Hey everyone, thanks for tuning in to episode number 83 of our Civil War podcast.

I'm Rich.

And I'm Tracy. Hello y'all. Welcome to the podcast. In this show, we're going to talk about Union and Confederate diplomacy.

In 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, both North and South were very aware that the attitude and behavior of the major nations of Europe, particularly Britain and France, could well play a significant role in determining the outcome of the American conflict.

And so the goal of Confederate foreign policy with regard to Britain and France was to gain financial aid, mediation, formal recognition, and possibly armed intervention.

Southern leaders, knowing that back in the 18th century, the alliance with France had assured American victory in the Revolutionary War, hope that now in the 19th century, comparable European support would help the Confederacy in its war against the Union.

And then the goal of the Lincoln administration's foreign policy was, for the most part, to maintain friendly relations with the European powers and definitely to block Confederate efforts to win support from Britain and France.

At the beginning of the Civil War, when European reaction to the conflict was still evolving, the Union's cause was as often hindered as it was helped by the clumsy, insulting, aggressive diplomacy of Secretary of State, William H. Seward.

But fortunately for the North, the Confederates proved to be Seward's equals when it came to blundering ham-handed foreign policy.

And it's not giving away any spoilers to let slip here that in the end, despite the often amy-tourish, frequently bumbling diplomacy of both the Union and the Confederacy, what finally kept the Europeans out of the Civil War was the British, ultimately realizing that it was in their own best interest to stay out of the American conflict and avoid war with the North.

So, when always said and done, what was the effect of British and French non-intervention?

Well, as Howard Jones points out in his book, Blue and Grey Diplomacy, a history of Union and Confederate foreign relations, quote,

The Confederacy's failure to win recognition did not by itself determine the victor in the war, but its inability to gain acknowledgement as a nation certainly contributed to its defeat. End quote.

No history of the Civil War would be complete without an exploration of its international dimensions. And so several times during the course of the story of the war, like with this episode, we'll look at the threat of intervention by England and France.

But really, it's beyond the scope of what Rich and I have planned for the podcast to do more than dip our toes into this particular subject a couple of times.

So we want to encourage all to follow up on our book recommendations. If you yourself want to more thoroughly explore the topic of Union and Confederate foreign relations.

Early on in the Civil War, the Lincoln administration's relations with Europe, especially Britain, were hurt more than they were helped by Secretary of State William H. Seward.

As the war progressed, Seward would, more or less, settle down, find his footing, and mature in his role as Secretary of State. But especially in 1861, in the early months of the conflict, Seward committed blunders that indicated he was, at least initially, in way over his head with regard to dealing diplomatically with the major European powers.

As y'all know, Seward had been a major player in the Republican Party for some time. And in fact, had been considered the frontrunner to be the Republican's 1860 presidential candidate until Abraham Lincoln came out of the wings to capture the nomination at the party's Chicago Convention.

After he won the election, but before his inauguration, Lincoln had needed to placate his party's major also-rans, which is why he gave Treasury to Sam and Chase and State to Seward.

It's important to understand that Lincoln offered the State Department to Seward not because the powerful New Yorker had any particular expertise in foreign relations, but rather as a sob to Seward's vanity and to cement the unity of the Republican Party.

That Seward, at first, was stumbling around in the dark and had little conception of what he was doing, can be seen in an April 1st memorandum that he presented to the president, in which he seriously urged Lincoln to provoke war with France and Spain over affairs in the Caribbean as a way of solving the secession crisis by reunifying the nation in the face of the foreign threat.

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