NET ASSESSMENT
DURING THE TRENT AFFAIR
Copyright 1989, 2001 by Mark
Grimsley. All Rights Reserved
Mark Grimsley
History 702
9 June 1989
When the U.S.S. San Jacinto halted the British packet steamer Trent
in the Bahama Channel on 8 November, it precipitated a crisis that brought the
United States and Great Britain as close to war as the two powers would come
during the last half of the nineteenth century. Captain Charles D. Wilkes,
commander of the American warship, put two shots across the bow of the British
vessel and dispatched a boarding party to seize a pair of Confederate
commissioners, James Mason and John Slidell. The party was led by Wilkes's
executive officer, a hapless lieutenant who had tried to warn Wilkes that such
an action could well mean war. The lieutenant nevertheless followed his
instructions and boarded the Trent; as he departed with his prisoners the
British mail agent aboard the steamer crowed angrily that within a few weeks the
Royal Navy would retaliate by destroying the Federal blockade of the
Confederacy.
It never came to that, of course. Although the North reacted with enthusiasm to
word of the capture and Congress voted thanks to Captain Wilkes, the Lincoln
Administration eventually released Mason and Slidell rather than complicate
civil war with international war. The "Trent Affair" went into the history books
as a diplomatic, not a military crisis, and most of the literature on the
subject quite rightly concentrates on its diplomatic features. Yet it seems
reasonable to suppose that the diplomacy itself turned, explicitly or
implicitly, upon assessments of what the military result would be if war did
occur. This makes examination of those assessments a matter of some historical
significance. More importantly, a net assessment of what would have occurred had
war broken out between the United States and Great Britain would go far toward
answering two questions that have occupied the attention of American and
Canadian historians, respectively. First, would European intervention have made
a Confederate victory inevitable? Second, was Canada, during the nineteenth
century, "a hostage in American hands for British good behaviour"?
Before addressing the question of net assessment as applied to the Trent Affair,
however, one needs to define net assessment itself. In its broadest meaning the
term is rather uncomplicated; it is, as Williamson Murray and Barry Watts have
pointed out, "a systematic approach to answering the question: How do the
military capabilities of the two contending powers stack up relative to one
another?" While it may take, as a point of departure, such traditional measures
of military power as numbers of men, ships, cannon, etc., true net assessment
goes far beyond such "bean counting" and deals with more subtle and (usually)
less quantifiable factors -- levels of training and readiness; geographical
position; political will -- in short, anything that could influence relative
military capabilities. Net assessment amounts to an attempt to determine ahead
of time who would prevail in an armed encounter at a given place and time and
over a given set of issues.
This is not to say that such assessments are always made at a high level of
sophistication, nor even that relatively crude assessments may not serve as
effective guides to statesmen engaged in a crisis. Indeed, one of the most
striking aspects of the Trent Affair is that only the British government made
anything approaching a systematic calculation of the military balance and the
probable course of an armed conflict with the United States. The Union
government, by contrast, confined itself almost exclusively to assessments of
British political will. And although the British effort at net assessment makes
the Union effort appear quite sickly and inadequate by comparison, both efforts
served their respective governments quite well.
The seizure of Mason and
Slidell occurred during the eighth month of armed hostilities between the Union
and the Confederacy. The Southern states had as yet suffered little loss of
territory; their forces had so far successfully repelled most Union attempts to
invade. The First Battle of Bull Run, fought in July 1861, offered only the most
spectacular example of the Confederacy's ability to defend itself. Yet the
military picture in November 1861 was not entirely favorable to the South. For
one thing, it had proven unable to bring the Northern tier of slave states --
Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland -- under its control; and it had lost most of
western Virginia to Federal arms. For another, the Federals were in the process
of building up several large armies, particularly around Washington, DC, where
the vaunted Army of the Potomac outnumbered the forces opposing it by a ratio of
over two to one. When these armies advanced, as they surely would do upon the
arrival of mild weather in the spring, the Confederacy would face its first
really serious onslaught.
The South also had to worry about Federal sea power. The Union possessed a navy
capable of blockading its opponent's coastline and projecting military power
against the enemy's ports and inlets. The Confederacy, by contrast, possessed
only the most rudimentary maritime force. By November 1861 Union land and naval
forces had already conducted two major amphibious landings, one at Hatteras
Inlet, North Carolina, the other at Port Royal, South Carolina. The resulting
enclaves provided coaling stations for Federal blockade cruisers, removed havens
for Confederate blockade runners, opened possibilities for further advances
inland, and pointed toward additional Union sorties against the Confederate
coastline in months to come. Federal planning was already underway to seize the
port of New Orleans by combined attack, while General-in-Chief George B.
McClellan had begun to consider the use of Federal sea power to carry his entire
Army of the Potomac down the Chesapeake Bay, thereby outflanking the Confederate
forces stationed in front of him at Manassas.
These operations depended, of course, on the absence of any major threat from a
European power, particularly Great Britain. Relations between the United States
and Britain remained much as they had been for many years: correct but rather
cool, with a fair admixture of mutual suspicion. Mindful of both the American
Revolution and the War of 1812, most Americans still considered the British to
be a traditional enemy; this feeling was so strong that in April 1861, Secretary
of State William Seward had entertained seriously the possibility of provoking a
war with Britain as a means of re-uniting the squabbling states. The British,
for their part, not only harbored the same memories of previous wars, but found
alarming the American claims of manifest destiny and fretted particularly about
a renewed American attempt to conquer Canada. They also knew of Seward's
alarming if hare-brained scheme to deliberately engineer a war.
Under such circumstances, the British viewed the outbreak of open warfare
between North and South with a kind of smug satisfaction. This did not
translate, however, into any immediate desire to actually support the fledgling
Confederacy. True, like France and most other European nations, Britain accorded
the Confederacy full belligerent rights. It also permitted Southern as well as
Northern agents to purchase war supplies from British munitions firms. But it
did not formally recognize the the Confederacy as an independent nation; the
instructions given to the admiral commanding the Royal Navy's West Indies and
North American station provide some suggestion of the British attitude toward
the matter:
"We should I suppose, make a slight shade of difference as far as honours and
such things are concerned, between the United States which we recognize as de
jure and de facto as a friendly and legitimate Government and the Confederates
whom we only regard as de facto belligerents."
To many Northerners, however, the extension of belligerent rights to traitorous
rebels seemed provocative enough, and Lord Lyons, the British ambassador in
Washington who penned the above instructions, understood this resentment well
enough to add, "I do not regard a sudden declaration of War against us by the
United States as an event altogether impossible at any moment." When Captain
Wilkes halted the steamer Trent and seized Mason and Slidell, the North savored
it not only as a triumph over the Confederacy but as a neat little victory over
the British as well. Few gave much thought to Britain's probable response.
Horace Greeley, the mercurial editor of the influential New York Tribune,
succinctly expressed the prevailing view: "We do not know, and we do not greatly
care."
Such, at any rate, was the status of the Civil War and of Anglo-Union relations
at the outbreak of the Trent crisis. The British government first learned of the
seizure early on 27 November. Foreign Undersecretary A.H. Layard quickly
recognized that the capture had probably violated established international law;
he lost little time in pointing this out to both Lord Russell, the Foreign
Secretary, and Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister. Palmerston refused to be
stampeded by the news and urged that legal precedents be examined carefully
prior to any action. After scheduling a Cabinet meeting to discuss the matter in
two days' time, he gave instructions to suspend the planned reductions in
Canada's military garrison and authorized the dispatch of some scheduled
reinforcements that had been delayed for administrative reasons.
The first element in the British net assessment of the situation revolved around
the Lincoln government's role in the capture and its probable intentions.
Palmerston believed that a sort of irresponsible adventurism characterized Union
foreign policy and that only the threat of superior force would hold the
Americans in check. He had "no Doubt that Seward is actuated in his conduct
towards us by the belief that Canada is insufficiently defended; while he treats
the French with great Respect because they have no vulnerable Point, but have a
Fleet which could do the Northerns mischief." Not unreasonably, Palmerston
assumed that Captain Wilkes had acted with the full knowledge and assent of the
Northern administration. (It is worth noting that many Americans felt the same
way, even after subsequent assertions that the Federal government had not
authorized the seizure.)
Other British officials remained less certain of the Lincoln government's
complicity. Palmerston's Secretary of State for War, Sir George Cornewall Lewis,
doubted that the Northern administration had authorized the capture, simply
because it seemed such a stupid thing to do. He opined that the Union government
might have "been desirous of catching the Southern envoys, and may have caused
their wish to be known; but it does not follow that they gave instructions to
board the 'Trent.' It seems incredible that Seward can seriously desire to
provoke a war with England."
That both Palmerston and Lewis should refer to Seward, not Lincoln, is
significant. The use of that name reflects perhaps the most serious defect in
the entire British net assessment of the Trent Affair: the belief, strongly held
and never questioned, that Seward was the real Federal chief of state and that
Lincoln himself was just a figurehead. In the autumn of 1861 this remained the
general perception on both sides of the Atlantic, a perception which Seward
cultivated and which Lincoln's unstatesmanlike appearance, raw mannerisms, and
subtle leadership style helped reinforce. As a result, Palmerston's government
tended to dwell heavily upon Seward's known enthusiasm for "twisting the lion's
tail" and, as ever, on his fantastic scheme to re-unite North and South through
a war with England. Ironically, not only did the British mistake Seward for the
primary actor on the Union side, it compounded the error by mistaking his view
of the crisis. The Seward of November 1861 harbored no illusions concerning the
efficacy of a war with Great Britain. On the contrary, after the first blush of
pleasure over the seizure of the two commissioners, Seward recognized that
Wilkes had acted illegally and that the prisoners would have to be returned.
Lincoln, not Seward, hoped somehow to justify the seizure, but even Lincoln
understood that the Union could not afford a war with Britain.
At the first meeting of the British Cabinet the military balance went largely
undiscussed. Palmerston and his ministers simply took it for granted that Great
Britain enjoyed a substantial advantage should war occur. Even so, the military
authorities had long recognized that a conflict with the United States would not
be free of difficulties. Their concerns centered around three issues: the
defense of Canada, the protection of British naval bases in the
Atlantic/Caribbean, and the most appropriate strategy for defeating the United
States.
Canada formed Britain's chief strategic liability should war occur. One the one
hand, its proximity to the United States made it relatively easy for Northern
forces to invade the province -- as American troops had done in both previous
wars -- and to supply and reinforce any initial expeditionary thrust. On the
other hand, 2,000 miles of storm-tossed ocean intervened between Canada and
Great Britain, vastly complicating reinforcement and resupply and requiring a
large sealift capability. This argued, in turn, either for writing off the
province entirely -- which the British regarded as out of the question -- or
else for creating a garrison sufficient to repel any American invasion.
Ideally a sufficient garrison should already have been in place, for the
outbreak of the American Civil War, coupled with Seward's bizarre fantasies of
an Anglo-American conflict, had already led the British government to increase
the modest forces already in Canada. Three infantry battalions and an artillery
battery sailed to the province during the spring of 1861, raising the number of
regular British troops in Canada to about 5,000. Additional war equipment also
went to bolster the Canadian militia. The defense plans, however, called for at
least 10,000 regulars and in August 1861 Palmerston proposed to dispatch enough
units to reach this strength. At this point, however, opposition arose in both
Parliament and Palmerston's own Cabinet. The former considered further
reinforcement a burdensome and needless expense; Secretary of War Lewis thought
it likely only to antagonize the Union. To Lewis it seemed "incredible that any
Government of ordinary prudence should at a moment of civil war gratuitously
increase the number of its enemies, and, moreover, incur the hostility of so
formidable a power as England."
This debate had reached no resolution by the time of the Trent crisis; as a
result British regular strength in Canada remained at about half the planned
minimum. Militia strength was even more abysmal. Although in theory all Canadian
males between eighteen and sixty belonged to the militia, most had done little
more than sign their enrollment forms -- they possessed neither arms, training,
equipment, nor organization. A small force of "active militia" did exist -- with
an authorized strength of 5,000 -- but as of June 1861 the actual figure totaled
only 4,422. Moreover, the military stores available in Canada could equip only
35,000 militia, assuming that such a force could be collected, organized, and
trained. Even if this could be accomplished, the defense plans required at least
100,000.
In theory the militia would guard the frontier while the regulars would garrison
Quebec and Montreal and provide a mobile force to confront the main invasion
thrust when it occurred. Since this was clearly out of the question, an
emergency plan prepared during the Trent Affair called for a defense of Quebec
and Montreal and coupled it with hopes that the Americans would be unable to
mount a major invasion before spring. By that time additional reinforcements
would have arrived, or possibly the navy would be able to strike a strong blow
elsewhere and distract attention from Canada. British planners also considered
the possibility of gaining naval command of the Great Lakes, which would have
the double advantage of protecting Canada's exposed line of communication
through the Great Lakes/Saint Lawrence River and simultaneously complicating an
American invasion. However, the military did almost nothing to create a riverine
squadron. Similarly, although the British regarded the frontier fortifications
as dangerously decayed, they had neither the time, labor, nor resources to bring
them up to standard.
In short, the prospects for a successful defense of Canada appeared rather
bleak. Even so the British took comfort in the recognition that they had based
their plans upon an invasion by a united foe with no other military concerns to
dilute its strength, not a nation already sundered in twain and fighting a
fratricidal war. It seemed possible, therefore, that a strong force of regulars
could fend off a reduced invasion force without militia support, at least
through the winter of 1861-62. By 17 December the British Cabinet's war
committee had decided to reinforce existing strength to about 18,000. Even so,
this was more a matter of "sending signals with force" than of dispatching an
army sufficient for a sustained defense.
British port defenses in the Atlantic/Caribbean also seemed less than adequate.
None of the three principal naval bases -- Halifax, Bermuda, and Jamaica -- had
sufficient fortifications, which made each of them vulnerable to sudden,
destructive raids. The commander of the North American and West Indian Squadron,
Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Milne, regarded Bermuda as particularly critical,
thanks in part to its central location. "If Bermuda were in the hands of any
other nation," Milne wrote, "the base of our operations would be removed to the
two extremes, Halifax and Jamaica, and the loss of this island as a Naval
Establishment would be a National misfortune." That meant, in turn, that the
British would have to gain and maintain command of the seas in order to protect
both Bermuda and their other possessions in the region.
Of course, they expected to do that anyway. Indeed, the British placed entire
reliance for a successful war upon their vastly superior navy. In December 1861
the Royal Navy boasted 339 ships (324,063 tons), 61,342 men, and 5,304 guns,
augmented by a naval reserve that could have been readied for maritime duties.
The United States Navy, by contrast, possessed only 264 vessels (218,016 tons),
22,000 men, and 2,557 guns. More importantly, the Union Navy had only a few
ships capable of joining a line of battle; most of those 264 vessels were simply
hastily-converted merchantmen pressed into blockade duty and mounting only a few
guns each.
Milne's North American and West Indian Squadron alone had 42 ships (70,456
tons), 14,551 men, and 1,319 guns. His force included eight battleships and
thirteen frigates and corvettes; moreover, all his vessels were steam-driven.
The American navy had comparatively few steam-driven ships and according to one
(erroneous) British estimate mounted fewer total guns than Milne. Augmented by
additional vessels -- including, if necesary, the enormous Channel Fleet --
Milne would be able to take the offensive. The First Lord of the Admiralty, the
Duke of Somerset, wrote him on 15 December:
"In the event of war... the first object would probably be to open the blockade
of the Southern ports and without directly co-operating with the Confederates,
enable them to act and to receive supplies."
Milne's own war plan involved a threefold strategy: first, to crush any American
fleet that opposed him; second, to impose a blockade from Cape Henry, Virginia,
to Maine; and third, to conduct at least a few strong raids against the Northern
coastline. In particular he planned to enter the Chesapeake Bay, isolate
Washington, and "if possible to get at the capital." As an advanced base for
coaling operations he also planned to seize a few harbors in the vicinity of
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
The British Admiralty quickly put together a "List of the Chief Ports of the
Federal Coast of the United States...with an approximate Estimate of the Number
of Vessels required to blockade the several Ports and Rivers." The report threw
a certain amount of cold water upon any expectations that even major naval raids
could force their way into Northern ports. "From the intricacy of the channels
and the strength of the forts," one typical passage read, "it is probable that
Boston could not be attacked with any hope of success."
Milne himself, despite his hopes for a raid against Washington, seems not to
have favored major operations against strongly-defended ports, despite Admiralty
estimates that control of New York harbor would quite likely put an end to the
war. The Vice Admiral wrote:
"The object of the war can only be considered to cripple the enemy. That is his
trade and of his trade it can only be his shipping. No object would be gained if
the Forts alone are to be attacked, as modern views deprecate any damage to a
town. If ships are fired upon in a Port the town must suffer; therefore the
shipping cannot be fired on. This actually reserves operations to against
vessels at sea. If a town is undefended or the defences subdued an embargo might
be put on it and a subsidy demanded."
Like Milne, the First Lord of the Admiralty also declared himself opposed to
attacks upon heavily defended places, which calls into question even the
Washington operation, the one major coastal raid that Milne apparently favored.
It therefore becomes a bit difficult to see how, if breaking the blockade and
attacking American shipping did not bring the North to heel, the British
expected to end the war. To be sure, the British Army favored at least one major
landing: an expedition against Maine, aimed at capturing Portland and occupying
the state. Such an operation would protect Canada by cutting the most likely
line of attack via Lake Champlain; cover the province's exposed line of
communications along the Saint Lawrence River; contribute a new line of
communications, the Great Trunk Railway; and tie down large numbers of American
forces that might otherwise enter Canada.
Originally conceived as a straightforward military expedition, the Maine scheme
soon became complicated by a political assessment that Maine might well leave
the Union if the British applied a deft touch:
"The interests of Maine and Canada are identical [read one Army appraisal]. A
strong party is believed to exist in Maine in favor of annexation to Canada; and
no sympathy is there felt for the war which now desolates the U. States. It is
more than probable that a conciliatory policy adopted towards Maine would, if it
failed to secure its absolute co-operation, indispose it to use any vigorous
efforts against us. The patriotism of Americans dwells peculiarly in their
pockets; & the pockets of the good citizens of Maine would benefit largely by
the expenditure and trade we should create in making Portland our base & their
territory our line of communications with Canada."
The cautious Navy, however, stood this argument neatly on its head:
"Possibly a very strict blockade, without an attack, might induce the people of
Maine to consider whether it would not be for their interest to declare
themselves independent of the United States, and so profit by all the advantages
that would be derived from railway communications with Canada and the Lakes."
These visionary proposals to woo Maine from the Union ultimately served only to
muddy the strategic virtues of an attack on the state, and the British military
assessment again becomes unclear as to exactly how they proposed to win a war
with the North if the Union did not simply roll over at the outset. One might
have thought that, since Canada offered a poor base for offensive operations and
a coastal attack seemed overly dangerous, the British might have given serious
consideration to cooperation with their de facto ally, the Confederacy. Yet they
did not, for reasons that are worth examination.
First, despite talk of a Maine expedition and of sweeping American commerce from
the seas, the British had neither the ability nor the desire to destroy the
North. The real motivation for going to war was basically defensive: as the
world's foremost empire Britain could not afford to seem weak; and as a power
utterly dependent upon the sea she certainly could not yield to encroachments
upon her maritime rights. The basic British war aim really amounted to a
determination to prove that no country could "twist the lion's tail" and get
away with it. This argued, in turn, for a punitive expedition, a limited war
conducted largely against Northern shipping, the sort of conflict Britain could
get into and out of fairly quickly. To embroil oneself in a major land war
seemed unnecessary.
Secondly, a coalition war was inherently unattractive. As Field Marshal Sir John
Fox Burgoyne commented:
"The war between the North and South States, so long as it shall continue, will
greatly relieve our conflict with the former: our proceedings will be in some
degree in concert and mutual support with the efforts of the South; but
generally it will be well to avoid as much as possible any combined operations
on a great scale, (except as far as the fleet may be concerned), under any
specious project, such as for an attack on Washington or Baltimore;--experience
proves almost invariably the great evils of combined operations by armies of
different countries; and in this case, the advantage to the enemy of the
defensive station will far more than compensate for the union of forces against
it."
On the whole, British assessments of their own military capabilities leave
something to be desired. Although they reposed great confidence in the ability
of their army and navy, they had little real notion concerning how they would
bring these supposedly superior resources to bear. Their assessment of Union
military capability had even less to recommend it. For one thing, the British
possessed little firsthand information concerning the strength and effectiveness
of Union forces. A British member of parliament who visited the North just prior
to the crisis and whose comments were relayed to Lord Palmerston offered a
typical impression:
"There can be no doubt that for its size [the Army of the Potomac] is one of the
best equipped which any nation has set on foot. Its transport is superb, its
artillery numerous, well-appointed and of the best description, the physique of
its men unsurpassed... But as to the military character of the army my
impression and belief is that it lacks as greatly all the qualities of worth and
strength which distinguishes the army which England sent to the Crimea as it is
rich in those equipments in which that army was deficient."
In short, British appraisals of Northern military prowess rested upon little
more than ethnocentrism and smug superiority.
To summarize the British assessment of the Trent Affair: politically it
misapprehended both who controlled the Northern executive branch and the ability
of the Federal government to resist public pressure. Militarily it had little
coherent notion concerning how it would bring its forces to bear should
hostilities occur. If eliminating the Federal blockade of the Confederacy and
imposing a counter-blockade could force the Union to terms, the British had an
adequate strategy. If not, not. Finally, the British made almost no effort to
investigate the North's ability to withstand and support a prolonged struggle.
After perusing the elaborate (if incomplete and somewhat muddled) British
assessments of the military balance during the Trent Affair, it is a bit jarring
to discover that the Federal government made no similar survey. Indeed, as
previously noted, the decisions of the Lincoln Administration turned almost
entirely on its appraisals of British political will; namely, whether the
Palmerston government would actually go to war over the seizure of Mason and
Slidell. Why did the Lincoln Administration choose to limit its assessment in
this way?
First, it could afford to do so. Unlike Great Britain, which could only respond
to an event that it had not precipitated and whose actual motivation it did not
fully understand, the Federal government had a much more complete grasp of what
had occurred. It knew, as the British could not, that the seizure of the two
Confederate commissioners was unauthorized and not a deliberate provocation. It
also recognized that Great Britain had no real desire to make war against the
United States and that it could avoid such a war simply by releasing the
prisoners. Indeed, given the fact that the British rested their objections to
the seizure explicitly on grounds of international law, the United States could
avoid war and keep the prisoners provided it could establish a good legal case
for Wilkes's action.
Secondly, the Lincoln administration was not interested in estimating whether
the Union could prevail in the event of a conflict with Great Britain. Already
engaged in a massive civil war, it quickly recognized that it could not afford
any outside conflict, "winnable" or not. Because of this, no systematic
assessment of the Anglo-American balance seemed required and the administration
did not ask its military leadership to prepare one.
If it had, however, the military surely would have responded with great
pessimism. Major General George B. McClellan, General in Chief of the Federal
armies during this period, objected to the seizure from the outset, urged the
return of the prisoners and the defusion of the crisis as soon as possible. In a
conversation with the Prince de Joinville, a French expatriate who served
informally on his staff, McClellan complained that a war with Great Britain
would render hopeless his plans for a seaborne attack against New Orleans and
destroy his cherished strategy for a Peninsular Campaign against Richmond --
quite apart from siphoning off thousands of troops to guard the Northern
coastline and perhaps invade Canada. (Despite British nightmares, however, the
United States had no immediate plans to conduct such an invasion. Indeed, in his
year-end report to Congress, Lincoln stressed the need to create better
defensive works in the Great Lakes region.)
The naval leaders who would bear the brunt of a war with England were even less
optimistic. Near the climax of the crisis, Flag Officer Samuel Francis Du Pont,
commander of the squadron that had recently captured Port Royal, South Carolina,
summarized his own views in a letter to his wife:
"I hope that now our politicians will begin to learn, that something more is
necessary to be "a great universal Yankee nation, etc." than politics and party.
We should have armies and navies and those appurtenances which enable a nation
to defend itself and not be compelled to submit to humiliation... Thirty ships
like the Wabash [Du Pont's modern, steam-driven, well-armed flagship] would have
spared us this without firing a gun, with an ironclad frigate or two."
And after the Lincoln administration had concluded the crisis by releasing the
Confederate commissioners:
"We have the Sidell and Mason affair. If we were to give in, and of this there
could be no doubt, it was as well done as it could be... Now I hope we will
profit and not depend on frothy Fourth of July orations for our national
defenses... I hope our people have found out now we cannot bully and vainglorify
like England unless, like her, we have some military strength."
In addition to pronouncements from its senior military leadership, the Lincoln
administration might also have turned to a fairly extensive literature on
coastal defenses compiled by U.S. engineers before the war. These sometimes
treated matters of probable enemy strategy. For example, one such work
emphasized the supreme importance of New York City as a linchpin of commerce:
"It may be said of New York... that if an enemy succeeded in obtaining command
of it, even temporarily, or, what would be nearly the same in its consequences,
if he succeeded with his fleet in forcing the entrance to the harbour, and in
bringing his guns to bear on the city, such a disaster would result in our
buying him off upon any terms he might think it expedient to exact. Attacks upon
other great seaport towns, such as Boston or Philadelphia, might indeed be
attended with results highly disastrous, but they would tell comparatively
little upon the issues of the war. The difference is that between striking a
limb and striking the heart, for New York is the true heart of our
commerce,--the centre of our maritime resources; to strike her would be to
paralyse all the limbs."
Interestingly, the British Admiralty was both aware of this passage and had
incorporated it into a study made during the Trent Affair concerning possible
courses of military action against the United States. As we have seen, however,
the senior leadership of the Royal Navy had declared itself opposed to attacks
against well-fortified points. Not until March 1862 would the Federal naval
attack on Fort Pulaski, Georgia, demonstrate the vulnerability of casemate
fortifications -- the same design that comprised the entire network of Northern
coastal defenses -- to modern rifled artillery.
Having examined both British and American assessments made during the Trent
Affair, one is at last in a position to offer some answers to the two questions
posed at the beginning of this essay. First, would a war with Britain have made
a Confederate victory inevitable? Probably not. The British government
contemplated war only in defense of its own maritime rights, and even while
doing so expected to render only incidental assistance to the Confederacy. Its
main contribution would have been to eliminate the Federal blockade, a blockade
that in 1861 had not yet become effective anyway. It is worth noting, however,
that the absence of an effective blockade had not prevented the South from
already facing substantial hardships brought on primarily by its lack of a
suitable infrastructure for the efficient transfer of goods. This lack -- mainly
a dearth of railroads -- the British could not have addressed. Further, given
the nature of Britain's war aims, its reluctance to assist the Confederacy
directly, and its apparent preference to conduct a maritime war conducted
largely against Federal shipping, it seems unlikely that Britain could hurt the
Union badly enough or quickly enough to cause it to disengage from its struggle
with the Confederacy. Finally, once Britain had made its point that one could
not "twist the lion's tale" with impunity, it would very likely have accepted a
negotiated settlement that would have freed the Union to return full attention
to regaining the South. An Anglo-Union conflict would surely have delayed the
Federal victory by an indeterminate but serious margin -- perhaps a year -- and
it might have enhanced the Confederacy's ability to win independence on its own,
but it is hard to see how it would have made Confederate victory inevitable.
The second question, whether Canada served during the mid-nineteenth century as
a hostage in American hands for British good behavior, may be answered more
directly and succinctly: it did not. Nothing in Britain's conduct or
decision-making during the Trent Affair suggests that the Palmerston government
felt constrained by Canada's alleged vulnerability. Not only did the British not
despair of a successful defense of the province, they felt that a temporary
setback there could be recouped by a successful campaign elsewhere, perhaps
directed against Washington, DC.
As a concluding note, evaluation of British and American net assessment during
the Trent Affair suggests that such assessments need not be complete -- or even
adequate -- in order to be effective and useful. The Lincoln administration in
particular made only the most rudimentary appraisal of the military balance and
concerned itself with a very simple political assessment: would the British
fight? That was the only question that mattered. Perhaps the British should have
concentrated more fully on their own political assessment. Their military
evaluation, although fairly elaborate, was largely superfluous; and even if had
not been, it is difficult to see how it added substantially to the nebulous,
pedantic, screamingly obvious opinion that prevailed on both sides of the
Atlantic: that the British military, especially its navy, enjoyed an edge over
that of the Union.