Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/156

 148 REVIEWS OF BOOKS January and Davis were both anxious to obscure the true reason of the conflict : Lincoln, because he did not wish the border slave states, the northern democrats, and conservative republicans to get the idea that the war was waged for the destruction of slavery ; Davis, because he knew that the southerner's devotion to slavery, if allowed to appear in too strong a light, would stand in the way of the recognition of the confederate states by European powers, which he so ardently desired.' In his handling of the various diplomatic crises which occurred between the U.S.A. and Great Britain, the author's impartiality and moderation are especially conspicuous. ' Great Britain was abundantly justified for her recognition of the belligerent rights of the Confederate States.' In the line which they adopted over the Trent case, the British government ' abandoned the English precedent ' and ' adopted the hitherto American contention as more in accordance with the age of steam and conditions on the sea in the last half of the nineteenth century '. The two countries practically changed their ground in this dispute : as the American am- bassador, Adams, puts it, ' what provokes me most is that we should consent to take up and wear Great Britain's cast-off rags '. Mr. Khodes justly finds the British government guilty of * culpable negUgence ' in permitting the sailing of confederate privateers built in English ports, but observes that ' the fault was one of omission. The government, unlike the emperor of the French, was during the whole war innocent of any overt unfriendly act.' ' England indeed was the insurmountable obstacle to a recognition of the Southern Confederacy by France and other European nations.' The different phases through which public opinion in England passed are clearly indicated, and credit is given to Sir G. C. Lewis for his opposition within the cabinet to Russell's policy of mediation in conjunction with France. The successive waves of depression which swept over the north are carefully noted and analysed. Pope's defeat at the second Bull Run and McClellan's failure to follow up his Antietam victory caused the elections in the fall of 1862 to go unfavourably for the president. Six states, which had voted for him two years earUer, now declared against him. Burnside's failure at Fredericksburg led up to a cabinet crisis, and from Welles's diary the author gives a graphic picture of the way in which Lincoln baffled the malcontents and saved his secretary of state from being forced to resign. After Hooker's defeat at Chancellorsville it was seriously suggested by the Chicago Tribune in sheer despair that Lincoln should take the field in person as commander of the army of the Potomac. But Mr. Rhodes is careful to point out that ' the depression was different in kind and in measure from that which had prevailed on other occasions '. This he attributes to the general improvement in business and the belief that trade and manufactures were being helped by the war. It was in the summer of 1864, after the apparently useless carnage of Grant's battles round Rich- mond, that the despondency of the northerners reached its highest point. The nation had grown war-weaiy, conscription had not brought military success but only an inferior type of recruit, and Lincoln's re-election was in serious danger. But the successes of Sherman and Farragut, and still more of Sheridan in the Shenandoah valley, led to a reaction, and Lincoln's