GDG- Re: Defeat of AoP, Recognition by Britain

[Tom Ryan]

I agree with the first part of Britain recognizing the Confederacy if they
had won.  However, I think it is less clear that they would not have given
diplomatic recognition while the war was going on.  My reading is that the
groundswell for recognition was quite strong early on, and a couple more
solid victories may have turned the tide.  The sympathy of the British
leadership was with the South, but they need cover to provide recognition.
That cover conceivably would have been a victory during the Maryland
Campaign followed by Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville (if indeed the
later two would have been fought after a Union defeat at Antietam).

Tom Ryan


<<Britain would almost certainly, at least IMO, have recognized the
Confederacy had it been victorious in the war, and the US itself been forced
to accept the fact of disunion and recognize the former states as a now
independent country.  The British may have found the fact the Confederacy
was a slaveholding country distasteful, but, that would not in and of itself
have prevented diplomatic and trade relations.  And the US could hardly have
objected, if it had already been forced to recognize southern independence,
especially since Britian would certainly not have been the only country to
extend recognition.  But, the British were never going to risk its
diplomatic and trade relations with the US by recognizing the Confederacy as
long as hostilities existed.>>