Caution and Cooperation: The American Civil War in British-American Relations (review)

Phillip Myers argues that historians have overstated the threat of British intervention in the American Civil War. Placing the diplomacy of Britain, the Union, and (to a lesser extent) the Confederacy in the larger context of the mid-nineteenth century, Myers demonstrates how statesmen in London and Washington worked throughout the war to avoid conflict. The Trent crisis and Confederate ship-building activities in Britain, to be sure, endangered Anglo-American relations. However, cautious statecraft on both sides of the Atlantic deftly diffused these (and other) crises. Myers goes further, emphasizing the diplomatic cooperation between Britain and the United States—before, during, and after the war.

One of the strengths of this book is its chronological and geographic breadth. Unlike many works on Civil War diplomacy, which tend to focus exclusively on the war years, Myers examines the mid-nineteenth century as a whole. Resolution to the Anglo-American disputes of the 1840s and '50s, Myers contends, established a precedent of peaceful compromise, as well as honed the practice of private diplomacy, that would help the two nations avoid clashes during the war years and, ultimately, negotiate the 1871 Treaty of Washington. Myers's examination of East Asian policies during the 1860s—rarely considered in works on Civil War diplomacy—adds freshness to his arguments (indeed, if anything, one wishes he would have done more of this and considered Anglo-American relations in Latin America, particularly Mexico). This broader focus leads Myers to emphasize "economic codependency" in explaining the conciliatory and collaborative nature of Anglo-American relations (222). Each nation was the other's greatest trading partner, connected through the bonds of the creditor-debtor relationship as well as shared common commercial interests in East Asia. A mutual opposition to slavery also brought the British and Union statesmen together. Though Myers tends not to emphasize race and Protestantism, these cultural forces lurk within many of the quotations in the book.

This work convincingly demonstrates that statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic were "foreign policy realists" who managed to stem calls from nationalists at home for aggressive policies and find suitable compromises to the many diplomatic irritants of the period (241). As Myers establishes in great detail, conflict was in neither nation's interest. Even the intervention crisis of autumn 1862 can be viewed as not a British attempt to weaken the United States but a sincere, if misguided, humanitarian effort to prevent further bloodshed across the Atlantic. In presenting this argument, however, Myers at times understates tensions in Anglo-American relations. The discussion of the antebellum era, for example, gives little space to strains resulting from slavery, Ireland, and rivalry in Central America. Little is made of the deep sense of betrayal felt by Americans of both sections after the Civil War. Southerners, as Myers makes clear, had reason to feel aggrieved by Britain's neutrality, which ultimately advantaged the Union. Britain's alleged encouragement of the Confederacy also poisoned many northerners' postwar view of Britain and fueled the Anglophobia that would be a staple of late-nineteenth-century politics and diplomacy. Some readers might also wish for a clearer discussion and demarcation of "caution" and "cooperation," which are at times treated synonymously.

Though this is a dense book, it is one that rewards the close reader. Myers conducted primary research on both sides of the Atlantic and is well acquainted with the secondary literature. There are many fresh perspectives in this work, particularly a comparison of Lincoln's handling of the cabinet crisis of 1862, with Palmerston's response to divisions in his own cabinet over mediation/intervention at the same time. Caution and Cooperation is a welcome addition to the literature on the international dimensions of the American Civil War and nineteenth-century Anglo-American relations.