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Tales of Heroism, Tales of Terror: the British in the American Civil War |
The acclaimed author of the international bestseller Georgiana has now, in A World on Fire, looked at the remarkable story of the involvement of the British in the American Civil War: both sides wanted British support, British volunteers fought on both sides; Britain armed the fighters. She tells a remarkable story – including one with a Bristol connection. Antonia Fraser called this ‘an iridescent book; vivid like a rainbow but rather more substantial…like Gone With The Wind but with the true history inserted…Anger, resentment, sympathy, loyalty, all the emotions that characterise Anglo-American relations today, can be traced back to this period.’
Amanda Foreman is the award-winning historian and internationally best-selling author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire: an Epic History of Two Nations Divided. She is also the recipient of the 1998 Whitbread Award for Biography. www.amanda-foreman.com
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June 4th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
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June 7th, 2011 at 2:21 pm
Amanda Foreman wove a fascinating tale of Brits involved in the American Civil War, starring a colourful cast of characters that included a pioneering female doctor, a sensitive upper class soldier and a Scottish designer of dud torpedos.
Within minutes we were immersed in a breathless account which encompassed the romantic pursuit of Southern Belles, the hi-jacking of ships, a prison escape down a sewage pipe during a thunderstorm, and a further escape involving a saw in an apple pie – clearly the US equivalent of a file in a cake.
Henry Morton Stanley (a man who later “bullied his way through Central Africa” according to historian Bernard Porter) managed to make an appearance, showing us an early glimpse of his principles by managing to fight for (and desert from!) both sides.
However, the event was not totally dominated by tales of derring-do. Foreman also provided fascinating background as to why the South won the propaganda battle, not only in Great Britain but throughout the rest of Europe.
The North, by not deploying the anti-slavery message until relatively late in the day, managed to cast themselves as empire builders standing in the way of Southern “freedom”. Furthermore, expelling a British reporter for being too objective further damaged their cause with the British press. The famous “Trent Incident” couldn’t have exactly raised their standing here either.
The South were aided by some master propagandists – even Gladstone was temporarily won over and later had to make a fairly grovelling apology.
Between them, a wily South and a ham-fisted North managed to unite British opinion – cotton workers (naturally), Fleet Street, the Church, theatreland, the Universities and “the moral high ground people” were all whistling Dixie.
Finally, Foreman suggested that even today we have a tendency to be “blinded by freedom causes”. Are we being moral or merely fashionable? Foreman refrained from giving specific examples, which was a shame as it would have been interesting to see where her brief foray into controversial contemporary discourse might have led.
No-one – including myself – thought to get her to expand on this in the question and answer session. I suspect we were all still trying to get over the image of prisoners drowning in a sewage pipe.