English Public Opinion and the American Civil War (review)

There is no military history here; nor, given the title, should one have expected any. The book is based on the author's "considerably revised" 1997 doctoral thesis at Cambridge University. England played quite a significant role, even if not as a participant, in the Civil War, because both sides—and especially the South—managed to purchase many materials (and particularly munitions) from various English companies. Although there were some outspoken advocates for aiding either side, the ultimate truth is that the mass of the English populace disliked both North and South. The irony there is that by the end of the war both North and South mutually despised England.

Campbell is certainly a revisionist. He takes a much more complex walk through the evidence than any previous historian. Indeed, the crux of the work is that previous historians have missed the ultimate truths because they misread many of their sources. Campbell wants to probe "public discourse"—"in other words, what the British thought about the war, what they said about it and how they reacted to it" (p. 13).

Southern secession surprised most Englishmen, but that surprise soon subsided. The British had some tendency at the outset to root for the Confederacy, because they disliked American institutions in principle; however, the vast mass of opinion in Britain never became truly pro-South. The British Proclamation of Neutrality, Campbell asserts, if anything favored the Union. The most important thing in this context is that "despite what historians have claimed, there was no concept of the Southern planters resembling English country gentlemen" (p. 49). Indeed, "Contrary to what has been so often asserted, beyond the confines of a small minority, Union or Confederate sympathy was rarely based on political or social grounds. . . . Nor did the aristocracy favor the Confederacy while the working class favored the Union. Both sides drew support from a cross-section of social and political groups. . . . English opinion was extremely varied and complex" (pp. 96-97).

To be sure, the Trent Affair did grow into a major crisis, and it resulted in Britain sending troops into Canada, possibly for an invasion of the North. But the most widespread public opinion clung to that latter idea as "unnecessary" (p. 73). Assuredly "1862 was the year anti-Northern sentiment reached its peak in England (although it continued into 1863)" but animosities abated and "after the Trent affair, English observers tended to view the war as an event in which they would not become involved. There were, of course, exceptions" (pp. 94-95).

The later chapters probe carefully the ongoing debates and just who favored which side. Campbell suggests that despite his having touched on them, two areas still require much more investigation, and these are regionalism and trade. The South's concept of King Cotton assuredly alienated many Englishmen; but it was not just that which alienated the English: most British citizens had become antislavery. Too, in their thinking, they pondered the concept of the United States having become two nations. Certainly it was not fear of Union might that induced Britain not to intervene. Lastly, then, we also "still need to know a great deal more" than we now do "about anti-slavery societies and each side's propaganda efforts" (p. 243). And finally, "there remains the question of reform and the American Civil War's impact upon it. Judging by English opinions on the war, its impact upon political reform in Britain was probably negligible" (p. 244).