery and played up "self-determination". 5. Britain nearly declared war on the Union (Trent affair), to the point that Royal Navy was just waiting for the go-signal to commence hostilities & Britain sent thousands of additional troops to Canada. 6. There were *tons* of ironclads already in European fleets, there had just never been a fight between ironclads! Europeans watched the Monitor v. Merrimack battle & adapted their fleets & battle doctrines accordingly. 7. The British cabinet had a very serious, "can we even win a war against the U.S. anymore?" conversation at the end of the conflict, after witnessing the million-man army of the Union, the Richmond campaign, and growing effectiveness of the U.S. Navy. 8. Americans credit Seward as a brilliant Secretary of State during the conflict, but in Britain and France he was considered foolish, dangerous, and unpredictable—a lot of the tension between the Union and Europe can be laid at his feet. 9. Prussian military observers watched how the Union used railroads to move massive numbers of troops & supplies around, and adopted a lot of the Union tactics to absolutely crush the French just a few years later. (Franco-Prussian war of 1870.) Seriously - there were European observers *all over the place*. Strongly recommend A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War by Amanda Foreman. Brilliant book, and a page-turner.
- kwertyoowiyop 4y agoA lot more concrete information in this comment than in the article itself. Thank you.
- InTheArena 4y agoMilitarily Europe walked away with simple caricatures of the war, but the lionization of Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was (rightly) recognized as a new kind of general - one that would be far more familiar in World War I than in the Napoleonic War. This led to a lot of fame. Generally, the US revolutionary war was viewed very positively in parts of Europe. That upstart new world was finally in its place and would now tear itself to pieces without European governance. Britain considered entering the war early on(on the southern side!) and benefited from the economic collapse of the Americas. The British commercial fleets went from near-parity with the US merchant marine to unquestioned ruler of the commercial seas by the devastation of the blockades and the lack of insurance underwriting for north or south flagged vehicles. But a lot of things were missed millitary that they would learn in 1914. The role of rail lines and junctions, and the early signs of trench warfare and total war were the only thing that could break near-industrial societies. The potential of armored battleships and submarines. (Though to be fair, imagine how much history would have changed if the Turtle had detonated its torpedo in the Revolutionary War!) These lessons would be learned a hard way sixty years later.
- francisofascii 4y ago> What did British officers think of the American civil war as it was happening? Go to the source. Here is a book written by Sir Arthur James Lyon Fremantle, a British officer who traveled with the Confederate army in 1863. He is well known due to appearing in the movie Gettysburg based on The Killer Angels book. Three Months in the Southern States: April, June, 1863. https://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/fremantle/fremantle.html https://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/fremantle/fremantle.html
- dylan604 4y agoI'd be interested in how the world would/might react to an American civil war today? Would we see America's "enemies" sending arms to the side of their choice to fight a proxy war on American soil? Would a side accept that aide? Would America's "allies" sit out or pick sides? Would those sides align with the sides "enemies" would choose?
- throwaway0a5e 4y ago>Would we see America's "enemies" sending arms to the side of their choice to fight a proxy war on American soil? Would a side accept that aide? If history is any indication, yes and yes.
- adamsmith143 4y agoI think the world would collectively shit its pants. The world's largest economy and military suddenly splintering while in control of several thousand nuclear weapons? It would seem like Armageddon.
- rnk 4y agoThe us is far from the USSR - yet the USSR had so many nukes, the world treated them with kid gloves, for good or bad. Maybe after we in the US finish killing each other over imaginary grievances (is Tom Hanks really a pedophile who kills kids for their hormones, I can't believe I live in a country where anyone considers such idiocy) what will be left of the cities and rural areas.
- JimTheMan 4y agoAmerica's allies would probably not support a side unless there was going to be a clear winner OR it was in that nation's interest to do so. America's enemies maybe would pick a side in an attempt to destabilize the country more... But I think a splintered America would be extremely reluctant to accept help from Russia/China.
- arminiusreturns 4y agoIf we and the French could just help the Confederates a bit more America might be ripe for reconquest! The French are already in Mexico and we have ships in Canada! The mad king was a fool for letting those backwards colonists break away in the first place. Those darn Russian fleets showing up in 1863 in NY and SF with sealed orders to attack anyone who attacked the US! How dare they, those Russians will pay! Get those Freemasonic/B'nai B'rith networks pumping out more confederate spies! Cotton cotton cotton That Lord Palmerston and his Zoo! Whew, they didnt find our connections to John Wilkes Booth.
- wilkestelephone 4y agoWhat am I reading here?
- arminiusreturns 4y agoA response to the title. What were British officers thinking during the American civil war. Lots of hidden history I just hinted at.
- ironcurtain 4y agoWhy do you call it a civil war? In a civil war two parties fight for dominance over the country - England’s and Russian’s civil wars, more than two hundred years apart, are great example. In that war, South did not want to dominate North but secede. It seems calling the conflict “a Civil war” just follows Northern narrative.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 4y agoI upvoted because it's an interesting point: but I think your definition of 'civil war' is just wrong. It's people in a single nation/people group fighting to resolve differences. Limiting it to exclude things like secession is an unnatural split that doesn't have any obvious benefits. Like, some people end up fighting because 'their' side is being attacked, they don't wish for dominance but only survival ... you'd be deciding for each individual person if it was a civil war or not.
- worik 4y agoThe article was a bit "once over lightly" Comments here are much more interesting.