Domestic and International Views of the Civil War Primary Source Set
Explore different views of people from other countries about the Civil War.
Guiding Question
- What were the major turning points and events of the Civil War?
Objective
- I can analyze multiple primary sources to understand differing domestic and international views of the Civil War.
Background Information
At the start of the Civil War, Union general Winfield Scott proposed a war plan known as the “Anaconda Plan.” A central feature of this was blockading Confederate ports to prevent it from trading with other countries and cripple its economy. The South provided the rest of the world with a huge supply of cotton for textiles, and the blockade would inevitably ensure that foreign nations felt the impact of the Civil War. This cartoon was published in a Northern newspaper and depicts the plan in a tongue-in-cheek manner.
Scott’s Great Snake, 1861
Analysis Questions:
- Closely analyze the map. What are the observations you have about the following aspects?
- The images on each state
- The representation of the army and navy
- What states the snake is surrounding
- How do you think the rest of the world would react to a Union blockade of Southern ports?
Background Information
The Union blockade of Southern ports caused huge negative impacts not only for the Confederacy but also the world. At the time, England was the world’s main manufacturer of textiles, and it received a vast majority of its supply of cotton from southern states. The blockade caused huge shortages in cotton, which led to mass layoffs at textile factories in England. The city of Manchester was a hub of textile factories and was hit especially hard. A union of textile workers wrote the following letter to Abraham Lincoln in which they express support for the Union despite the economic hardships.
Address to President Abraham Lincoln by The Working-Men of Manchester, England, 1862
| Text | Vocabulary and Context |
| As citizens of Manchester, assembled at the Free-Trade Hall, we beg to express our fraternal sentiments toward you and your country… | Free-Trade Hall- a meeting hall in Manchester
fraternal sentiments- feelings of brotherly affection |
| We honor your Free States, as a singularly happy abode for the working millions where industry is honored. One thing alone has, in the past, lessened our sympathy with your country and our confidence in it-we mean the ascendency of politicians who not merely maintained negro slavery, but desired to extend and root it more firmly. | abode- home
ascendency- rise to power |
| Since we have discerned, however, that the victory of the free North, in the war which has so sorely distressed us as well as afflicted you, will strike off the fetters of the slave, you have attracted our warm and earnest sympathy… | discerned- understood
afflicted- harmed fetters- shackles |
| You, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, have appointed to-morrow, the first of January, 1863, as the day of unconditional freedom for the slaves of the rebel States. Heartily do we congratulate you and your country on this humane and righteous course… | President Lincoln had recently released the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared all enslaved people in rebelling states to be free.
humane- generous |
| Our interests, moreover, are identified with yours. We are truly one people, though locally separate. And if you have any ill-wishers here, be assured they are chiefly those who oppose liberty at home…Accept our high admiration of your firmness in upholding the proclamation of freedom. |
Analysis Questions
- Based off this letter, what did the Working-Men of Manchester believe was the fundamental issue in the divide between North and South?
- What impact would support for the Union war effort by textile workers have on the Civil War?
- According to the letter, what is the reason some people in England are “ill-wishers” of the Union?
Background Information
Both the Union and the Confederacy appealed to European powers like Great Britain and France for support during the Civil War. While individuals in these countries formed their own opinions on who to support based on beliefs around subjects like the morality of slavery and the economic impacts of the Union blockade, their governments ultimately maintained policies of neutrality.
At the start of the war, the Confederacy quickly sought official diplomatic recognition from Britain and France and sent diplomats to cross the Atlantic onboard the British mail carrier ship Trent. This recognition would give the Confederacy recognition as a distinct country from the Union. In November 1861, a Union warship stopped the Trent, boarded it, and captured the diplomats. The British government angrily protested this as a breach of its neutrality and tensions rose between the two countries. The following article from the Northern newspaper Harper’s Weekly explains the aftermath of the event.
The Surrender of Traitors, 1862
| Text | Vocabulary and Context |
| The [Confederate diplomats] have been surrendered to the British Government. The country was prepared for the event and gulps the bitter pill in silence. | diplomats- people sent by one government to talk to a foreign government about policies
gulps the bitter pill- accepts the difficult news |
| Every body here knew a week ago that the traitors would be given up. Not because of any technical informalities in their arrest, but because it was infinitely better that we should endure a certain amount of humiliation at the hands of Great Britain than that we should jeopard the great cause of the Union by throwing the naval power of England into the rebel scale. | jeopard- jeopardize
into the rebel scale- in favor of the Confederacy |
| [A French] dispatch darkly hinting that France would be found on the side of Great Britain in the event of hostilities with [the United States], confirms the opinion we have had occasion to express more than once–that we have no real friends on the other side of the ocean… |
Analysis Questions
1. According to the article, why did the United States release the diplomats and allow them to reach Europe?
2. What did the French government imply its policy would be should the United States and Great Britain go to war?
3. How does the final sentence contrast with the letter from the Working-Men of Manchester? How does this reveal conflicting opinions on the war both from individuals as well as official government policy?
Background Information
Northern opinion on the conduct of the war was not unified in support of the Lincoln administration, especially so during the first two years when the Union appeared to be unable to defeat the Confederacy. Clement Laird Vallandigham was a member of the House of Representatives from Ohio until he lost his seat in the 1862 elections. As a lame duck representative about to leave office, Vallandigham gave the following speech criticizing the Lincoln administration for the war.
On the War and Its Conduct, 1863
| Text | Vocabulary and Context |
| And now, sir, I recur to the state of the Union to-day. What is it? Sir, twenty months have elapsed, but the rebellion is not crushed out; its military power has not been broken; the insurgents have not dispersed. The Union is not restored; nor the Constitution maintained; nor the laws enforced. | recur- return
insurgents- rebels |
| Twenty, sixty, ninety, three hundred, six hundred days have passed; a thousand millions been expended; and three hundred thousand lives lost or bodies mangled; and to-day the Confederate flag is still near the Potomac and the Ohio, and the Confederate Government stronger, many times, than at the beginning… You have not conquered the South. You never will. | expended- spent
the Confederate flag is still near the Potomac and the Ohio- the Confederacy is near the Potomac River, and the Ohio River, both geographic features of the Union. Vallandigham is arguing that there has been no progress in taking Southern territory. |
| But slavery is the cause of the war. Why? Because the South…refused to restrict or abolish it at the demand of the philosophers or fanatics and demagogues of the North and West. Then, sir, it was Abolition, the purpose to abolish or interfere with and hem in slavery, which caused disunion and war. Slavery is only the subject, but Abolition the cause of this civil war… | demagogues- a leader who gains support by appealing to emotions and irrationality of the people
hem in- prevent from spreading |
| Neither will I be stopped by that other cry…about the sin and barbarism of African slavery. Sir, I see more of barbarism and sin, a thousand times, in the continuance of this war, the dissolution of the Union, the breaking up of this Government, and the enslavement of the white race, by debt and taxes and arbitrary power. | barbarism- uncivilized and inhumane
arbitrary- unrestrained |
Reading Comprehension Questions:
1. What does Vallandigham argue was the cause of the Civil War?
2. What is Vallandigham’s stance on slavery? How would he likely have responded to the Emancipation Proclamation, which was released a few months prior to this speech?
3. What does it demonstrate about freedom of speech in the United States that a representative could give such an intense speech opposed to Lincoln during wartime?