The American Civil war (England, general, European, France)

[noetsi]

There is a quote I can't find that goes something like this.

Johnny Reb raised cotton, Billy Yank raised corn, and between them they both raised hell.

Singularly enough, the one European country which showed a definite friendship for the Northern government was Czarist Russia. In the fall of 1863 two Russian fleets entered American waters, one in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific. They put into New York and San Francisco harbors and spent the winter there, and the average Northerner expressed both surprise and delight over the visit, assuming that the Russian Czar was taking this means of warning England and France that if they made war in support of the South, he would help the North. Since pure altruism is seldom or never visible in any country's foreign relations, the business was not quite that simple. Russia at the time was in some danger of getting into a war with England and France, for reasons totally unconnected with the Civil War in America; to avoid the risk of having his fleets icebound in Russian ports, the Czar simply had them winter in American harbors. If war should come, they would be admirably placed to raid British and French commerce. For many years most Americans believed that for some inexplicable reason of his own the Czar had sent the fleets simply to show his friendship for America.

lol

Europe and the American Civil War

[noetsi]

An amusing fact...

In January 1862 Karl Marx, London correspondent of the New York Daily Herald wrote that the "natural sympathy of the popular classes all over the world" might be expected to support the world's "only popular government" - the United States of America. (1)

Something forgotten during the Cold Wars I imagine.

American Civil War, Marx & Engels on the Civil War (http://www.americancivilwar.org.uk/news_marx-engels-on-the-civil-war_11.htm - broken link)

Many of the officers were very young in the civil war. Stuart died I believe before he was 30. Hood commanded a major army (the Army of TN) when he was 33. James Wilson commanded 17000 Union cavalry at the battle of nashville, by 28 he was a brevet major general - the highest rank in the Union Army other than that held by Grant. Remarkably he was an engineering officer as late as 1863 with Grant.

James H. Wilson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia