One of Lincoln's military strategies was to blockade the South's ports and approximately of shoreline. At the start of the war, with only a few ships, this was all but impossible. By war's end, the Union had captured or destroyed 1500 blockade runners. But with nearly 5 out of 6 shops able to evade the blockade, Great Britain argued it was not recognized by international law as it was a "paper blockade." The Confederacy was able to ship only a small part of its main cash crop, cotton, to England during the war. Three years before the war the South had shipped 10 million bales of cotton a year. During the war they shipped a total of only 500,000 bales. But English manufacturers had stockpiled large quantities of Southern cotton from the huge exports before the war. What they had on hand carried them through most of the war.
In 1861, both the Confederacy and the Union wanted the help of Great Britain. The North counted on them because of their condemnation of slavery. The Confederacy counted on their help because of the great importance their cotton had to Britain's economy. So both sides had diplomatic relations with Great Britain. The South needed Britain's help to win the war. Also, without the aid of Britain, France would not dare interfere even though they were already friendly with the South. On May 4, 1861, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation declaring Britain's neutrality in the war and recognizing the Confederacy as a belligerent in the conflict. This enraged Lincoln. Seward, his Secretary of State, had already issued instructions to the new minister to Britain to quit and come home should the Queen recognize the Confederacy. France followed with a similar declaration which also recognized the CSA as a nation. Seward warned both nations of the possibility of war with the United States over this issue.
British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston sent a fleet of naval warships to the western Atlantic in preparation for a surprise attack on New York City. They intended to use the world's largest ship, the SS Great Eastern as a troop transport. They saw a strike against New York would be a strike against the U.S. center of commerce. But in the spring of 1862, the British learned of the Union ironclad warship, the USS Monitor. This cancelled any invasion plans. While the British Navy had ironclad warships, they required deep water to navigate. The Monitor and Northern ships like her could destroy British ships should they try to blockade Northern ports. Russia was also concerned the British and/or French might step in. During the summer of 1862, a coalition of nations considered stepping in to mediate the war. These included Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia. But in the fall of 1863, Tsar Alexander II of Russia sent his navy to protect the United States from any invasion by Great Britain and France. Their Baltic fleet began arriving in New York harbor on September 24, 1863. The Russian Far East fleet was sent to San Francisco.
For the remainder of the war, most European countries had little to gain by recognizing the Confederacy as a sovereign nation. Lincoln was diplomatic in his handling of two Confederates who had been arrested on the British ship the Trent. He ordered them both released. Crop failures in Europe made Union agricultural products popular. Egypt and India were able to supply the cotton that was formerly bought from the South before the war. The Union was also a good customer for small arms and other manufactured goods from Europe. However, dozens of blockade runners and warships were constructed for the Confederate Navy by English shipbuilders during the war.
In 1861, the American Civil war was the first modern total war. And in 1861, nobody in the United States knew how to fight one. Men could be enlisted and war goods could be manufactured, but generals took time to train. The general in chief of the army in 1861 was Winfield Scott, in charge of an army of only about 16,000 men. Scott was both old and old school (meaning he had no modern training). Quite a few officers had been trained at West Point, but at the time West Point taught engineering, mathematics and fortifications. It taught very little about strategy and nothing about leading large formations of soldiers in the field. None had learned anything about staff work or how to manage an army except those few who could read French or who had any military experience in Europe. One of the worst problems is that field commanders did not even have accurate maps of the areas they had to move and fight in. Except in the West, local maps did not exist for many parts of the country. Unlike Jefferson Davis, who did have military experience, Lincoln had almost none.
Lincoln faced a very steep learning curve when the war started. But Lincoln was a quick study. He had taught himself to be a lawyer. Learning military strategy proved to be something else he could do very well. He read books on strategy, military history and learned from the successes and failures of his troops in the field. He also learned from the enemy's military tactics. He learned so well that by 1862, historian T. Harry William said about him: "Lincoln stands out as a great war president, probably the greatest in our history, and a great natural strategist, a better one than any of his generals." Although there is no evidence he ever read Karl von Clausewitz's "On War", his actions followed the book's central argument: "The political objective is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and means can never be considered in isolation from their purpose. Therefore, it is clear that war should never be thought of as something autonomous but always as an instrument of policy."
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