Trent Affair Facts
Trent Affair Facts
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Interesting Trent Affair Facts: |
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The United States Secretary of State, William H. Seward, through his ambassadors, made it clear to Britain and the other European powers that the American Civil War was an insurrection and any recognition of the CSA would be met with repercussions. |
The Confederacy opened informal negotiations with British Foreign Secretary John Russell in the spring of 1861. |
Mason and Slidell secretly left from the blockaded Charleston on October 12 and headed south to Havana, Cuba where they then boarded the British ship the RMS Trent. |
Mason was to got to London, while Slidell was ordered to Paris to argue the Confederate cause. |
The captain of the San Jacinto was Charles Wilkes. |
Prior the Trent Affair, Wilkes violated British neutrality by blockading Bermuda. |
The Trent left Cuba on November 7, but was captured by the San Jacinto the next day in the Bahamas. |
Wilkes violated international law by failing to bring the Trent into port to be examined before a neutral court. |
Public reaction in the northern states to the capture of the Trent was immediately positive, but the stock market went into a sharp decline over fears of war with Great Britain. There was also a run on the banks. |
Most of the Union Army's saltpeter, which is the principal ingredient of gunpowder, was acquired from India, which was a British colony, further complicating the matter. |
The British public were angered by Wilkes' actions, but leaders in England indicated that they would be open to a deal. |
During a Christmas Day meeting, Lincoln and his cabinet decided that they had to let Slidell and Mason go. |
President Lincoln never issued a formal apology over the affair. |
Slidell spent his later years in France and England while Mason lived in Canada before dying in his native Virginia. |
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