Trent Affair

James Murray Mason

John Slidell

The Trent Affair, also known as the Mason and Slidell Affair, was an international diplomatic incident that occurred during the American Civil War. On November 8, 1861 the USS San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Charles Wilkes, intercepted the British mail packet Trent and removed two Confederate diplomats, James Mason and John Slidell. The envoys were bound for Great Britain and France in order to press the Confederacy’s case for diplomatic recognition by Europe.

The initial reaction in the United States was enthusiastically in support of the capture, but many American leaders had doubts as to the wisdom and the legality of the act. In the Confederate States the hope was that the incident would lead to a permanent rupture in Union-British relations, diplomatic recognition, and Southern independence. In Great Britain the public expressed outrage to this apparent insult to their national honor, and the British government demanded an apology and the release of the prisoners while it took steps to strengthen its military forces in Canada and in the Atlantic.

After several weeks of tension during which the United States and the United Kingdom came dangerously close to war, the issue was resolved when the Lincoln administration released the envoys and disavowed Captain Wilkes’ actions. No formal apology was issued. Mason and Slidell resumed their voyage to England, but failed in their goal of achieving diplomatic recognition. The Union had successfully navigated its way through its most crucial diplomatic challenge of the war.

General Background

The Confederacy, and its president Jefferson Davis, believed from the beginning that European dependence on cotton for its textile industry would lead to diplomatic recognition and intervention, in the form of mediation.

William H. Seward (c. 1850)

Henry Palmerston

The Union’s main focus in foreign affairs was just the opposite—to prevent any British recognition of the South that might encourage France and other nations to follow suit. There had been continuous improvement in Anglo-American relations throughout the 1850s. The issues of the “Oregon territory, British involvement in Texas, and the Canadian border dispute” had all been resolved. Secretary of State William H. Seward, the primary architect of American foreign policy during the war, intended to maintain the policy principles that had served the country well since the American Revolution – nonintervention by the United States in the affairs of other countries and resistance to foreign intervention in the affairs of the United States and other countries in this hemisphere.”

At the beginning of the Civil War, the United States minister to Great Britain was Charles Francis Adams. Appointed in early March, Adams delayed his departure to England to attend the wedding of his son and did not arrive until May 13. An important part of his mission was to make clear to the British that the war was strictly an internal insurrection affording the Confederacy no rights under international law. Any movement by Britain towards officially recognizing the Confederacy would be considered an unfriendly act towards the United States.

The issue of diplomatic recognition

William Lowndes Yancey

John Russell, 1st Earl Russell

The Trent affair did not erupt as a major crisis until late November and December of 1861. The first link in the chain of events occurred in February of 1861 when the Confederacy created a three person European delegation consisting of William Lowndes Yancey, Pierre Rost, and Ambrose Dudley Mann. Their instructions from Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs were to explain to these governments the nature and purposes of the southern cause, to open diplomatic relations, and to “negotiate treaties of friendship, commerce, and navigation.” Toomb’s instructions included a long legal argument on states’ rights and the right of secession. By relying on the two-pronged attack of cotton and legality, many important issues were absent from the instructions including the blockade of Southern ports, privateering, trade with the North, and slavery.

The Pursuit and Capture

Charles Wilkes

The intended departure of the diplomats was no secret, and the Union government received daily intelligence on their movements. By October 1 Slidell and Mason were in Charleston. Their original plan was to attempt to run the blockade in the CSS Nashville, a fast steamer, but the main channel into Charleston was guarded by five Union ships and the Nashville’s draft was too deep for any side channels. A night escape was considered, but tides and strong night winds prevented this. An overland route through Mexico and departure from Matamoros was also considered, but the delay of several months was unacceptable.

The steamer Gordon was used as an alternative. It had a shallow enough draught to use the back channels and was capable of speeds exceeding twelve knots, more than enough to elude Union pursuit. Renamed the Theodora, the ship left Charleston on October 12. On the 14th they arrived at Nassau but had missed connections with the British steamer going to St. Thomas, the main point of departure for British ships from the Caribbean to Great Britain. They moved on towards Cuba and arrived in Cardenas on October 16. They learned that the next British mail packet would leave Havana on November 7 for St. Thomas. .

On the Union side, the USS San Jacinto, commanded by Captain Charles Wilkes, arrived in St. Thomas on October 13, fresh off its duty on the African coast. Wilkes’ orders were to join a US Naval force preparing for an assault of Port Royal, South Carolina. However in St. Thomas Wilkes learned that the Sumter, a Confederate raider, had captured three merchant ships near Cinfuegos in July. In Cinfuegos he learned that Mason and Slidell were scheduled to leave Havana on November 7 in the RMS Trent. He realized that the ship would need to use the narrow Bahama Channel. Wilkes adopted the position that Mason and Slidell would qualify as contraband, subject to seizure by a United States ship.

This aggressive decision making was typical of Wilkes command style. On one hand, he was recognized as “a distinguished explorer, author, and naval officer”. On the other, he “had a reputation as a stubborn, overzealous, impulsive, and sometimes insubordinate officer.” Treasury officer George Harrington had warned Seward about Wilkes, “He will give us trouble. He has a superabundance of self-esteem and a deficiency of judgment. When he commanded his great exploring mission he court-martialed nearly all his officers; he alone was right, everybody else was wrong.”

The Trent left as scheduled with Mason, Slidell, their secretaries, and Slidell’s wife and children aboard. Around noon on the 8th the San Jacinto spotted the Trent, and two shots were fired across her bow. Captain Moir of the Trent ignored the first shot but stopped after the second one. Two cutters from the San Jacinto had been prepared for boarding, but Fairfax first went over to the Trent in a third cutter. Wilkes had given Fairfax the following written instructions:

On boarding her you will demand the papers of the steamer, her clearance from Havana, with the list of passengers and crew.

Should Mr. Mason, Mr. Slidell, Mr. Eustice and Mr. McFarland be on board make them prisoners and send them on board this ship and take possession of her [the Trent] as a prize. … They must be brought on board.

All trunks, cases, packages and bags belonging to them you will take possession of and send on board this ship; any dispatches found on the persons of the prisoners, or in possession of those on board the steamer, will be taken possession of, examined, and retained if necessary

Fairfax boarded alone and was escorted to Captain Moir. Captain Moir refused Fairfax’s request for a passenger list, but Slidell and Mason came forward and identified themselves. Moir also refused to allow a search of the vessel for contraband, and Fairfax failed to force the issue which would have required seizing the ship as a prize. Mason and Slidell made a formal refusal to go voluntarily with Fairfax, but did not resist when Fairfax had his crewmen escort them to the cutter.

Wilkes would later claim that he believed that the Trent was carrying “highly important dispatches and were endowed with instructions inimical to the United States.” Along with the failure of Fairfax to insist on a search of the Trent, there was another reason why no papers were found in the luggage that was carried with the diplomats. Mason’s daughter, writing in 1906, said that the Confederate dispatch bag had been secured by Commander Williams of the Trent and later delivered to the Confederate envoys in London. This was a clear violation of the Queens Neutrality Proclamation.

International law required that when “contraband” was discovered on a ship it should be taken to the nearest prize court for adjudication. While this was Wilkes’ initial determination, Fairfax argued against this since taking crew from the San Jacinto to the Trent would weaken the already minimally staffed San Jacinto and would seriously inconvenience the other passengers as well as mail recipients. Wilkes, whose ultimate responsibility it was, agreed and the ship was allowed to proceed to Saint Thomas, absent the two Confederate envoys and their secretaries.

The San Jacinto arrived in Hampton Roads, Virginia on November 15 where he wired news of the capture to Washington. He was then ordered to Boston where he delivered the captives to Fort Warren, a prison for captured Confederates.

American Reaction (November 16-December 18, 1861)

Most Northerners learned of the Trent capture on November 16 when the news hit afternoon newspapers. By Monday the 18th the press seemed “universally engulfed in a massive wave of chauvinistic elation.” Mason and Slidell, “the caged ambassadors” were denounced as “knaves,” “cowards,” “snobs,” “cold, cruel, and selfish”.

Everyone was eager to present a legal justification for the capture. The British consul in Boston remarked that every other citizen was “walking around with a Law Book under his arm and proving the right of the S. Jacintho [sic] to stop H.M.’s mail boat.” Many newspapers likewise argued for the legality of Wilkes’ actions, and numerous lawyers stepped forward to add their approval.Harvard law professor Theophilus Parsons wrote, “I am just as certain that Wilkes had a legal right to take Mason and Slidell from the Trent, as I am that our government has a legal right to blockade the port of Charleston.” Franklin Pierce’s attorney general Caleb Cushing concurred, “In my judgment, the act of Captain Wilkes was one which any and every self- respecting nation must and would have done by its own sovereign right and power, regardless of circumstances.” Richard Henry Dana, Jr., considered an expert on maritime law, justified the detention because the envoys were engaged “solely [in] a mission hostile to the United States,” making them guilty of “treason within our municipal law.” Edward Everett, a former minister to great Britain and a former secretary of State also argued that “the detention was perfectly lawful [and] their confinement in Fort Warren will be perfectly lawful.”

A banquet was given to honor Wilkes at the Revere House in Boston on November 26th. Massachusetts governor John A. Andrew praised Wilkes for his “manly and heroic success” and spoke of the “exultation of the American heart” when Wilkes “fired his shot across the bows of the ship that bore the British Lion at its head.” George T. Bigelow, the chief justice of Massachusetts, spoke admiringly of Wilkes, “In common with all loyal men of the North, I have been sighing, for the last six months, for someone who would be willing to say to himself, ‘I will take the responsibility.’” On December 2 Congress passed unanimously a resolution thanking Wilkes “for his brave, adroit and patriotic conduct in the arrest and detention of the traitors, James M. Mason and John Slidell” and proposing that he receive a “gold medal with suitable emblems and devices, in testimony of the high sense entertained by Congress of his good conduct.”

As it was given closer study, people began to have doubts. The secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles reflected the ambiguity that many felt when he wrote to Wilkes of “the emphatic approval” of the Navy Department for his actions while cautioning him that the failure to take the Trent to a prize court “must by no means be permitted to constitute a precedent hereafter for the treatment of any case of similar infraction of neutral obligations.” On November 24, the New York Times claimed to find no actual on point precedent. Thurlow Weed’s Albany Evening Journal suggested that if Wilkes had “exercised an unwarranted discretion, our government will properly disavow the proceedings and grant England ‘every satisfaction’ consistent with honor and justice.” It did not take long for others to comment that the capture of Mason and Slidell very much resembled the search and impressment that the United States had opposed since its founding. The idea of humans as contraband failed to strike a resonant chord with many.

Henry Adams wrote to his brother on the impressment issue:

Good God, what’s got into you all? What in Hell do you mean by deserting now the great principles of our fathers; by returning to the vomit of that dog Great Britain? What do you mean by asserting now principles against which every Adams yet has protested and resisted? You’re mad, all of you.

People also started to realize that the issue might be resolved less on legalities and more on the necessity of avoiding a serious conflict with Britain. James Buchanan, Thomas Ewing, Lewis Cass, and Robert J. Walker all publicly came out for the necessity of releasing them. By the third week of December much of the editorial opinion started to mirror these opinions and prepare the American citizens for the release of the prisoners. The opinion that Wilkes had operated without orders and had erred by, in effect, holding a prize court on the deck of the San Jacinto was being spread.

The United States was initially very reluctant to back down. Seward had lost the initial opportunity to immediately release the two envoys as an affirmation of a long-held US interpretation of international law. He had written to Adams at the end of November that Wilkes had not acted under instructions, but would hold back any more information until it had received some response from Great Britain. He reiterated that recognition of the Confederacy would likely lead to war.

Lincoln was at first enthused about the capture and reluctant to let them go, but as reality set in he stated:

I fear the traitors will prove to be white elephants. We must stick to American principles concerning the rights of neutrals. We fought Great Britain for insisting … on the right to do precisely what Captain Wilkes has done. If Great Britain shall now protest against the act, and demand their release, we must give them up, apologize for the act as a violation of our doctrines, and thus forever bind her over to keep the peace in relation to neutrals, and so acknowledge that she has been wrong for sixty years.

On December 4, Lincoln met with Alexander Galt, the Canadian Minister of Finance. Lincoln told him that he had no desire for troubles with England or any unfriendly designs toward Canada. When Galt asked specifically about the Trent incident, Lincoln replied, “Oh, that’ll be got along with.” Galt forwarded his account of the meeting to Lyons who forwarded it to Russell. Galt wrote that, despite Lincoln’s assurances, “I cannot, however, divest my mind of the impression that the policy of the American Govt is so subject to popular impulses, that no assurance can be or ought to be relied on under present circumstances.” Lincoln’s annual message to Congress did not touch directly on the Trent Affair but, relying on estimates from Secretary of War Simon Cameron that the US could field a 3,000,000 man army, stated that he could “show the world, that while engaged in quelling disturbances at home we are able to protect ourselves from abroad.”

Economically the Union was faced with serious problems as it attempted to finance the war. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, attempting to deal with the serious and challenging problems associated with financing the war, was concerned with any events that might affect American interests in Europe. He realized that while the current financing, which relied almost totally on borrowing from banks and the public, was not sustainable in the long run. Chase had resorted to government demand notes not directly convertible to specie payments, and specie was running short in the nation’s banks. Being reluctant to recommend increased taxation as a solution, Chase’s annual report issued on December 10 did not provide a solution and, coupled with unease about the Trent Affair, contributed to increased public concerns about the stability of the Union. ”

On December 15 the first news on British reaction reached the United States. Because the Atlantic cable between Great Britain and the United States had been accidentally severed, news across the Atlantic traveled by boat and was often delayed by as much as twelve or fourteen days. Lincoln was with Senator Orville Browning when Seward brought in the first newspaper dispatches which indicated Palmerston was demanding a release of the prisoners and an apology. Browning thought the resort to war by Britain was “foolish” but said “We will fight her to the death.” That night at a diplomatic reception Seward was overheard by William H. Russell saying, “We will wrap the whole world in flames.” The mood in Congress had also changed. When they debated the issue on December 16 and 17, Clement L. Vallandigham, a peace Democrat, proposed a resolution stating that the US maintain the seizure as a matter of honor. The motion was opposed and referred to a committee by the vote of 109 to 16. The official response of the government still awaited the formal British response which did not arrive in America until December 18.

British Reaction (November 27-December 31, 1861)

Union intelligence had not immediately recognized that Mason and Slidell had left Charleston on the Theodora rather than the Nashville. Secretary of the Navy Welles ordered Captain John B. Marchand of the U.S.S. Alger to intercept the Nashville and detain the commissioners. The British government was aware that the United States would attempt to capture the diplomats and also believed they were on the Nashville. Palmerston ordered a warship to patrol within the three mile limit around the expected docking place of the Nashville to assure that any capture would occur outside British territorial waters, avoiding the diplomatic crisis that would be occasioned if the Confederate ship were apprehended within British waters. When the Nashville arrived on November 21, the British were surprised that the Confederates were not on board.

Marchand, arrived in Southampton soon after the Nashville and learned from The Times that his targets had arrived in Cuba. Marchand reacted to the news by boasting that he would capture the two envoys within sight of the British shore if necessary, even if they were on a British ship. As a result of the concerns raised by Marchand’s statements, the British Foreign Service requested a judicial opinion from the three Law Officers of the Crown (the queen’s advocate, the attorney general, and the solicitor general) on the legality of capturing the diplomats from a British ship. The written reply dated November 12 declared:

The United States’ man-of-war falling in with the British mail steamer [this was the example used in the hypothetical submitted by the cabinet] beyond the territorial limits of the United Kingdom might cause her to bring-to, might board her, examine her papers, open the general mail bags, and examine the contents thereof, without, however opening and mail bag or packet addressed to any officer or Department of Her Majesty’s Government. The United States’ ship of war may put a prize-crew on board the West India steamer, and carry her off to a port of the United States for adjudication by a Prize Court there; but she would have no right to move Messrs. Mason and Slidell, and carry them off as prisoners, leaving the ship to pursue her voyage.

On November 12 Palmerston advised Adams in person that the British nonetheless would take offense if the envoys were removed from a British ship. Palmerston emphasized that seizing the Confederates would be “highly inexpedient in every way [Palmerston] could view it” and a few more Confederates in Britain would not “produce any change in policy already adopted.” Palmerston questioned the presence of the Alger in British waters, and Adams assured Palmerston that he had read Marchand’s orders (Marchand had visited Adams while in Great Britain) which limited him to seizing Mason and Slidell from a Confederate ship.

The news of the actual capture of Mason and Slidell did not arrive in London until November 27. Much of the public and many of the newspapers immediately perceived it as an outrageous insult to British honor, and a flagrant violation of maritime law. The London Chronicle’s response was typical of the negative responses:

“

Mr. Seward … is exerting himself to provoke a quarrel with all Europe, in that spirit of senseless egotism which induces the Americans, with their dwarf fleet and shapeless mass of incoherent squads which they call an army, to fancy themselves the equal of France by land and Great Britain by sea.

”

The London Standard saw the capture as “but one of a series of premeditated blows aimed at this country … to involve it in a war with the Northern States.” A letter from an American visitor written to Seward declared, “The people are frantic with rage, and were the country polled I fear 999 men out of 1,000 would declare for immediate war.” A member of Parliament stated that unless America set matters right the British flag should “be torn into shreds and sent to Washington for use of the Presidential water-closets.”

The Times published its first report from the United States on December 4, and its correspondent, W. H. Russell, wrote of American reactions, “There is so much violence of spirit among the lower orders of the people and they are … so saturated with pride and vanity that any honorable concession … would prove fatal to its authors.” John T. Delane, editor of The Times, however, struck a moderate stance and warned the people not to “regard the act in the worst light” and to question whether it made sense that the United States, despite British misgivings about Seward that went back to the earliest days of the Lincoln administration, would “force a quarrel upon the Powers of Europe.”

The government got its first solid information on the Trent from Commander Williams who went directly to London after he arrived in England. He spent several hours with the Admiralty and the prime minister. Initial reaction among political leaders was firmly opposed to the American actions. Lord Clarendon, a former foreign secretary, expressed what many felt when he accused Seward of “trying to provoke us into a quarrel and finding that it could not be effected at Washington he was determined to compass it at sea.”

Resisting Russell’s call for an immediate cabinet meeting, Palmerston again called on the Law Officers to prepare a brief based on the actual events that had occurred, and an emergency cabinet meeting was scheduled two days later for Friday, November 29. Palmerston also informed the War Office that budget reductions scheduled for 1862 be put on hold. Russell met briefly with Adams on November 29 to determine whether he could shed any light on American intent. Due to the cable outage, Adams was unaware that Seward had already sent him a letter indicating Wilkes had acted without orders and was unable to provide Russell any information that might defuse the situation.

Palmerston began the emergency cabinet meeting by reportedly throwing his hat on the table and declaring, "I don't know whether you are going to stand this, but I'll be damned if I do." The Law officers report was read and confirmed the illegality of Wilkes’ actions. Dispatches from Lyons were given to all in attendance. These dispatches described the excitement in America in support of the capture, referred to previous dispatches in which Lyons had warned that Seward might provoke such an incident, and described the difficulty that the United States might have in acknowledging that Wilkes had erred. Lyons also recommended a show of force including sending reinforcements to Canada. Palmerston indicated to Lord Russell that it was very possible that the entire incident had been a “deliberate and premeditated insult” designed by Seward to “provoke” a confrontation with Britain.

After several days of discussion, on November 30 Russell sent to Queen Victoria the drafts of the dispatches intended for Lord Lyons to deliver to Seward. The Queen in turn asked her husband and consort, Prince Albert, to review the matter. Although ill with typhoid that would shortly take his life, Albert softened the ultimatum, which he felt was too belligerent. In his November 30 response to Palmerston, Albert wrote:

The Queen … should have liked to have seen the expression of a hope [in the message to Seward] that the American captain did not act under instructions, or, if he did that he misapprehended them [and] that the United States government must be fully aware that the British Government could not allow its flag to be insulted, and the security of her mail communications to be placed in jeopardy, and [that] Her Majesty’s Government are unwilling to believe that the United States Government intended wantonly to put an insult upon this country and to add to their many distressing complications by forcing a question of dispute upon us, and that we are therefore glad to believe … that they would spontaneously offer such redress as alone could satisfy this country, viz: the restoration of the unfortunate passengers and a suitable apology.

The cabinet incorporated in its official letter to Seward Albert’s suggestions that would allow Washington to disavow both Wilkes’ actions and any American intent to insult the British flag. The British still demanded an apology and the release of the Confederate emissaries. Lyons’ private instructions directed him to give Seward seven days to reply and to close the British Legation in Washington and return home if a satisfactory response was not forthcoming. In a further effort to defuse the situation, Russell added his own private note telling Lyons to meet with Seward and advised him of the contents of the official letter before it was actually delivered. Lyons was told that as long as the commissioners were released, the British would “be rather easy about the apology” and that an explanation sent through Adams would probably be satisfactory. He reiterated that the British would fight if necessary, and suggested that the “best thing would be if Seward could be turned out and a rational man put in his place.” The dispatches were shipped on December 1 via the Europa.

While military preparations were accelerated, diplomacy would be on hold for the rest of the month while Britain waited for the American response. There had been unrest in the British financial markets since the news of the Trent was first received. Consols, which had initially declined in value in the early part of the month, fell by another 2 percent, reaching the level during the first year of the Crimean war. Other securities fell another 4 to 5 percent. Railway stocks and colonial and foreign securities declined. The Times noted that the financial markets were reacting as if war were a certainty.

In the early deliberations over the appropriate British response to the capture of the diplomats, there was concern that Napoleon III would take advantage of a Union-British war to act against British interests in “Europe of elsewhere” French and British interests clashed in Indochina, in building the Suez Canal, in Italy, and in Mexico. Palmerston saw French stockpiling of coal in the West Indies as indicating they were preparing for war with England. The French navy remained smaller, but had otherwise shown itself equal to British in the Crimean War. A possible buildup by the French of ironclads would present a clear threat in the English Channel.

The French quickly alleviated many of the British concerns. On November 28, with no knowledge of the British response or any input from Henri Mercier, Napoleon met with his cabinet. They had no doubts about the illegality of the United States’ actions and agreed to support whatever demands the British made. Thouvenel wrote to Count Charles de Flahault in London to inform the British of their decision. After learning of the actual content of the note, Thouvenel advised the British ambassador Henry Wellesley, Earl Cowley, that the demand had his complete approval, and on December 4 instructions were sent to Mercier to provide support for Lyons.

A minor stir occurred when General Winfield Scott, until recently the commander of all Union troops, and Thurlow Weed, a known confidant of Seward, arrived in Paris. Their mission, to counter Confederate propaganda efforts with propaganda efforts of their own, had been determined before the Trent affair, but the timing was considered odd by Cowley. Rumors circulated that Scott was blaming the whole incident on Seward who had somehow manipulated Lincoln into acquiescing with the seizure. Scott put the rumors to rest with a December 4 letter that was published in the Paris Constitutional and reprinted throughout Europe, including most London papers. Denying the rumors, Scott stated that “every instinct of prudence as well as of good neighborhood prompts our government to regard no honorable sacrifice too great for the preservation of the friendship of Great Britain.”

The benign intentions of the United States were also argued by John Bright and Richard Cobden, strong supporters of the United States and leaders of the Anti-Corn Law League in Britain. Both had expressed strong reservations about the legality of American actions, but argued strongly that the United States had no aggressive designs against Great Britain. Bright publicly disputed that the confrontation had been intentionally engineered by Washington. In an early December speech to his constituents, he condemned the British military preparations “before we have made a representation to the American Government, before we have heard a word from it in reply, [we] should be all up in arms, every sword leaping from its scabbard and every man looking about for his pistols and blunderbusses?” Cobden joined with Bright by speaking at public meetings and writing letters to newspapers, organizers of meetings that he could not attend, and influential people in and out of Britain. As time passed and voices opposing war were heard more and more, the Cabinet also began considering alternatives to war, including arbitration.

Resolution (December 17, 1861-January 14, 1862)

On December 17 Adams received Seward’s Nov 30 dispatch stating that Wilkes acted without orders, and Adams immediately told Russell. Russell was encouraged by the news, but deferred any action until a formal response to the British communication was received. The note was not released to the public, but rumors were published by the press of the Union intent. Russell refused to confirm the information, and John Bright would later ask in Parliament, “How came it that this dispatch was never published for the information of the people of this country.”

In Washington, Lyons received the official response and his instructions on December 18. As instructed, Lyons met with Seward on December 19 and described the contents of the British response without actually delivering them. Seward was told that the British would expect a formal reply within seven days of Seward’s receipt of the official communication. At Seward’s request, Lyons gave him an unofficial copy of the British response which Seward immediately shared with Lincoln. On Saturday December 21 Lyons visited Seward to deliver the “British ultimatum,” but after further discussion they agreed that the formal delivery would be postponed for another two days. Lyons and Seward reached an agreement that the seven day deadline should not be considered as part of the official communication from the British government.

Charles Sumner, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent consultant to President Lincoln on foreign relations, had recognized immediately that the United States must release Mason and Slidell, but he had remained publicly silent during the weeks of high excitement. Sumner had traveled in England and carried on regular correspondence with many political activists in Britain. In December he received particularly alarming letters from Richard Cobden and John Bright. Bright and Cobden discussed the preparations of the government for war and the widespread doubts, including their own, of the legality of Wilkes’ actions. The Duchess of Argyll, a strong antislavery advocate in Great Britain, wrote Sumner that the capture of the envoys “the maddest act that ever was done, and, unless the [United States] government intend to force us to war, utterly inconceivable.

Sumner took these letters to Lincoln, who had just learned of the official British demand. Sumner and Lincoln met daily over the next week and discussed the ramifications of a war with Great Britain. In a December 24 letter Sumner wrote that the concerns were over the British fleet breaking the blockade and establishing their own blockade, French recognition of the Confederacy and movement into Mexico and Latin America, and the post-war (assuming Confederate independence) widespread smuggling of British manufactures via the South that would cripple American manufacturing. Lincoln thought that he could meet directly with Lyons and “show him in five minutes that I am heartily for peace,” but Sumner persuaded him of the diplomatic impropriety of such a meeting. Both men ended up agreeing that arbitration might be the best solution, and Sumner was invited to attend a cabinet meeting scheduled for Christmas morning.

Relevant information from Europe flowed to Washington right up to the time of the cabinet meeting. On December 25 a letter written on December 6 by Adams was received in Washington. Adams wrote:

The passions of the country are up and a collision is inevitable if the Government of the United States should, before the news reaches the other side, have assumed the position of Captain Wilkes in a manner to preclude the possibility of explanation. … Ministers and people now fully believe it is the intention of the [U.S.] Government to drive them into hostilities.

Also received at the same time were two messages from American consuls in Great Britain. From Manchester the news was that England was arming “with the greatest energy” and from London the message was that a “strong fleet” was being built with work going on around the clock, seven days a week. Thurlow Weed, who had moved from Paris to London in order to insure that General Scott’s letter was circulated, also sent a letter advising Seward that “such prompt and gigantic preparations were never known.”

With all of the negative news, the official response from France also arrived. Dayton had already advised Seward of his own meeting with Thouvenel in which the French foreign minister had told him that Wilkes’ actions were “a clear breach of international law” but that France would “remain a spectator in any war between the United States and England.” A direct message was received on Christmas from Thouvenel (it was actually delivered during the cabinet meeting)urging that the United States release the prisoners and in so doing affirm the rights of neutrals on the seas that France and the United States had repeatedly argued against Great Britain.

Seward had prepared a draft of his intended response to the British prior to the cabinet meeting and he was the only one present who had a detailed, organized position to present. His main point in the debate was that releasing the prisoners was consistent with the traditional American position on the right of neutrals, and the public would accept it as such. Both Chase and Attorney General Edward Bates were strongly influenced by the various messages from Europe, and Postmaster Montgomery Blair had been in favor of releasing the captives even before the meeting Lincoln clung to arbitration but received no support, the primary objection being the time that would be involved and an impatient Britain. A decision was not made at the meeting and a new meeting was scheduled for the next day. Lincoln indicated he wished to prepare his own paper for this meeting. The next day Seward’s proposal to release the prisoners was accepted without dissent. The president did not submit a counter argument, indicating afterwards to Seward that he had found he was unable to draft a convincing rebuttal to Seward’s position. meeting.

Seward’s reply was “a long, highly political document.” Seward stated that Wilkes had acted on his own and denied allegations by the British that the seizure itself had been conducted in a discourteous and violent manner. The capture and search of the Trent was consistent with international law, and Wilkes’ only error was in failing to take the ‘‘Trent’’ to a port for judicial determination. The release of the prisoners was therefore required in order “to do to the British nation just what we have always insisted all nations ought to do to us.” Seward’s reply, in effect, accepted Wilkes’ treatment of the prisoners as contraband and also equated their capture with the British exercise of impressment of British citizens off of neutral ships.

Lyons was summonsed to Seward’s office on the 27th and presented with the response. Focusing on the release of the prisoners rather than Seward’s stated analysis of the situation, Lyons forwarded the message and decided to remain in Washington until further instructions were received. The news of the release was published by the 29th and the public response was generally positive. Among those opposed to the decision was Wilkes who characterized it “as a craven yielding and an abandonment of all the good … done by [their] capture.”

Mason and Slidell were released from Fort Warren where the HMS Rinaldo took them to St. Thomas where, on January 14, they left on the La Plata bound for Southampton, England. The news of their release reached Britain on January 8. The British accepted the news as a diplomatic victory. Palmerston noted that Seward’s response contained “many doctrines of international law” contrary to the British interpretation, and Russell wrote a detailed response to Seward contesting his legal interpretations, but, in fact, the crisis was over.

Aftermath

Historian Charles Hubbard describes the Confederate perspective to the resolution of the crisis:

The resolution of the Trent affair dealt a serious blow to Confederate diplomatic efforts. First, it deflected the recognition momentum developed during the summer and fall of 1861. It created a feeling in Great Britain that the United States was prepared to defend itself when necessary, but recognized its responsibility to comply with international law. Moreover, it produced a feeling in Great Britain and France that peace could be preserved as long as the Europeans maintained strict neutrality in regard to the American belligerents.

The issue of diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy, however, remained alive. It was considered further throughout 1862 by the British and French governments within the context of formally extending an offer, difficult to refuse, for mediation of the war. As the war in America intensified and the bloody results of the Battle of Shiloh became known, the humanitarian reasons for European intervention seemed to have more merit. However the Emancipation Proclamation made it clear that the issue of slavery was now at the forefront of the war. At first the British reaction to the Battle of Antietam and the preliminary announcement of the Emancipation proclamation was that this would only create a slave rebellion within the South as the war itself became progressively more violent. Only in November 1862 did the momentum for European intervention reverse course.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Adams, Charles Francis, Jr. The Trent Affair. The American Historical Review Vol 17 No. 3 (April 1912)
• Adams, Ephraim Douglass., Great Britain and the American Civil War 2 vol (1924) online at Project Gutenberg vol 1 ch 7
• Baxter, James P. 3rd. Papers Relating to Belligerent and Neutral Rights, 1861-1865. The American Historical Review Vol 34 No 1 (Oct 1928)
• Baxter, James P. 3rd. The British Government and Neutral Rights, 1861-1865. The American Historical Review Vol 34 No 1 (Oct 1928)
• Bourne, K., British Preparations for War with the North, 1861-1862; The English Historical Review Vol 76 No 301 (Oct 1961) pp600-632
• Catton, Bruce. Terrible Swift Sword. (1963)
• Donald, David Herbert, Baker, Jean Harvey, and Holt, Michael F. The Civil War and Reconstruction. (2001) ISBN 0-393-97427-8
• Donald, David Herbert. Team of Rivals:The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. (2005) ISBN 13:978-0-684-82490-1
• Fairfax, D. Macneil. Captain Wilkes’s Seizure of Mason and Slidell in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: North to Antietam edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel. (1956 Castle Books version).
• Ferris, Norman B. The Trent Affair: A Diplomatic Crisis. (1977) ISBN 0-87049-169-5
• Graebner, Norman A., Northern Diplomacy and European Neutrality in Why the North Won the Civil War edited by David Herbert Donald. (1960) ISBN 0-684-82506-6 (1996 Revision)
• Hubbard, Charles M. The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy. (1998) ISBN 1-57233-092-9
• Jones, Howard. Union in Peril: The Crisis Over British Intervention in the Civil War. (1992) ISBN 0-8032-7597-8
• Mahin, Dean B. One War at A Time: The International Dimensions of the Civil War. (1999) ISBN 1-57488-209-0
• Mitchell, W.C., The Suspension of Specie Payments, December 1861; The Journal of Policical Economy (June 1899), pp 289-326
• Monaghan, Jay. Abraham Lincoln Deals with Foreign Affairs. (1945). ISBN 0-8032-8231-1 (1997 edition)
• Musicant, Ivan. Divided Waters: The Naval History of the Civil War. (1995) ISBN 0-7858-1210-5
• Nevins, Allan. The war for the Union: The Improvised War 1861-1862. (1959)
• Niven, John. Salmon P. Chase: A Biography. (1995) ISBN 0-19-504653-6
• Taylor, John M. William Henry Seward: Lincoln’s Right Hand. (1991) ISBN 1-57488-119-1
• Walther, Eric H. William Lowndes Yancey: The Coming of the Civil War. (2006) ISBN-13:978-0-7394-8030-4
• Warren, Gordon H. Fountain of Discontent: The Trent Affair and Freedom of the Seas, (1981) ISBN 0-930350-12-X
• Weigley, Russell F., A Great Civil War. (2000) ISBN 0-253-33738-0

External Links

• Library of Congress Memory Archive for November 8 Retrieved November 19, 2007.
• The Trent Affair Retrieved November 19, 2007.
• First Edition Report of the Trent Affair Retrieved November 19, 2007.
• Net Assessment during the Trent Affair Retrieved November 19, 2007.

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