Volume 6 Number 050 the Trent Affair – I Lead: in Early November 1861, a Diplomatic Incident Involving the United States A

Home , James Murray Mason, USS San Jacinto (1850)

Volume 6 Number 050

Lead: In early November 1861, a diplomatic incident involving the United States and Great Britain, brought the two near to the brink of war.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: The incident, known as “The Trent Affair,” began when a Union warship, U.S.S. San Jacinto, intercepted a British mail steamer, Trent, on route from Havana, Cuba to England. Aboard the Trent were two Confederate emissaries, from Virginia, James Murray Mason and from Louisiana, John Slidell. After slipping through the Union naval blockade on the Gulf coast, they made it to Cuba, where they boarded the British vessel Trent. Mason and Slidell were bound for England and France, respectively, seeking diplomatic support for the Confederacy.

On November 8, 1861, one day out of Havana, Captain Charles Wilkes of San Jacinto, acting without official orders, stopped the Trent in international waters, searched it, and seized the two Confederate envoys, who were subsequently taken to Boston and held as prisoners. The news of the Trent interdiction was celebrated in the North but caused outrage in Great Britain. Passions ran high on both sides of the Atlantic. The seizure of the two men on the high seas was viewed by the British as an insult their national sovereignty and a violation of international law. Britain demanded an apology and the immediate release of Mason and Slidell. In the North, Charles Wilkes, the captain of the Union warship, was regarded as a hero. Public opinion, frustrated by a string of military reverses, applauded his aggressive efforts. Lincoln, preoccupied with military matters, did not pay much attention until Senator Charles Sumner, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, returned to Washington in late November with news that Great Britain was poised for war. Ironically, the issue of search and seizure had led to the War of 1812 with the United States, insisting on the free passage of its ships. Next time: Mr. Lincoln’s dilemma.

At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

Resources

Chalfant, Edward. “A War So Near: Imagined Steamers in the Trent Affair,” Journal of Confederate History 6 (1990): 139-59.

Donald, David. Lincoln. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1995.

Goldsmith, Alistair. “Confederates on the Clyde,” History Today 18 (8, 1998): 45-50.

Leibiger, Stuart. ‘Lincoln’s “White Elephants”: The Trent Affair,’ Lincoln Herald 84 (2, 1982): 84-92.