AHC Britian and France join the ACW

[Saphroneth]

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17231&page=6#entry354576

A look at Fort Munroe and how the RN could reduce it. The answer is - "very easily". Ft. Munroe is rather inferior to Kinburn, since it's right by a deep water channel and as such liners and armoured frigates can get very close.


There's also this source:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...#v=onepage&q=hms edgar armstrong guns&f=false

Showing the Armstrong guns and their current positions as of August 1863 - later than I'd like, but it shows that by that point the RN had >600 of the RBL 110-lber Armstrongs alone. Either most of these had been manufactured by Mar 1862, or the British can produce two hundred RBL heavy guns a year of this type alone...


Now, as to attacking the Narrows forts.

Firstly, I think we can agree that a battery of field guns (12 lbers) is unlikely to do significant damage to a liner - they can endure and even win battles with forts which are dropping 8" shells on them every so often (as per Crimea). So the fort guns are mostly it.

The Terror or other British ironclads are essentially invulnerable to the Narrows forts. They can go where they please and shoot what they want - if the British felt it militarily necessary to destroy the New York dockyards, they could just have their ironclads run the forts and destroy everything in sight. Since their presence makes the answer really easy ("The ironclads destroy the forts"), then we should look at liners... and even there the answer is not good.

Depth wise, it's easy to get a good arc. There's areas with adequate low tide depth for a liner south of the forts and within (in some cases) 1/3 of a mile - ~500 yards, closest ideal RN bombardment range for a liner. (The Crimea ironclads can anchor about a hundred yards away, though they'd probably be more like 200-300, and the gunboats would try to find a position where the guns can't bear and then just blast away.)

8" shell hits from 500 yards are a possible risk to the ships, though several RN liners survived that kind of punishment in the Crimea. They're also able to fling back a lot more than is pointed at them.
The 32-lber guns are marginal to penetrate the wooden sidewalls of the RN ships (three feet of white oak, Dahlgren's tables show 38.5" theoretical penetration at 500 yards) and the 24-lbers are no-hopers.

So looking again at that table for reducing the forts from the south - let's say the liners anchor 800 yards away (half Kinburn, twice what they'd consider - they're being cautious). At this range a 32-lber penetrates about 28"-30", so the liners are not vulnerable to single penetration by 32-lbers.



The total south facing firepower of the forts is
63 32 lber
9 24 lber
Up to 20 8" guns

So there's 20 8" guns which can hurt the liners. In reply, picking seven of the liners on station:


Nile
Donegal
St George
Aboukir
Edgar
Hero
Sans Pareil


32 lber = 45 + 32 + 57 + 39 + 27 + 27 + 32 = 259
68 lber = 1 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 7
8" = 18 + 4 + 18 + 18 + 3 = 61



Even just looking at the 8" guns and dismissing everything else, there's three times as many guns afloat per broadside as on the forts. This is sufficient to reduce a fort in the age of sail (3 afloat = 1 ashore) let alone in the age of steam (1 afloat = 1 ashore) - and this is just the heavy ships, not the gunboat cloud the RN normally deployed.



But the gunboats raise a further point. The RN doesn't actually need to enter the firing arc of the forts at all.

RN gunboats served all over the world OTL, and they had a lot of them. The typical RN gunboat mounted either a 68-lber or a 110-lber RBL, both of which outrange the forts... and both of which are good bombardment pieces, either due to sheer muzzle velocity for punching or because they fire large shells (9") a long way with rifle-type accuracy. These are augmented by the (see source on Armstrong locations) guns mounted on several of the liners. In 1863 Edgar mounted
1x 6 pdr 1x 12 pdr, 2 x 20 pdr, 16x 40 pdr and 2x 110 pdr Armstrongs
all of which can outrange the forts, and the 40 lber and 110 lber are somewhat or considerably more powerful than the 32 lbers making up most of the fort armament.


And on top of all that the RN has mortar floats it can deploy, which will also be quite competent to destroy forts as per Bomarsund.

So...
...the RN has not one but at least four distinct ways to neutralize the Narrows forts for comparatively low risk, even if large numbers of US soldiers are moved in to prevent a simple landing:

1) Liner bombardment at 500-600 yards
2) Ironclad bombardment from very close range
3) Rifled heavy guns engaging from outside the range of the US forts
4) Mortar floats barraging the fort at long range
All of these except (3) can be accompanied by the opportunistic gunboat swarms the RN used against pretty much the entire Sea of Azov coastline, and the likely initial plan once reinforcements and gunboats show up is to plan for a week and then do a combined assault (liners at ~800 yards, frigates at ~700, gunboats everywhere, mortars at ~1000 yards and the ironclad/s anchoring inside 200 yards. The forts are taken under an even heavier bombardment than the one which neutralized Kinburn in the space of three hours, and even in the most pro-US calculation are likely to fall in a day or two.

Then the RN can destroy or capture basically whatever they want to in New York.


n.b. post Gettysburg BG Barnard:
https://markerhunter.wordpress.com/category/battlefields/fort-washington/
Concluded nothing on the Potomac inland of Fort Monroe could hurt an ironclad.

 

[Saphroneth]

Slightly OT - it relates to the Crimean gunboats - but so cool I have to share it.
http://research.historicengland.org...aslar, Gosport: Historic Buildings Assessment

They built a mini railway to transport them, lift them and store them several feet above the ground in iron sheds!

 

[galveston bay]

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17231&page=6#entry354576

A look at Fort Munroe and how the RN could reduce it. The answer is - "very easily". Ft. Munroe is rather inferior to Kinburn, since it's right by a deep water channel and as such liners and armoured frigates can get very close.


There's also this source:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...#v=onepage&q=hms edgar armstrong guns&f=false

not mentioned are the pages and pages of argument between Mark (the guy who posted how vulnerable Fort Monroe is) and literally a dozen other people who provide pretty conclusive evidence that he is wrong

interesting forum tank.net

 

[TFSmith121]

Yes, its interesting; the same arguments are posted and

not mentioned are the pages and pages of argument between Mark (the guy who posted how vulnerable Fort Monroe is) and literally a dozen other people who provide pretty conclusive evidence that he is wrong ... interesting forum tank.net

Yes, it was interesting; the same arguments are posted and routinely shot down, and yet - they resurface again and again.

Key issues - that are routinely handwaved away in favor of apocalyptic "burn down the cities" rhetoric - remain:

a) the rationale behind any British intervention in the US Civil War; no one ever offers anything in any detail or remotely close to accurately reflecting the political, diplomatic, and strategic issues in play;
b) the historical realities behind a close blockade from trans-oceanic distances in an age of coal-burning steamers;
c) the historical realities behind the lack of British Army resources in North America, and the time (as demonstrated in 1855) it would take to get any British Army resources organized, across the Atlantic, and into the field - and sustained once there;

And that's just to start; any sort of assesment of the British command staff, structure, and organization, at the "imperial" level and on the multiple fronts, and the resource allocation to specific front that goes beyond random lists of names without any sourcing, is never offered. Neither is anything resembling a concept of operations, generally.

Say what one wishes about BROS; the orders of battle have been provided, repeatedly, along with commanders and staffs, and some detail on what a given operation is designed to accomplish.

Best,

 

[Spengler]

Wouldn't the USA just evacuate Fortress Monroe if it thought it couldn't hold it?

 

[TFSmith121]

Yes

Wouldn't the USA just evacuate Fortress monroe if it though it couldn't hold it?

Yes.

Best,

 

[galveston bay]

Wouldn't the USA just evacuate Fortress monroe if it though it couldn't hold it?

that was my point... I would expect the Americans to evacuate all of their vulnerable points if time permits and likely time would indeed permit

Fortress Monroe, Key West, and other places are only valuable if the Union is on the offensive. In a war that includes the British, French and Confederates, the Union would certainly pull back to reallocate resources in light of new conditions. Historically the US Military has always been extremely adaptable. Lincoln was also historically willing to listen to advice and I feel reasonably certain even if the Secretary of War failed to see the situation Gideon Welles, the Secretary of the Navy certainly would have

Although Fortress Monroe might be valuable as a sponge to soak up a British effort. After all the ship channel is a mere couple of hundred yards in places from the Fortress, well within range for any artillery to literally shoot through wooden ships and there are not that many ironclads in British service at this point now are there? This is the same body of water that the Battle of Hampton Roads was fought in, an engagement notable in that two major Union vessels went aground trying to move against the CSS Virginia (a fatal problem for the USS Congress) and the CSS Virginia herself ran aground once and was temporarily in trouble.

Chesapeake Bay, like most American waterways on the East and Gulf coast is shallow, with only limited channels and plenty of uncharted shoals that shift frequently as the geology is mud atop of sediments atop of more sediments. Throw in the frequent winter storms and hurricanes and you really need to make sure your charts are good where ever you sail (as my Dad can admit running aground a mere 5 feet off the channel leading into his marina in Galveston Bay a couple of times)

 

[Saphroneth]

Wouldn't the USA just evacuate Fortress Monroe if it thought it couldn't hold it?

Possibly, though not after the Royal Navy turns up - at that point it's basicsally impossible, any route to safety leads directly through either the CSA (over a narrow spit) or through waters that will be under British control. And the US has nothing whatsoever that can make that journey safe to carry out once there's a RN fleet offshore.

So the US would have to make the decision before the RN fleet even arrived - if they think it can hold and they're wrong, they lose the fort and suffer from the indignity of a surrender, but if they decide they can't hold the fort then the RN doesn't even need to try attacking. Sort of like a military-strategy game of chicken.

Of course, if they don't evacuate the fort they still have the further problem that... well, supplies come in by ship. Or don't, if the RN is stopping them.


It would be an interesting diplomatic problem what happens to all the "Contrabands", though - I think one possibility at least is that the British just unilaterally free the lot and take them wherever they want to go (possibly excluding to the Union, though there may instead be a parole mechanism set up.)


ED:
Any discussion of whether the Union would evacuate also has to consider that as far as fortification able to stop the British goes, that's basically it until Washington. Not Fort Washington (which has no guns able to stop an ironclad like HMS Terror), Washington.

 

[TFSmith121]

There's this phenomenom called the "short of war" period

Possibly, though not after the Royal Navy turns up - at that point it's basicsally impossible, any route to safety leads directly through either the CSA (over a narrow spit) or through waters that will be under British control. And the US has nothing whatsoever that can make that journey safe to carry out once there's a RN fleet offshore.

So the US would have to make the decision before the RN fleet even arrived - if they think it can hold and they're wrong, they lose the fort and suffer from the indignity of a surrender, but if they decide they can't hold the fort then the RN doesn't even need to try attacking. Sort of like a military-strategy game of chicken.

Of course, if they don't evacuate the fort they still have the further problem that... well, supplies come in by ship. Or don't, if the RN is stopping them.

It would be an interesting diplomatic problem what happens to all the "Contrabands", though - I think one possibility at least is that the British just unilaterally free the lot and take them wherever they want to go (possibly excluding to the Union, though there may instead be a parole mechanism set up.)

There's this phenomenom called the "short of war" period, you know? Amazing what can happen with an 8-weeks-long or greater decision loop between the Potomac and the Thames.

And the liklihood of the British adopting a "freedom" policy while in alliance with the rebels would be what, exactly?

As has been said, slavery was still legal in the Ottoman empire during the Russ-Turkish war of 1853-56, and the British lined up with the Turks without any qualms.

So when Col. so-and-so of the rebel army comes calling for his property, Col. Such-and-Such of the British army is going to say what, exactly?

Lay down with...

Best,

 

[galveston bay]

Possibly, though not after the Royal Navy turns up - at that point it's basicsally impossible, any route to safety leads directly through either the CSA (over a narrow spit) or through waters that will be under British control. And the US has nothing whatsoever that can make that journey safe to carry out once there's a RN fleet offshore.

So the US would have to make the decision before the RN fleet even arrived - if they think it can hold and they're wrong, they lose the fort and suffer from the indignity of a surrender, but if they decide they can't hold the fort then the RN doesn't even need to try attacking. Sort of like a military-strategy game of chicken.

Of course, if they don't evacuate the fort they still have the further problem that... well, supplies come in by ship. Or don't, if the RN is stopping them.


It would be an interesting diplomatic problem what happens to all the "Contrabands", though - I think one possibility at least is that the British just unilaterally free the lot and take them wherever they want to go (possibly excluding to the Union, though there may instead be a parole mechanism set up.)

you seem to still be ignoring the decision making, communications and assembly of forces time/speed equation ... how fast do you think things would happen and why?

 

[edgeworthy]

Could we please stop with the trying to claim some sort of moral (And for some reason Physical?) superiority over the slavery issue.

Before someone points out that there were still Four Slave States in the Union, to which the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply, which could have been seen by outside observers as somewhat hypocritical.
Especially by a country which had abolished the peculiar instution decades before, had an Anti-Slaving Patrol and did not hand back escaped slaves in any other conflict it had fought on the continent in question!?

It is more than possible that the Anti-Slavery Society regarded both sides as being tarred with the same ...

 

[TFSmith121]

How many free states were there in the Confederacy, again?

Could we please stop with the trying to claim some sort of moral (And for some reason Physical?) superiority over the slavery issue. Before someone points out that there were still Four Slave States in the Union, to which the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply, which could have been seen by outside observers as somewhat hypocritical. Especially by a country which had abolished the peculiar instution decades before, had an Anti-Slaving Patrol and did not hand back escaped slaves in any other conflict it had fought on the continent in question!? It is more than possible that the Anti-Slavery Society regarded both sides as being tarred with the same ...

How many free states were there in the Confederacy, again?

Oh, wait... there weren't any.

The concept that Britain under Palmerston would go to war in alliance with Jefferson Davis' rebel govenrment and simultaneously enforce British limits on slavery, much less "free" any enslaved they came across in North America, is about as likely as the British making their support for the Turks in the Russo-Turkish war of 1853-56 contingent on the abolition of Turkish slavery.

However, it does raise the issue of how Parliamentary politics would deal with this sort of realpolitik; there are those - Cobden, Bright, and their allies - who presumably would see it as yet another reason to oppose British entry into the war on the behalf of the rebellion. One can attempt to handwave that away, but that's all it is, an attempt at "whataboutism."

As far as when Britain abolished slavery, one might want to consider what territories and peoples the 1833 act actually covered, how long and how many remained in bondage even after 1833, and how long indentures and blackbirding were common practices in the Empire, and the reaction such policies engendered among the "free" - as witness Morant Bay.

Best,

 

[Spengler]

Could we please stop with the trying to claim some sort of moral (And for some reason Physical?) superiority over the slavery issue.

Before someone points out that there were still Four Slave States in the Union, to which the Emancipation Proclamation did not apply, which could have been seen by outside observers as somewhat hypocritical.
Especially by a country which had abolished the peculiar instution decades before, had an Anti-Slaving Patrol and did not hand back escaped slaves in any other conflict it had fought on the continent in question!?

It is more than possible that the Anti-Slavery Society regarded both sides as being tarred with the same ...

The anti slavery society would probably turn agianst the south the first time confederate reaiders kidnap a free black on a raid into Maryland or PA. SO they can be put into slavery. Which in fact did happen in the ACW

 

[edgeworthy]

The anti slavery society would probably turn agianst the south the first time confederate reaiders kidnap a free black on a raid into Maryland or PA. SO they can be put into slavery. Which in fact did happen in the ACW

Unscrupulous slave-hunters did that before the war, its the plot to Twelve Years a Slave.
Which is one of the reasons British Abolitionists had a touchy relationship with the US. Despite giving Frederick Douglass an enthausiastic reception (to which he commented on the warmth of), publishing John Brown's biography, and Lord Palmerston having a lifelong correspondence with Harriet Beecher Stowe.
We should probably consider that during the ACW, Canadian authorities refused to extradite an escaped slave, from Missouri, accused of murder.
(Committed whilst in the process of escaping).
There is almost no way any contraband that reaches British controlled territory will be handed back.
The Confederacy, that would have crawled over broken glass for a Franco-British Alliance, would just have to live with it.

 

[Saphroneth]

The Union enforced the Fugutive Slave Law within its own borders, and the British attitude in general was quite dismissive.


For example, take the Greeley quotation:

"If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." in August 1862.

This was very widely reported:

Liverpool Mercury (Liverpool, England), Saturday, September 6, 1862
Reynolds's Newspaper (London, England), Sunday, September 7, 1862
The Era (London, England), Sunday, September 7, 1862
Birmingham Daily Post (Birmingham, England), Monday, September 8, 1862
The Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh, Scotland), Monday, September 8, 1862
Daily News (London, England), Monday, September 8, 1862
Glasgow Herald (Glasgow, Scotland), Monday, September 8, 1862
The Leeds Mercury (Leeds, England), Monday, September 8, 1862
The Morning Post (London, England), Monday, September 08, 1862
The Standard (London, England), Monday, September 08, 1862
The Bury and Norwich Post, and Suffolk Herald (Bury Saint Edmunds, England), Tuesday, September 09, 1862
Dundee Courier & Argus (Dundee, Scotland), Tuesday, September 09, 1862
The Aberdeen Journal (Aberdeen, Scotland), Wednesday, September 10, 1862
The Derby Mercury (Derby, England), Wednesday, September 10, 1862
Newcastle Courant (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England), Friday, September 12, 1862
Nottinghamshire Guardian (London [sic], England), Friday, September 12, 1862
The Examiner (London, England), Saturday, September 13, 1862
The Lancaster Gazette, and General Advertiser for Lancashire, Westmorland, Yorkshire, &c. (Lancaster, England), Saturday, September 13, 1862
Manchester Times (Manchester, England), Saturday, September 13, 1862
The Hampshire Advertiser (Southampton, England), Saturday, September 13, 1862
The Penny Illustrated Paper (London, England), Saturday, September 13, 1862
The Leicester Chronicle: or, Commercial and Agricultural Advertiser (Leicester, England), Saturday, September 13, 1862
Jackson's Oxford Journal (Oxford, England), Saturday, September 13, 1862
Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper (London, England), Sunday, September 14, 1862
The Bradford Observer (Bradford, England), Thursday, September 18, 1862
The Essex Standard, and General Advertiser for the Eastern Counties (Colchester, England), Friday, September 19, 1862


Note that not all British newspapers have been digitized - this is just the digitized ones.

So the British effectively saw the Union as "better but hypocritical" and not as an antislavery nation for some years.

"Slaves [Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory and James Townsend] have fled to the camp of General Butler; and when their owner, under a flag of truce, claimed their restoration, Yankee ingenuity raised the curious pretence that they were 'contraband of war', but said they should be restored on the owner taking an oath of fidelity to the Union... After great perplexity, the Cabinet of Washington has instructed the Commanders to receive escaped slaves and set them to work, keeping an account of their work and the cost of their keep. Is it thus that men make war to put down slavery?... what is 'the anti-slavery sentiment' that, instead of saying to these fugitive slaves- 'Go forth; we shall do nothing to return you to bondage;' detains them, keeping an account of their food and earnings, that a balance may be duly made when they shall be returned to their former owners, or sold to reimburse the Federal treasury? Dr Beecher and Mr Phillips had better teach 'the anti-slavery sentiment' at Washington, before they trouble themselves to cross the Atlantic. Our 'anti-slavery sentiment' tells us to scorn this miserable paltering. Providence has destroyed, by the appalling judgement of civil war, the old devices by which the Free States propped up the system of the Slave States; and even in the midst of that war, the men who say they are fighting for liberty, actually embarrass themselves with the care of the human chattels in the interest of slave owners. We console ourselves with the belief that this shallow expedient will break down. The army may take charge of a few hundred slaves, but it can do nothing with them when they come forth by thousands; and the movement of slaves having commenced, it must go on spreading and strengthening while the war continues." (Sheffield Independent, 15 June 1861, p. 7)

“They have proclaimed theirs to be the land of freedom, while they have become utterly oblivious to the fact that their Union involved a system of slavery more cruel, degrading, and damning to the human feelings, intellect, and spirit, than ever before disgraced the world… Do the Northern States seek to free themselves from these heavy charges? Hypocrisy impotent as contemptible! Where under the canopy of heaven did colour stamp a man with such hopeless misery as in the streets of New York, Philadelphia, or Boston?... The triumph of the South cannot make Slavery worse; the triumph of the North can hardly make the position of the slave better, when even now she designates him as a 'chattel', and talks of him as being 'contraband of war'.” (Huddersfield Chronicle, 13 July 1861 p. 5)

"Another piece of news brought by the last steamer, is the remarkable proclamation which General Fremont has issued in Missouri... The slaves held by rebels are, by this proclamation, declared to be free, and not 'contraband of war', as has hitherto been the case. This is a most important distinction, and we regard it as the first step towards making the present struggle a war of emancipation... A movement of this kind will not be easily put back... We are thankful that the patriotic Fremont... has had the courage to act as he has done, and we trust that before long, the principle which he has thus broadly and publicly avowed, will obtain the enlightened and energetic support of the Federal Government." (York Herald, 21 September 1861, p. 8)
(It didn't.)

“It is certainly stretching the doctrine of contraband of war very far… the argument is as absurd and untenable as an argument could possibly be… when the necessity of emancipating the slaves is so strongly felt that people are ready to seize upon the most obviously absurd pretext as reasons to justify it, it is evident that the day of action is drawing nigh. We have always anticipated its advent, and are not at all surprised to see it coming so soon, nor sorry to see it coming with such ridiculously awkward excuses.” (Leeds Mercury, 8 October 1861)

"Mr Lincoln- long the chosen representative of Illinois, a State which has always signalised itself by a reluctance to allow of the settlement of free negroes on its soul... It is probable that even at the seat of the Federal Government no one is able to tell exactly what becomes of the 'contrabands' who flock to the camp of the army of the Potomac, and few persons, perhaps, feel much curiosity on the subject. Every military officer is allowed carte blanche, and follows his own lights in the matter. Wherein it is observable that those belonging to the regular army generally show a disposition to pay more attention to the vested rights of the master than to the inherent rights of the fugitive." (Bradford Observer, 6 February 1862, p. 7)


“Walter S. Cox, the commissioner under the Fugitive Slave Law, to-day [11 June 1863] remanded seven runaway slaves, two of them children, from Maryland, to their claimants. An affidavit of the loyalty of the claimants had been made.” (Leeds Mercury, 25 June 1863)

And this quotation, taken from a private letter from Frederick Douglass to a friend in Leeds, for its encapsulation of the growth of anti-slavery attitudes during the war.
“I never was listened to with such attention as now. My leading idea now before the people is, ‘No war but an abolition war; no peace but an abolition peace.’ The Government and people still need line upon line, and precept upon precept… think of me in Washington, where, three years ago, I should have been murdered in ten minutes had I dared to open my mouth for my enslaved people.” (Leeds Mercury, 21 January 1864)


The ACW did not begin as an abolition war; it became one. And it had not become one by 1862 or indeed 1863. And the British rightly noted that the Union at this point had only declared that slavery was disallowed for rebels - loyalists could keep slaves.

 

[TFSmith121]

Your evidence for this is what, exactly?

There is almost no way any contraband that reaches British controlled territory will be handed back. The Confederacy, that would have crawled over broken glass for a Franco-British Alliance, would just have to live with it.

Your evidence for this is what, exactly? The abolitionists who travelled with Raglan to the Crimea to work for the freedom of the Turkish slaves?

Best,

 

[EnglishCanuck]

A curious amount of whataboutism over Britain and slavery going on here, curiously no mention of France. However, I suppose it remains to be said that the facts on the ground speak to the US not being close to spontaneously abolishing slavery across the whole of the nation in December 1861-January 1862, which makes the issue somewhat moot from a policy perspective in Parliament, to say nothing of the Tuileries.

All that aside of course, it would pay for the conversation to examine the particular reasons Britain and France would be going to war with the Union.

 

[TFSmith121]

Good old Sap is the one who brought it up, however;

- snip -

It would be an interesting diplomatic problem what happens to all the "Contrabands", though - I think one possibility at least is that the British just unilaterally free the lot and take them wherever they want to go (possibly excluding to the Union, though there may instead be a parole mechanism set up.)

- snip - .

A curious amount of whataboutism over Britain and slavery going on here, curiously no mention of France. However, I suppose it remains to be said that the facts on the ground speak to the US not being close to spontaneously abolishing slavery across the whole of the nation in December 1861-January 1862, which makes the issue somewhat moot from a policy perspective in Parliament, to say nothing of the Tuileries.

All that aside of course, it would pay for the conversation to examine the particular reasons Britain and France would be going to war with the Union.

Good old Sap is the one who brought it up, however; the realities that Britain's alleged allies were the ones going to war over slavery presumably negates his suggested tactic, however, as the Turkish embrace of slavery demonstrates.

Whataboutism, indeed.

Best,

 

[Spengler]

Unscrupulous slave-hunters did that before the war, its the plot to Twelve Years a Slave.
Which is one of the reasons British Abolitionists had a touchy relationship with the US. Despite giving Frederick Douglass an enthausiastic reception (to which he commented on the warmth of), publishing John Brown's biography, and Lord Palmerston having a lifelong correspondence with Harriet Beecher Stowe.
We should probably consider that during the ACW, Canadian authorities refused to extradite an escaped slave, from Missouri, accused of murder.
(Committed whilst in the process of escaping).
There is almost no way any contraband that reaches British controlled territory will be handed back.
The Confederacy, that would have crawled over broken glass for a Franco-British Alliance, would just have to live with it.

Imagine what their reaction would be to Britain actually allying with the nation that does that, during the war. Yeah they would be perfectly fine. Also what happens when slaves escape to British encampments? You know TFS didn't even ccover that in his piece.

 

[Saphroneth]

Imagine what their reaction would be to Britain actually allying with the nation that does that, during the war. Yeah they would be perfectly fine.

...sorry, I've lost track. Are we discussing how upset people would be if the British allied with the Union?


Seward was pretty emphatic about not bringing the slavery thing up. He instructed the ambassador in London that "you will not consent to draw into debate before the British government any opposing moral principles, which may be supposed to lie at the foundation of the controversy between those (the Confederate) States and the Federal Union" (Seward to Adams, 10 April 1861). The ambassador in Paris got even more explicit instructions- "refrain from any observation whatever concerning the morality or immorality, the economy or the waste, the social or the unsocial aspects of slavery... the condition of slavery in the United States will remain the same whether [the revolution] shall succeed or fail" (Seward to Dayton, 22 April 1861). Seward only removes the ban on 28 May 1862, but unfortunately only to warn the British that any attempt to mediate or intervene would result in the slaves massacring their owners and their owners families, and sparking a series of bloody reprisals.

Such a civil war between two parties of the white race... could not be expected to continue long before the negro race would begin to manifest some sensibility and some excitement... if the war continues indefinitely, a servile war is only a question of time... The government... adopts a policy designed at once to save the Union and rescue society from that fearful catastrophe... Let us now suppose that any one or more European states should think it right or expedient to intervene by force to oblige the United States to accept a compromise of their sovereignty. What other effect could it produce than to render inevitable, and even hurry on, that servile war? (Seward to Adams, 28 May 1862)

So yes, Seward informed the British that if the British went to war with the Union or even mediated, then it would make the negroes uppity.

Of course, I've already quoted several examples of the British papers holding the opinion that the Union is insufficiently anti slavery.