can the us still win the civil war if europe steps in

There were no such orders. It's a myth. Whether it was Lessovsky or Weed that actually told the lie is no matter. However it is repeated ad infinitum.

Why quote an anonymous NYTimes piece written in 1904 that refers to Russian actions in 1863, two years after the Trent Affair had been settled, as an authority on the matter? Russia didn't get tied down in Poland until 1863, so that would not have been a consideration at the time of the Trent Affair. Harris's book also quotes a conversation between Admiral Farragut and the Russian admiral commanding the warships that were in New York harbor at the time to support the claim.

The Trent Affair, BTW, is available at Google Books. I just finished skimming it. Presuming its accuracy, it puts a new light on the political and military posturing that surrounded the events, for me at least.
 
Why quote an anonymous NYTimes piece written in 1904 that refers to Russian actions in 1863, two years after the Trent Affair had been settled, as an authority on the matter?

The sealed orders I was talking about were aboard the Russian ships that visited America in 1863 during the Laird Rams affair, not the Trent affair. We're talking about two different time periods here.

But I am suspicious about something written anonymously and especially suspicious given the tone of the letter. It has a strongly pro-Japan slant, and given that this is during the Russo-Japanese War, it seems more to be denigrating the idea of the secret letters in order to promote America's view of Japan. After all, if Russia wasn't willing to stick up for the United States during the war, there's less reason for America to side with Russia during the conflict that was going on when that letter was written.

I'm not convinced, but has anyone else written on the subject of those sealed orders?
 
The sealed orders I was talking about were aboard the Russian ships that visited America in 1863 during the Laird Rams affair, not the Trent affair. We're talking about two different time periods here.

But I am suspicious about something written anonymously and especially suspicious given the tone of the letter. It has a strongly pro-Japan slant, and given that this is during the Russo-Japanese War, it seems more to be denigrating the idea of the secret letters in order to promote America's view of Japan. After all, if Russia wasn't willing to stick up for the United States during the war, there's less reason for America to side with Russia during the conflict that was going on when that letter was written.

I'm not convinced, but has anyone else written on the subject of those sealed orders?

OK, for some reason I thought we were all discussing the same events surrounding the Trent Affair, rather than Laird Rams Following the thread back, that seems to be the case, in particular due to your own reference to the Harris book and pages 208-210, which deal specifically with the visits by Russian fleets to New York and San Francisco at the time of the Trent Affair and the broad hints that they were there to intervene on the side of the North if Britain declared war. But perhaps I got led astray somewhere.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
OK, for some reason I thought we were all discussing the same events surrounding the Trent Affair, rather than Laird Rams Following the thread back, that seems to be the case, in particular due to your own reference to the Harris book and pages 208-210, which deal specifically with the visits by Russian fleets to New York and San Francisco at the time of the Trent Affair and the broad hints that they were there to intervene on the side of the North if Britain declared war. But perhaps I got led astray somewhere.

The Trent is only one of 5 intervention crises the Union faced, the last being in July 1863 where the French sponsored an MP to place a private members bull before the Commons. The bill was delayed for a week while the 1863 Fortification Bill was being discussed and was then dropped after support evaporated after 3 major Union victories.

The Russians never intended to intervene. Full Stop.

Besides, it would be the US declaring war. Stanton had issued orders to the Minister to the Court of St. James to deliver a secession of diplomatic relations (i.e. a declaration of war) should the UK recognise the CSA as a legitimate country.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Never read that particular book. Care to elaborate on what you are talking about?

http://ia301112.us.archive.org/2/items/trentaffairreview00harrrich/trentaffairreview00harrrich.pdf

The section on the Russian visit seems largely to be fantasy. For example, they contend that the Russian squadrons were there to intervene in the Trent Affair, which was 21 months before the arrival of the Russians.

Of note is the fact that they repeated the sending of squadrons to America in 1877, when it looked like the UK may intervene in the Russo-Turkish War.
 
And, it was in the Western theatre that that the Civil War's outcome was truly decided

I agree completely.

Chattanooga was one of the last large railway and supply centres of the Confederacy. Once it fell, along with Knoxville, they no longer had the ability to control Tennessee or anything west of it. More importantly, they no longer had the ability to move troops as rapidly across their country to other fronts as needed.

Bragg was not a very good commander, and I agree he botched the whole affair after Chickamauga. Perhaps his victory there gave him delusions of granduer? Detaching Longstreet in particular was an act of pure foolishness.

And yes, the CSA would certainly have been in a better strategic position had they been able to keep Chattanooga in the first place, or, better yet, retake it and destroy the Army of the Cumberland completely.

So I'm not saying the Union victory there was not important; no doubt it shortened the war. However I just don't think it was as decisive as you make it out to be.

The West was allready lost by late '63 anyway, so the defence of the Confederate heartland was going to rest on Atlanta in any case. Moreover, the Army of Tennessee had escaped intact and would fight again in '64.

I would argue the truely decisive moment in the West happened when John Bell Hood replaced Joe Johnston as commander of the Army of Tennessee. Johnston was a defensive specialist, and I belive he had a good chance of holding Atlanta. And IMHO it was the fall of Atlanta and the subsequent March to the Sea that truely sealed the fate of the Confederacy.
 
The sealed orders I was talking about were aboard the Russian ships that visited America in 1863 during the Laird Rams affair, not the Trent affair. We're talking about two different time periods here.

There never was a "Laird Rams Affair," in the sense of an incident which Britain and the Union ever came close to a declaration of war, or even caused a large public outcry in the Union at the time. The U.S. government found out about the rams, Ambassador Adams protested, and the British government seized the ships. That was about the extent of it. More importantly, unlike the Trent Affair, the Laird Rams incident never escalated into an international crisis which other countries would be aware of and be thinking in terms of "What shall we do if Britain declares war on the United States?"

Furthermore, after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, there was virtually no chance that Britain would intervene on behalf of the Confederacy.

Why would the Russians have sent the supposed sealed orders with their ships in mid-1863 when there was no ongoing crisis between the Union and Great Britain, and virtually no prospect that Britain would declare war on the United States? Such an action would have been completely illogical, given the circumstances of the time.

If the Russians were REALLY such great supporters of the Union that they would have been willing to go to war on their behalf, why didn't they send the fleet during the TRENT AFFAIR? They were conspicuously absent during the one and only time that war between the Union and Great Britain was likely to occur.

Indeed, the ONLY reason why the Russians would have sent their fleet to the USA at THAT particular time (1863) was to get them out into the open seas, away from their own ports, while they went into Poland. They strongly feared that Britain would intervene in the Polish Crisis, and that's why they sent their fleet to safer climes.
 

67th Tigers

Banned
Furthermore, after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, there was virtually no chance that Britain would intervene on behalf of the Confederacy.

The Emancipation Proclamation almost caused intervention. It was seen as a cynical attempt by the Union to ferment a race war in the Confederacy which could have spread to the Caribbean colonies. The closest HMG ever came to intervening on the behalf of the CSA was in late 1862, in the wake of the EP. Orders issued at the height of the Trent Crisis made it clear that theatre commanders (esp. V/Adm Milne and his squadron commanders) were not to co-operate with the CSA.

When the EP crises passed with things not coming to a head, the British Cabinet never showed any more interest in intervening, and opposed the last move in Parliament (in summer 1863) aimed at recognising the CSA.
 
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