Preferred Name
Johnathan Seitz
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Date of Graduation
5-8-2020
Semester of Graduation
Spring
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Department of History
Second Advisor
David Dillard
Third Advisor
John J. Butt
Abstract
Modern historical memory of the American Civil War is dominated by the domestic elements of the four-year conflict between the Union and Confederacy. The military figures, battles, and major political changes of 1861-1864 are central elements to public interpretation of the Civil War. But there is an additional dimension to the events of this period in American history, one that, outside of secondary scholarly research in the past century, remains distant from public knowledge. This research explores the nature of international reaction to the American Civil War, focusing on interaction between the combatants and the United Kingdom. The heart of Empire and the foremost world power in the mid-19th century, the British response to events across the Atlantic places domestic events of the war in greater context. The impact of the conflict was not limited to waves of domestic change. Though no foreign power officially entered the war on either side, its influence appeared in the social, political and economic issues of the 1860s. Generating periods of controversy and upheaval in Anglo-American relations, the Civil War, interpreted in this way, finds a place in the international affairs of the period. Exploring the development of this relationship, the research was conducted with a further purpose – for use in the creation of public web-based resource addressing the issues of this sphere of Civil War history. The product’s aim is to convey international contexts to the conflict, interpreting matters of diplomacy, public opinion, and lasting effects upon the U.S. and U.K.
