Great Britain and the American Civil War

British neutrality during the American Civil War provoked sharply different judgments in Britain and the United States. Ephraim Douglass Adams examines those competing views through a history of diplomacy, public opinion and government policy. His account draws on newspapers, official correspondence and the private papers of British statesmen, including Russell, Gladstone and Palmerston. The preface explains how access to these records broadened his research and prompted a fresh examination of established interpretations.

The discussion of Russell's mediation plan brings the tension into focus. Newspaper appeals for British action sit beside the calculations of ministers and the anxieties of Charles Francis Adams, the American representative in London. Extensive citations let readers follow the evidence behind the argument. For anyone studying the wider reach of the Civil War, the book offers a detailed view of how events in America tested British interests, sympathies and claims to impartiality.