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The Trent Affair: A Diplomatic Crisis

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With The Trent Affair Norman Ferris set out to explain why the seizure of Confederate envoys James Mason and John Slidell from the deck of a British steamer in 1861 nearly brought trans-Atlantic war. Ferris posits that but for the existence of "a strong barrier of misunderstanding between the political leaders of the two English-speaking nations" the Trent affair would have been a minor incident and not the crisis it became. (vii) Unfortunately, the text of this work and its stated thesis are not a precise match.
Ferris refers to a mutual misunderstanding between the political leaders (plural) of the two nations, yet the body of the book supports that there was an ardent distrust by the British for only one American leader: Secretary of State William H. Seward. The use of the word "misunderstanding" suggests that the British were not justified in their suspicion of Seward, but the evidence presented shows that English fears were entirely reasonable. Seward's long held desire to annex Canada, along with his espousal of the "foreign war panacea" theory, certainly gave London good reason to believe that Captain Wilkes acted with the knowledge and approval of his superiors as part of a plan calculated to provoke war. From the British perspective the ongoing American Civil War only gave impetus for a U.S. annexation of Canada- the addition of British holdings in North America would certainly help ameliorate what many believed was the impending loss of the South. While it is technically correct that London misunderstood American intentions, the following would have been a more accurate thesis: What should have been a minor maritime incident nearly provoked British intervention in the Civil War because the American government- Secretary of State William H. Seward in particular- gave London good reason to believe that the arrest of Mason and Slidell was a deliberate effort to precipitate a third Anglo- American War.
When writing a historical work there is the question of focus: a span of hundreds of years can be covered in the same number of pages as a few months depending on the depth of detail presented. Usually the writer of history learns in the course of research several times more about his topic than will ever make it into his text; he is then faced with the task of rendering what he has learned into a cogent narrative. The Trent Affair leaves the impression that Ferris included everything he learned about this incident- the book is rife with minutia! Although it was an event of much historical importance, the Trent affair did not warrant a full-length monograph. This episode would be better presented as only part of a larger work about foreign relations during the Civil War era.
The Trent Affair is obviously the result of meticulous research. Ferris cited many primary sources; he doubtless attempted to consult every relevant document. Farris cannot be faulted for his research, but the product of this research (his writing) is worthy of severe criticism. It could be said that Farris did not so much write The Trent Affair as that he assembled it- most of the book is simply a series of quotations woven together! Hardly a paragraph in the entire work is free of quotation marks, and block quotations appear on perhaps half its pages. Farris' inability or unwillingness to paraphrase made reading this book tedious in the extreme. In this way The Trent Affair is more akin to a reference work rather than historical narrative.
To his credit the author presents several important elements of the Trent story that are usually neglected in most accounts. According to Ferris, the U.S. dependence on saltpeter (a necessary element in the manufacture of gunpowder) imported from the British Empire was a significant factor in causing the peaceful resolution of the crisis. Ferris shows that the press in both countries was at first an inflammatory influence, but as time went on journalistic opinion moderated, and was not as important a factor in the crisis as some historians contend.
An overly strict adherence to just proving a thesis caused this author to neglect some elements of the Trent story. In one brief passage Farris suggests that Wilkes may have deliberately attempted to provoke war because of the captain's own belief in a "foreign war panacea," but the writer does nothing to peruse this important line of inquiry. The decision making process in the British government was extensively chronicled; while events in Washington and Richmond were given comparatively little attention. Most striking is the total lack of attention to the reaction of the Confederate government to the illegal capture of their agents. Also, the book ended abruptly with the release of Slidell and Mason-- there was nothing about the activities of the two Confederates once they finally did reach Europe.

Two minor problems for which this book can be criticized involve the way sources are cited and a lack of illustrations. Like many newer books The Trent Affair uses the end note system of citations- the good ole footnote system is so much more convenient to the reader. Many so-called "scholarly" books seem to avoid using illustrations- they are so afraid of not being taken SERIOUSLY. Many of the classic old works of history (such as Battles and Leaders of the Civil War) make extensive use of drawings and photographs which add greatly to their effectiveness. Farris writes of numerous ships: drawings and statistical data on the vessels would have been interesting
The Trent Affair would be of no interest to the average reader; its audience is strictly academia- it is likely to be listed in the bibliographies of many subsequent books. Students who select this slim volume for the subject of a review will learn the folly of believing there is correlation between the thickness of a book and the ease with which it may be read. Because of his impressive research Norman B. Farris' The Trent Affair: A Diplomatic Crisis is likely to remain the standard work on this topic, but the need for an entire book on this one episode is dubious.