Great Britain and the American Civil War

Great Britain and the American
Civil War
by Ephraim
Douglass Adams

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Title: Great Britain and the American Civil War
Author: Ephraim Douglass Adams
Release Date: October 18, 2004 [EBook #13789]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: LORD JOHN RUSSELL (From Trevelyan's "Garibaldi
and the Making of Italy")]
EPHRAIM DOUGLASS ADAMS
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
TWO VOLUMES BOUND AS ONE

PREFACE
This work was begun many years ago. In 1908 I read in the British
Museum many newspapers and journals for the years 1860-1865, and
then planned a survey of English public opinion on the American Civil
War. In the succeeding years as a teacher at Stanford University,
California, the published diplomatic correspondence of Great Britain
and of the United States were studied in connection with instruction
given in the field of British-American relations. Several of my students
prepared excellent theses on special topics and these have been
acknowledged where used in this work. Many distractions and other
writing prevented the completion of my original plan; and fortunately,
for when in 1913 I had at last begun this work and had prepared three
chapters, a letter was received from the late Charles Francis Adams
inviting me to collaborate with him in preparing a "Life" of his father,
the Charles Francis Adams who was American Minister to Great
Britain during the Civil War. Mr. Adams had recently returned from
England where he had given at Oxford University a series of lectures
on the Civil War and had been so fortunate as to obtain copies, made
under the scholarly supervision of Mr. Worthington C. Ford, of a great
mass of correspondence from the Foreign Office files in the Public
Record Office and from the private papers in the possession of various
families.
The first half of the year 1914 was spent with Mr. Adams at
Washington and at South Lincoln, in preparing the "Life." Two

volumes were completed, the first by Mr. Adams carrying the story to
1848, the second by myself for the period 1848 to 1860. For the third
volume I analysed and organized the new materials obtained in
England and we were about to begin actual collaboration on the most
vital period of the "Life" when Mr. Adams died, and the work was
indefinitely suspended, probably wisely, since any completion of the
"Life" by me would have lacked that individual charm in historical
writing so markedly characteristic of all that Mr. Adams did. The
half-year spent with Mr. Adams was an inspiration and constitutes a
precious memory.
The Great War interrupted my own historical work, but in 1920 I
returned to the original plan of a work on "Great Britain and the
American Civil War" in the hope that the English materials obtained by
Mr. Adams might be made available to me. When copies were secured
by Mr. Adams in 1913 a restriction had been imposed by the Foreign
Office to the effect that while studied for information, citations and
quotations were not permissible since the general diplomatic archives
were not yet open to students beyond the year 1859. Through my friend
Sir Charles Lucas, the whole matter was again presented to the Foreign
Office, with an exact statement that the new request was in no way
related to the proposed "Life" of Charles Francis Adams, but was for
my own use of the materials. Lord Curzon, then Foreign Secretary,
graciously approved the request but with the usual condition that my
manuscript be submitted before publication to the Foreign Office. This
has now been done, and no single citation censored. Before this work
will have appeared the limitation hitherto imposed on diplomatic
correspondence will have been removed, and the date for open research
have been advanced beyond 1865, the end of the Civil War.
Similar explanations of my purpose and proposed work were made
through my friend Mr. Francis W. Hirst to the owners of various
private papers, and prompt approval given. In 1924 I came to England
for further study of some of these private papers. The Russell Papers,
transmitted to the Public Record Office in 1914 and there preserved,
were used through the courtesy of the Executors of the late Hon. Rollo
Russell, and with the hearty goodwill of Lady Agatha Russell, daughter

of the late Earl Russell, the only living