September, 1862

One hundred fifty years ago this month, America came perilously close to being divided into two countries, mutually antagonistic and liable to be used as pawns by the wily European powers. Most Americans today aren't aware of just how close the Confederate States of  America was to victory that month long ago.

To review a little, earlier in the summer of 1862, General Robert E. Lee and his newly renamed Army of Northern Virginia  relieved the city of Richmond from impending capture by Union forces commanded by George B. McClellan. Driven from the vicinity of the Confederate capital back to a base on the James River, McClellan dithered all through July and into August, repeatedly assuring President Lincoln that he would resume his  offensive soon.

It didn't happen. Frustrated almost beyond endurance by McClellan's inactivity, Lincoln and his administration put together a new army, the Army of Virginia, led by the bombastic and incompetent General John Pope. This worthy claimed he would not be satisfied to fight a kid gloves war, instead would bring the conflict to the civilian population of Virginia and boasted his army would not retreat in the face of the Confederates.

Infuriated by Pope, and confident that McClellan would do nothing, General Lee swung his army northward and defeated Pope at the Second Battle of Manassas, forcing the Yankees back into the forts around Washington D.C. Pope was disgraced, was relieved and sent to Minnesota to fight the Sioux, and McClellan, who had finally evacuated his camps on the James, was placed in command of all the United States troops around the capital.

Lee had accomplished his first great objective, clearing almost all of Virginia of Union soldiers. He now set out to shock the north into making peace. On September 3, southern troops began  crossing the Potomac River into Maryland. His idea was to win a battle in the north which would panic the population so badly that Lincoln would have no choice but to make a deal establishing Confederate independence.

Probably everyone remembers enough high school history to know what happened next. Advancing slowly, as was his habit, General McClellan found the southern army at Sharpsburg, just along the banks of Antietam Creek. With better than a two-to-one numerical advantage, "Little Mac" launched a series of uncoordinated attacks on Lee's forces that nearly broke through the southern lines, but failed at the last minute, and left the Confederate forces in place as the sun set. Two days later, having stood off the Yankees, but without a victory to show for all their trouble, Lee's army retreated to Virginia, unmolested by George B. McClellan.

Soon afterwards, President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, changing the war from a political struggle to a moral crusade.

The Civil War was of greatest importance to the Americans themselves, but both the British and French governments were interested spectators. The two European powers were industrialized to a greater or lesser extent by 1862, and a substantial part of their industry was textiles. It was, I suppose, a stroke of luck for the north that the southern cotton harvest of  1860 had been the largest ever, over five million bales, and most of that had been exported to Britain and France. In short, their warehouses were jammed to the rafters with raw cotton when secession came.

But by the summer of 1862, all that cotton had been spun and woven into clothing, and there wasn't any more coming from America. Yankee ships blockaded southern ports and the Confederate government had embargoed cotton in any case, trying to compel English and French recognition.

Smart businessmen know to diversify their sources of supply, and cotton was being grown in both Egypt and India, but there was still a shortfall during the summer of 1862. Mills shut down, unemployment rose, and along with joblessness, the danger of hunger riots increased. The one thing that scared the pants off the British ruling classes was the threat of mass riots.

A vote to recognize the Confederacy failed in the House of Commons in mid-July, just before word of Lee's initial triumphs against McClellan reached London. The House adjourned at the end of the month for the summer without taking another vote. The Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, and his cabinet also left town for their country estates. (It is remarkable that the British government in the middle of the nineteenth century was still pretty much a part-time affair.) They would  reconvene at the beginning  of October, after the harvest.

Before leaving London, however, the Foreign Minister, Lord Russell, wrote a note to Palmerston, suggesting the time to intervene in the American conflict had nearly come. Intervention would take the form of a message to both sides asking for an armistice and a peace conference. The French emperor, Napoleon III, would join in the message. The southern president, Jefferson Davis, would surely agree, leaving the Lincoln government with the impossible choice of effectively recognizing the Confederacy, or going to war against Britain and France.

Now perhaps we can see how history teetered back and forth between two very different outcomes that September. If Lee had not invaded Maryland, or had defeated McClellan there, the world would be far different in 2012. If President Lincoln had not issued the Emancipation  Proclamation, the European powers still might have intervened, but as the war aims of the north changed, so did public opinion, especially in England where anti-slavery feeling was strong and deep in the population.

Next post, perhaps we can speculate a little about what might have happened if there had been a Confederate States of America.