The Civil War Abroad: How the Great American Conflict Reached Overseas

228 Pages·2022·19.693 MB·English

by  Charles Priestley

The Civil War Abroad

The Civil War Abroad
How the Great American
Conflict Reached Overseas
Charles Priestley
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Priestley, Charles, 1945– author.
Title: The Civil War abroad : how the great American
conflict reached overseas / Charles Priestley.
Description: Jefferson, North Carolina : McFarland & Company, Inc.,
Publishers, 2022 | Includes bibliographical references and index.
♾
Identifiers: LCCN 2022013834 | ISBN 9781476687094 (paperback : acid free paper)
ISBN 9781476645155 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—Foreign relations—1861-1865. | Confederate States
of America—Foreign relations. | United States—History—Civil War,
1861-1865—Influence. | United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—
Foreign public opinion. | United States—Politics and government—1861-1865. |
BISAC: HISTORY / Military / United States | HISTORY / United States /
Civil War Period (1850-1877)
Classification: LCC E469 .P75 2022 | DDC 973.7/2—dc23/eng/20220323
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013834
British Library cataloguing data are available
ISBN (print) 978-1-4766-8709-4
ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-4515-5
© 2022 Charles Priestley. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: artwork The Battle of the USS “Kearsarge” and the CSS “Alabama,” 1864,
Édouard Manet, French (1832–1883), oil on canvas, 137.8 × 128.9 cm
(The John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, cat. 1027).
Inset Crew of the USS Kearsarge at their battle stations, shortly after her June 1864
action with CSS Alabama (Naval History and Heritage Command)
Printed in the United States of America
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com
For Christine,
whose idea this was
Civil War, 48 bc
I sing of something more than civil war
Across the fertile plains of Thessaly,
Of lawlessness made law, a mighty people
Turning its conquering hand against itself,
Kin against kin, the nation’s compact broken,
A shocked world feeling the full force of war,
All sharing guilt, flag against flaunting flag,
Standard clashing with standard, spear with spear.
Why so much madness, citizens, such slaughter?
—From Lucan: De Bello Civili, Book I
(translation: Charles Priestley)
Table of Contents
Preface 1
1. Alexander Beresford Hope and the Civil War 7
2. A Philosopher’s Defense of the Confederacy 17
3. A Lively Meeting in Burnley 25
4. Yancey and the Fishmongers 35
5. A Civil War Grave in Turkey 41
6. On the Cleburne Trail in Cork and Cumbria 49
7. France’s Opportunity 59
8. Death in Paris 68
9. The Last Days of the Alabama 85
10. Three Accounts of the Battle Off Cherbourg 104
11. The Prince Offers His Services 116
12. From Calais to Cairo 132
13. Three Union Veterans’ Overseas Graves 149
14. An Officer’s Payslip 167
15. A Postmaster in the Cavalry 182
Chapter Notes 199
Bibliography 213
Index 215
vii

Preface
As far as I can remember, I first became interested in the American Civil War
at about the age of 11. How much this was due to my having cousins in Chatta-
nooga, Tennessee, I am not sure, but perhaps less so than one might suppose; most
of those of my British friends who share my interest in the war have no Ameri-
can connections, family or business, whatsoever. What is certainly true, how-
ever, is that going over, at the age of 16, to spend two weeks staying on Missionary
Ridge with my aunt and uncle turned what had been an interest into something
more like an obsession, which it has remained ever since. Five years later, a series
of extraordinary coincidences led to my being able to spend a year, directly after
graduating from Cambridge University, as Visiting Lecturer in Classics at what
was then the University of Chattanooga. Since then, I have returned whenever
possible to tour the battlefields and to see my cousins. Inevitably, though, the
demands of work and family meant that such visits gradually became less and less
frequent. In the increasing gaps between trips, I continued to take every opportu-
nity to study the Civil War at home. I read what I could, watched videos, attended
lectures, discussed with fellow enthusiasts and so on, until one day I suddenly
conceived the idea of writing about the war as well.
I decided from the start that there was little point in trying to compete with
historians in the U.S. by writing about the military and political developments
of the war in America itself. After all, the Civil War is on their doorstep; the bat-
tlefields, libraries and archives are all within easy reach. Instead, I deliberately
determined to concentrate on researching and writing about various different
aspects of the war as it affected foreign countries, first of all my own country, the
United Kingdom, and then France, as the two countries most closely involved in
the war. The more I began to look, though, the more I realized what a huge quan-
tity of material there was on my own doorstep.
Most of us know of Liverpool’s connection with the Civil War. The city and
its surroundings have an enormous number of sites with Civil War associations,
while the Merseyside Maritime Museum has a rich collection of Civil War doc-
uments, as well as paintings, models and artifacts illustrating the naval side of
the war. If London cannot quite compete with Liverpool, a little investigation
soon reveals how many buildings and monuments with Civil War associations
still survive in the capital, too. All over Britain, from Scotland to Cornwall, can
1