As the war that had begun on 12 April 1861 dragged on, European nations looked on with a mixture of anxiety and apprehension. Prior to the conflict, for example, textile mills in Great Britain had imported more than three-quarters of their cotton from the American South, and the Confederacy tried to play this as a trump card in dealing with the British. Hoping to bring the country into the war as an ally, the South first embargoed exports to the UK. But this effort backfired. The British prime minister Lord Palmerston had no intention of allying with the South, or of running the risks of evading the Northern naval blockade of the Confederacy’s ports – a decision reinforced by the fact that British textile mills were at the time overstocked with cotton.
Despite their government’s reluctance to get involved with the war in North America, British ships did continue to run the Union blockade – but did not ultimately provide enough matériel to influence the outcome of the war. In the meantime, the British shipyard of John Laird, Sons and Company had already produced the heavily armed Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama, which would go on to sink some 65 vessels before being itself sunk by the USS Kearsarge off the coast of northern France. By the end of 1863, Laird had already also completed two ironclad rams, which were never delivered to the Confederate navy. The South continued to plead for recognition and support – but after the catastrophic setbacks at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga (see MHM 144, February/March 2025), Great Britain and France decided to let things play out without their involvement. The Confederate States of America were on their own.
Grant takes command
With his successful actions at Vicksburg, and then at Chattanooga, Ulysses S Grant provided a welcome change for Abraham Lincoln. The US President had finally found a general unafraid to take risks, and with the bulldog tenacity that was needed to prosecute a costly but necessary war that was becoming increasingly unpopular. Thus in March of 1864, as the war approached its third anniversary, Grant received a letter notifying him that Congress had appointed him a Lieutenant General, and that President Lincoln had placed him in command of all Union armies.
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