Britain in American Civil War

choi

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I thought I posted this on June 19. I obviously did not.
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Matthew Price, North and South — With Britain Watching. Boston Globe, June
19, 2011.
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles
/2011/06/19/north_and_south__with_britain_watching/
(book review on Amanda Foreman, A World on Fire: Britain’s crucial role in
the American Civil War. Random House, 2011)

Quote: "The fall of Fort Sumter in April 1861 set off a furious diplomatic
contest between North and South for the favors of Great Britain, then the
world’s superpower.

Note:
(a) Cecil B DeMille
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_B._DeMille
(1881-1959; American film director for The Ten Commandments (1956, starring
Charlton Heston as Moses)
(b) drawing room (n; short for withdrawing room): "a formal reception room"

All definitions are from www.m-w.com.
(c) pathos (n; Greek, suffering, experience, emotion):
"an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or
compassion"
(d) Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_John_Temple,_3rd_Viscount_Pa
(1784-1865; prime minister 1859-1865)
(e) William H Seward
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Seward
(1801-1872; US secretary of state 1861-1869)
(f) Fulminate (vt, vi; Latin fulminare, to strike ): "utter or send out with
denunciation"
(g) Home Secretay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Secretary
(the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom;
responsible for internal affairs within England and Wales, and for
immigration and citizenship for the whole of the United Kingdom)
(h) Battle of Chancellorsville
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chancellorsville
(fought from April 30 to May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, near
the village of Chancellorsville; Strength 133,868 for Union vs] 60,892 [for
Confederate]; The [Confederate] victory, a product of [Robert E] Lee's
audacity and [Union general Joseph] Hooker's timid combat performance, was
tempered by heavy casualties and the mortal wounding of Lt. Gen. Thomas J. "
Stonewall" Jackson to friendly fire)
(i) William Tecumseh Sherman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tecumseh_Sherman
(1820-1891; Sherman himself reports that his middle name grew from the fact
that his father "caught a fancy for the great chief of the Shawnees, '
Tecumseh'")
(j) Battle of Shiloh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shiloh
(April 6–7, 1862; around the small log church named Shiloh (the Hebrew word
that means "place of peace"), Tennessee; Union victory, led by Ulysses S.
Grant)
(k) The review mentions one "Dr Livingstone."

David Livingstone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone
(1813-1873; a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary; section
4 Stanley meeting)

(l) "Percy Wyndham (soldier) (1833-1879), British soldier and adventurer in
the Battle of Thoroughfare Gap"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Wyndham
(m) twiddle (vt): "to rotate lightly or idly <twiddled his pen>"



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choi

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Michael Burlingame, When Cotton Wasn't King; As America plunged into civil war, North and South both expected Britain's favor. Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576359324045731088.html
(another review of the same book)

Quote:

"British opinion during the American Civil War was sharply divided. Support for the North was strong among those who abhorred slavery, an institution that Parliament had succeeded in abolishing decades earlier. The antislavery movement in Britain, led by the crusading William Wilberforce, had eliminated the practice throughout the British Empire a quarter century before the bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861. But British business interests and many Foreign Office types supported the Confederacy because they feared that if the United States remained united, and continued to grow as fast as it had been growing, it would soon eclipse Britain as a world power.

"Britain eventually found alternative sources for cotton, primarily in Egypt and India.

"As time passed, it seemed less and less likely that the South would win, and once Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, in January 1863, British popular opinion swung decidedly in favor of the North.

Note:
(a) Jimmy Snyder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Snyder
(1918-1996; better known as Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder, was an American sports commentator and Las Vegas bookie)
(b) packet boat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_boat
(were small boats designed for domestic mail, passenger and freight transportation in the United States along rivers and canals. They were extensively used in the 19th century and featured regularly scheduled service)
(c) Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Thomas,_U.S._Virgin_Islands

In the midst of World War I, US purchased in 1917 St. Thomas, along with Saint John and Saint Croix (all part of US Virgin Islands) from Denmark for $25 million in gold.

(d) perforce (adv; Middle English par force, from Anglo-French, by force):
"1obsolete : by physical coercion
2: by force of circumstances"

All definitions are from www.m-w.com.
(e) slavery in Britain and Ireland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain_and_Ireland
(Slavery in Britain and Ireland dated from before Roman occupation. Chattel slavery virtually disappeared after the Norman Conquest. It was finally abolished by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (which made some exceptions for other parts of the British Empire))
(f) casus belli (n; New Latin, occasion of war):
"an event or action that justifies or allegedly justifies a war or conflict"
(g) shanghai (vt; Shanghai, China; from the former use of this method to secure sailors for voyages to eastern Asia):
"1a : to put aboard a ship by force often with the help of liquor or a drug
b : to put by force or threat of force into or as if into a place of detention
2: to put by trickery into an undesirable position"
(h) crimp (vt): "to trap into military or sea service : IMPRESS"
(i) WAGs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAGs
(an acronym, used particularly by the British tabloid press, to describe the wives and girlfriends of high-profile football players, originally the England national football team)

The reviewer uses a recently coined term in an ancient situation, so to sepak.
(j) Harridan (n; perhaps modification of French haridelle old horse, gaunt woman): SHREW

* shrew (n): “an ill-tempered scolding woman”

【 在 choi 的大作中提到: 】
: I thought I posted this on June 19. I obviously did not.
: --------------------------
: Matthew Price, North and South — With Britain Watching. Boston Globe, June
: 19, 2011.
: http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles
: (以下引言省略...)

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choi

本文通过一路BBS站telnet客户端发布

I gave the topic further thought. I do not know much about international scens around the time. But it seemed to me that UK would not be eager to pick a fight with the union government of the United States.

(1) population:

(a) 1860 United States Census
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_Census
(US population "31,443,321 — an increase of 35.4 percent over the 23,191,875 persons enumerated during the 1850 Census. The total population included 3,953,761 slaves")

* The original report:
Census of Population and Housing; 1860 Census. US Census Bureau.
http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1860.html
* Population and industry were mostly in the North.

(b) United Kingdom

Julie Jeffries, The UK Population: Past, Present and Future; Focus on people and migration. 2005
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_compendia/fom2005/01_fopm_population.pdf

Derived from Figures 1.1 to 1.4 (inclusive): adding the population sizes in 1861 of England (almost 20million), Wales (1.3m), Scotalnd (3.05m) and Ireland (Nothern Ireland (~1.5m) and Republic of Ireland (4.4m); subtotal ~5.9m), the total population of UK was 30,2m.

(2)
(a) List of regions by past GDP (PPP)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)
(year 1870: UK 100,180; US 98,374; Japan 25,393, China 189,740)

(b) List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
(year 1870: UK 3,190; US 2,445; Japan 737; China 530)

(3) UK might be a sea (super)power but Canada (at the time belonging to UK) would be vulnerable to land attacks from US.

(a) Canada
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada
(map titled "July 1, 1867 Dominion of Canada formed" showed that year, Dominion of Canada was made up of Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic four provinces)

(b) Vancouver
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver
(The City of Vancouver was incorporated on April 6, 1886, the same year that the first transcontinental train arrived. CPR president William Van Horne arrived in Port Moody to establish the CPR terminus recommended by Henry John Cambie, and gave the city its name in honour of George Vancouver)

(i) CPR: Canadian Pacific Railway
(ii) George Vancouver (1757-1798) "was an English officer of the British Royal Navy, best known for his 1791-95 expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern Pacific Coast regions, including the coasts of contemporary Alaska, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon." Wikipedia


【 在 choi 的大作中提到: 】
: Michael Burlingame, When Cotton Wasn't King; As America plunged into civil war, North and South both expected Britain's favor. Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2011
: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303657404576359324045731088.html
: (another review of the same book)
: (以下引言省略...)

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