Our Man in Charleston: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South

by Christopher Dickey

Between the Confederacy and recognition by Great Britain stood one unlikely Englishman who hated the slave trade. His actions helped determine the fate of a nation.

As the United States threatened to break into civil war, the Southern states found themselves in an impossible position: Their economic survival would require reopening the slave trade, banned in America since 1807, but the future of the Confederacy could not be secured without official recognition from Great Britain, which would never countenance such a move. How, then, could the first be achieved without dooming the possibility of the second? Believing their cotton monopoly would provide sufficient leverage, the Southerners publically declared the slave trade dead, even as rapacious traders quickly landed more and more ships on the American coast.

The unlikely man at the roiling center of this intrigue was Robert Bunch, the ambitious young British consul in Charleston, S.C. As he soured on the self-righteousness of his slave-loving neighbors, Bunch used his unique perch to thwart their plans, sending reams of damning dispatches to the Foreign Office in London and eventually becoming the Crown's best secret source on the Confederacy—even as he convinced those neighbors that he was one of them.

In this masterfully told story, Christopher Dickey introduces Consul Bunch as a key figure in the pitched battle between those who wished to reopen the floodgates of bondage and misery, and those who wished to dam the tide forever. Featuring a remarkable cast of diplomats, journalists, senators, and spies, Our Man in Charleston captures the intricate, intense relationship between great powers as one stood on the brink of war




From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Civil War, American History, Biography, Espionage, American Civil War

388 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 2015

About the author

Christopher Dickey is a war correspondent, historian, and thriller writer, an authority on terrorism, and a memoirist. He is the Paris-based foreign editor of The Daily Beast, and is a contributor to NBC/MSNBC News. Chris also has been a frequent commentator on CNN, the BBC, and NPR. He was formerly a bureau chief for Newsweek in Paris and Cairo, and for The Washington Post in Central America and the Middle East.

Reviews

[Vicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of Robert Bunch, the British government's consul in Charleston before the start of the civil war. I have never read such chilling accounts of the slave industry as I did in this book. To know that even after it had been banned in the south a ship was confiscated and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was carrying what was left of four hundred plus Africans to America, it was treated as a nonoccurrence. That the ship owners were let go by the leaders of the legal system in Charleston shines a different light on what we in the south were told about slavery and Northern aggression.

Bunch was in the thick of things in Charleston and he saw things that many were not able to see. He sent dispatches back to England allowing them to have inside knowledge of the slave mentality of the south. Written in an easy to understand manner, I was pulled into the history of the prewar south. I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
An excellent read that encapsulates the real reasons behind that war and why England was so staunchly anti confederacy.

[Madelyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This will be a "mini review" - short and to the point. While I would love to expound, we'll save that for a later date, and books I'm more prone to recommended.

I ordered this novel without researching it or reading any reviews. It was a bestseller, the description was intriguing, that was enough.  I should have expected it, really. I think I wanted to deceive myself that maybe just maybe​ there was some hope a clean, secular, civil war book existed. And maybe that book would be this one. In that moment, I was an idealist. Since then, I've come to realize that there simply is not going to be bestselling civil war book that's clean or doesn't resort to racy scenes to spice up the story.

Being straightforward, in the introduction alone there were curse words spattered all over the page. I'm not talking about "the n-word," surprisingly. Needless to say, I didn't get very far into the book before stopping.

​I loaned this book to a friend (not to worry - she was given fair warning), and as far as she could tell (she skimmed the latter portion) there was no other content aside from slight violence and cursing. If you have no issues with that, or can pass it along for someone else to black out the words/scenes, I'm sure you'll enjoy this book for the beautiful work that it is.

​Well, that wraps this one up. Sorry I couldn't bring a positive review! This Christmas, however, will be filled with book tours, author interviews, and countless exciting reading recommendations while you're off of work and school.  Stick around!

​*disclaimer: I received a paper copy of this book from Blogging For Books. All opinions expressed are entirely my own, and I was not under obligation to write a positive review.*

FULL REVIEW HERE: http://literarycafe.weebly.com/home/m...

[Tom Mathews · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure that this book will rate as highly with fiction readers as it does with me and other lovers of anything related to the American Civil War. For one thing, it’s title is disingenuous as the subject of the book, Robert Bunch, lived and worked quite openly as Her Majesty’s royal consul in Charleston, South Carolina for the decade leading up to that state’s secession from the union. He didn’t wear a tuxedo or play baccarat while drinking vodka martinis (shaken, not stirred), and he did not, or at least the book doesn’t tell of, frequently bed beautiful enemy agents. If he did anything in secret it was to assiduously hide from his hosts how passionately he detested slavery and anyone who actively defended that ‘peculiar institution’ that lay at the heart of the South’s agrarian economy. If he was to accomplish anything in his position he had to keep a smile on his face and convince everyone with any influence that he was, if not in agreement with their views, at least not opposed to them.

What he did do was perform his job diligently, keeping his government apprised of all that was happening in Charleston, the hotbed of the secessionist movement, and defending the rights of British subjects, including black ones, who had fallen afoul of South Carolina laws. One such law, the first Negro Seaman Act (1822), ordered county sheriffs to arrest and detain all black seamen, regardless of nationality, until their ships were ready to leave harbor. The ships’ captains would then be charged the cost of incarceration. In the event that a ship’s captain could not or would not pay the required amount, he could be fined and imprisoned while the black sailors aboard his vessel would be “deemed and taken as absolute slaves, and sold.”

Once the war broke out his job became vastly more complicated. How does one interact with a state that believes it is independent of the country that you have diplomatic relations with when that government denies that the schism has taken place yet at the same time is blockading the port of what it claims to be one of its own cities? Bunch’s greatest coup was a plan of hers that essentially tricked both sides of the conflict into agreeing to the provisions of a multinational treaty that neither side had signed.

I particularly enjoyed this book because it provided a solid understanding of Great Britain’s role in the American Civil War and its negotiations with both sides. It also provided a semi-neutral ringside view of life in Charleston during the days leading up to the war.

Dickey’s book also included a special treat in a story that I had not previously heard. My family is currently watching the PBS series ‘Victoria’ and have become fascinated with the character of Prince Albert. It turns out that one of the royal consort’s final official acts was to save the Union. When the American ship San Jacinto stopped the British steamer Trent at sea and seized two Confederate diplomates. This so enraged the English government that they prepared an ultimatum so harsh and inflexible that, had it been sent, the result would almost certainly have been war between the United States and England, thereby all but guaranteeing a successful conclusion to the South’s secession. Fortunately, the crown had the authority to review any such diplomatic correspondence and Albert, with his strong appreciation of human rights, realized that the result of such a letter would almost certainly be ‘the continuation of slavery for generations to come’ and ordered that the language be softened, allowing President Lincoln to claim that the San Vincente’s captain acted independently. This Lincoln did and war was averted. When Albert reviewed the letter, he was suffering from the first symptoms of the cholera that would claim his life a few days later.

Bottom line: I really enjoyed this book. It provided a lot of valuable background information that increased my understanding of the times and the people who lived them. Quotations are cited from an advanced reading copy and may not be the same as appears in the final published edition. The review was based on an advanced reading copy obtained at no cost from the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review. While this does take any ‘not worth what I paid for it’ statements out of my review, it otherwise has no impact on the content of my review.

FYI: On a 5-point scale I assign stars based on my assessment of what the book needs in the way of improvements:
*5 Stars – Nothing at all. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
*4 Stars – It could stand for a few tweaks here and there but it’s pretty good as it is.
*3 Stars – A solid C grade. Some serious rewriting would be needed in order for this book to be considered great or memorable.
*2 Stars – This book needs a lot of work. A good start would be to change the plot, the character development, the writing style and the ending.
*1 Star - The only thing that would improve this book is a good bonfire.

[Donna Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most fascinating book I’ve read in a long time! Equal parts biography and American Civil War nonfiction, it details the experiences of Britain’s foremost spy, Robert Bunch, who was living in Charleston, South Carolina when the Civil War began and for its duration. I am truly grateful to Crown Publishers and Net Galley for permitting me to read the DRC in advance.

I was riveted almost from the get-go. At first I had the bizarre notion that a British view of the Southern Rebellion would be objective. If I’d thought harder, I would have realized that isn’t true; Britain had a tremendous amount of interest in the outcome of this fight. But its interest was completely different from either the Union’s or that of the Confederacy. There were a couple of horrifying instances in which it might have chosen to recognize the Confederacy, but those moments quickly passed.

Even before war broke out, tension had been quietly mounting over the treatment of British seamen that landed in Charleston. On one occasion a single Black sailor had instigated a relatively small uprising on a plantation, and this act—the most fearful nightmare of the Southern ruling class, self-styled aristocrats who lived as a tiny minority among an enormous number of Black laborers who had every reason to hate them—gave birth to the Negro Seaman Act. The law stipulated that any Black sailors from another country that worked on board a ship that docked in Charleston, must be kept in jail until it was time to leave again. This was the stuff of which international incidents were born. Britain would attempt to solve the problem through Washington, D.C., only to find that Charleston had already begun to flout Federal law and that the nation’s promises were not kept. Eventually, a quiet negotiation began with Charleston authorities. When they continued to behave badly, Britain had little recourse, since it did not want it known in Washington that they had been dealing with the government of South Carolina as if it were sovereign. This probably also fed the delusions of Southern grandeur and may have encouraged them to believe they did not need the national government at all.

Robert Bunch was originally stationed in the north, but found himself in Charleston more and more often. His habit, as Britain’s agent, had been to head north during the unbearably humid, tropical summers of the deep South, but as events polarized the nation and northerners were no longer welcome, his own position became more and more tenuous. His job was to send reports to Britain, but whenever he went in public, as he had to do a great deal in order to pick up information, he was questioned increasingly closely about Britain’s view of the Confederacy. Which side would Britain take? Was he a spy? (Gracious, no!) Maybe, were he on the side of the Union, he should be locked up! (Please, please no!) He would have preferred, at one point, to go north and stay there, but his orders were to stay put, so that’s what he did.

In order to maintain his role and save his own neck, his behavior became increasingly misleading. The dispatches he sent to England were so adamantly opposed to recognition of the Confederacy that he was reproached a time or two for trying to make policy when his job was simply to provide information. However, when he was asked by local folk whether surely, Britain would soon recognize the Confederacy, and wouldn’t he encourage this, he gave misleading smiles, made ambiguous remarks, and agreed that of course he would be happy to slip the British nanny’s letter home in his diplomatic pouch so that it could reach the U.S. mail from which they were otherwise cut off.

He became so convincing in his subterfuge that at one point, he was nearly brought up on charges of treason against Britain. U.S. Secretary of State Seward, a difficult, punctilious man, had a number of bones to pick with Britain, and at one point tried to foment war with them, convinced that if it broke out, the South would drop their ridiculous posturing and rush to defend the red, white and blue. Lincoln felt differently, however, and made it clear to Seward and to Britain that he was only interested in fighting one war at a time. To save face, Seward latched onto Bunch’s dismissal as the single demand he would press. Surely, in order to avoid international tension, Britain wouldn’t mind hanging one of their lowly agents out to dry? Send the boy home and there’s an end to it. Get him gone.

Lord Palmerston, a man with power disproportionate to most in his position, had eclectic tendencies, and was having no part of firing Bunch. He liked the guy, and wasn’t really interested in being shoved around by the former colonies of Britain. If the US of A had to have its capitol torched a second time to get the point as to whose navy was better? Fine. Hopefully not, but Bunch was staying. And that is how it was.

There are two things that popped out at me in reading this compelling work. My vantage point, for those who haven’t read my reviews before, is that of a former history teacher. It was my job to teach teenagers about the American Civil War, or as much as teens can learn in ten weeks at one hour a go. It was by far my favorite quarter of the school year, but I was so overwhelmed with work and meetings that I didn’t have a lot of time to read in my field. I could use my six weeks off in the summer to read whatever I chose, if I wanted to, and that was about it. So although I could have used this information back then, it is nevertheless satisfying to have one nagging question answered, however belatedly.

My question, and my students’ question sometimes, was if Europe was able to rid itself of slavery by the government’s buying slaves from slave owners, why didn’t that work in the USA? And the only response I had—one provided by reading James McPherson and a Marxist historian named George Novack—was that they refused. They just wouldn’t do it.

But why? Surely it was obvious they were living in a feudal economy that the rest of the industrializing nations had abandoned. Surely they had to know they could not freeze history. Why cling to it beyond all reason?

Questions related to war are always rooted in economics, and so to simply say they were irrational, which is more or less my answer apart from I-don’t-know, felt incomplete. A number of other historians gave that reason, but it felt like a puzzle piece forced into the wrong hole. And Dickey provided me with the missing piece. Although I had read vague things about speculation in slaves and that uniquely American, horrific practice, slave breeding, which brought us international shame before all was said and done, I didn’t recognize the link between speculation and the tiny handful of wealthy plantation owners that made the choice to go to war rather than let it go.

Those that have followed the financial news in the USA and many other nations over the past decade are aware that a lot of home owners are losing their houses when they can’t pay mortgages, especially balloon mortgages, and more dreadful still is the fact that they are “under water”, meaning that after the bank takes the house back, or it is sold, they will still owe payments on it. They’ve borrowed more against it than it is worth, and only bankruptcy will solve their problem. When they lose that house, they lose everything.

And so it was with a large number of plantation owners. They had borrowed against their slaves. That was where their equity was: in human capital. If they allowed the government to buy their slaves at their current market value, they would become bankrupt, and having gained their social standing on nothing more than wealth and pale pigmentation, they would be ruined socially and financially. As long as there was any other choice, they would take it. They would send their own sons to die for it, though generally they chose to pay someone else to go in their own places.

They were underwater.

Britain’s perspective at the outset was that if one side had slaves and the other did not, then of course they would not recognize the upstart nation. When the border states were permitted to keep their slaves, it was still considered wiser to back the winning horse in any race, and so unless it appeared the Confederacy was about to win the war and gain international status as an independent nation anyway, there was nothing to be gained by antagonizing Lincoln’s administration.

I had wondered, in past years, whether Britain might not have yearned for the South to become independent. If one looks at a map of the USA as it was then, and the size of British possession of Canada, if it also dominated the Southern USA economically, and if it had a navy in the Atlantic that could pound the coastline, could it not overturn the American revolution? That slice of the Union is small compared to Canada, when the Confederate states are added in like the bottom bun of a hamburger. How delicious!

Not so, says Dickey. Britain had other fish to fry. It had been absorbed in fighting the Crimean War, and at the time, events in Europe were considered vastly more important than our own emerging outpost. It might be nice to have, but they didn’t need it badly enough to weigh in with the slaveocracy. The South had been so smugly sure that Britain needed their cotton for its mills, but in fact, they had planned well against such an eventuality, and had over a year’s worth of cotton socked away in storage. To the impertinent Southern men and women that sashayed up to their representatives to announce that Britain would simply have to recognize them, the response was generally somewhat courteous, muted, non-committal. If pressed, they suggested that cotton could indeed be grown in India. No worries.

And here I am three pages later according to Microsoft, and I have really only skimmed the surface. Think if I’d had my notes available! Believe me when I say I have just scratched the surface. I had so many delicious quotes, and now you’ll have to go ferret them out for yourself!

This magnificent book comes out July 21, 2015. For once I can tell you that whether or not you are conversant with the finer details of the American Civil War, you will be able to read this with no trouble. A knowledge of the broad contours of the war will make it more satisfying, but not strictly necessary. Those who enjoy history in general, or biographies in general, will likewise find it a must-read.

You have to get this book!

[John Vibber · Rating 5 out of 5]

When somebody tells you tells you that "the war of northern aggression" was a fight for Southern rights and not slavery; this is the book to prove them wrong. It's an outstanding addition to Civil War history.

[Betsy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another book that I would like to rate 3.5 stars. Much of it is excellent. It describes the horrors of life in antebellum Charleston, at least for the slave population, while contrasting the lives of the white population, who saw themselves as almost doing their slaves a 'favor'.

This is a book about diplomacy and politics in a world on the brink of war and madness. It focuses on Robert Bunch, an ambitious but dedicated consul for the British government. It is Bunch's duty to report to those at home about the situation in Charleston. He is adamantly anti-slavery and the slave trade, but to get close to those in power he has to pretend to be sympathetic to their cause, a decepton, which is fraught with peril from the southerners, and ironically from the North as well after war is declared.

The sheer arrogance of those in Charleston, who believed that Britain's need for cotton would trump their hatred of the slave trade, is told in the letters and dispatches sent by Bunch in the period of 1853-1863. His mission concerning the Negro Seamen's Act and the slave trade, which takes up most of the book, soon makes it obvious that there was only one answer--war. More than once Bunch asserts that the South is making a grave mistake in allowing their 'peculiar institution' to blind them to the destructive consequences of their actions.

After the war starts, the Bunch story takes a backseat to the world stage, especially after Secretary of State Seward takes it into his head to deny Bunch many of the credentials he needs to do his job. As a result, he finally gets away from Charleston in 1863. He had served Britain--and the Union well.

This is different from the usual Civil War books that I read about battles and campaigns, but I learned a great deal about this tragic time. We should all be grateful that the institution of slavery was destroyed, however, many of its darker aspects still linger even after 150 years.

[Chrisl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes, when I see comments about The South and it's profusion of complexities, this book comes to mind.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subtitle of Christopher Dickey’s book is misleading in two respects. While the label of “secret agent” may invoke images of a Victorian-era James Bond killing the Queen’s enemies with a silenced derringer, as the British consul in Charleston Robert Bunch was in fact a very public figure. And though he was stationed there when Confederate guns opened fire on Fort Sumter in 1861, this was at the tail end of his long tenure in the post, and diminishes his important achievements prior to then.

Yet if such hyperbole sells books then it’s all for the better, as Dickey tells a remarkable tale within its pages. During the decade he spent in Charleston Bunch was a diligent representative of Her Majesty’s interests in the city. Consuls during this period performed a variety of diplomatic and administrative functions, and Bunch spent much of his time notarizing documents, issuing passports, monitoring commerce, and representing the interests of British subjects who fell afoul of the local authorities. In an era before mass information and instant communications, Bunch also served as the Crown’s eyes and ears in the city. As the official representative of the world’s foremost global power Bunch was often invited to social events, where he mixed with the cream of Charleston society. From these encounters he would assess public opinion, pick up tidbits of gossip, and learn relevant details that he wrote up and sent in dispatches to his superiors in London.

These encounters required a mix of charm, tact, and discretion. And it was a testament to just how good Bunch was at his job that when he left Charleston for the last time in February 1863 it was claimed by one ardent secessionist in his newspaper that the British government had withdrawn him at the behest of the United States government because of his fairness to the Confederacy. What the writer never realized was that underneath Bunch’s diplomatic surface lay a passionate loathing for slavery. In this he was hardly unique, as his predecessor in the post, George Buckley-Mathew, made his opposition to the enslavement of people clear in his denunciations of it in formal diplomatic exchanges. Such morally indignant outbursts make have helped him to cope with his posting, but they limited his effectiveness.

As Dickey notes, Bunch lacked the status and connections Buckley-Mathew possessed that allowed him to fail in his post without consequence. For the son of an English gunrunner, a career in the Foreign Service was a job rather than a duty, and Bunch worked hard to succeed. While his appointment to Charleston was full of pitfalls, success would advance his career considerably. So Bunch put on a polite façade and vented his true feelings in the dispatches he sent to his superiors in Washington and London. As a result, slaveowners regarded Bunch as a friend rather than an enemy, which proved very beneficial in achieving his goals.

Foremost among them was the amending of South Carolina’s Negro Seaman law. The product of Denmark Vesey’s failed uprising, it required free Black sailors to be confined in jail while their ships were docked in Charleston. Though such a law was an unconstitutional violation of a treaty between Britain and the United States, the federal government did nothing to prevent its enforcement. Bunch worked tirelessly behind the scenes to have the law changed, finally succeeding in his efforts in 1856. Whatever satisfaction he could take from this, however, was offset by the budding interest in reinstating the international slave trade, one that the British government had gone to considerable lengths to suppress. Such were his criticisms of their efforts in his dispatches that, had they read them, any illusions his Charleston friends held about his views would have been shattered instantly.

Dickey argues that these missives played a key role in denying the Confederacy diplomatic recognition during the war. While there was a considerable degree of support for the Confederacy in British society, this was more than offset by the loathing for the slave trade. Though the Confederate constitution ostensibly banned it, Bunch was among those who observed that there were no means of preventing individual states from reopening it on their own. Dickey underscores this point by recounting a dinner between the Confederate representative in London, James Mason, and the earl of Donoughmore, a prominent Tory politician. Despite being judged by Mason as favorable to his cause, the earl made it clear in their conversation that any agreement between Great Britain and the Confederacy would have to include an unconditional ban on the slave trade, something to which the Confederates were unlikely to agree.

It is impossible to say exactly how much credit Bunch deserves for fostering this opposition, and Dickey does not claim that his was the only voice speaking out against recognizing the Confederacy. Yet he makes a convincing case for Bunch’s opposition to slavery and his efforts to deny the South the support they sought. Though Dickey concludes his narrative with the end of his subject’s service in Charleston, it is not difficult to imagine by the end of his book that Bunch must have viewed the demise of slavery in 1865 with considerable satisfaction. While his efforts were just those of one person among hundreds of thousands of others, Dickey shows how they played a notable role in bringing about the demise of the slaveocracy he detested. It’s a story that Dickey brings to life in a work that gives due attention to an unfairly marginalized figure, and one that is of interest to anyone interested in the Civil War and the question of Confederate recognition.

[Curt Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Via Goodreads First Reads:

I like to consider myself a Civil War history buff, but even I, on occasion, find a book or article on an event or situation that is so granular in its focus that I find it gives me tunnel vision, and I zotz out for entire paragraphs at a time. And I will tell you that for just over half of this book, I feared I had found another such a missive. But then things picked up, and what came forth made every bit of earlier labor well worth it.

This is, on the surface, the tale of Robert Bunch, a British consul stationed in Charleston, SC, for a decade or so before and then during the early part of the Civil War. His initial significance was in using his local influence to try to amend the Negro Seaman act that allowed authorities to temporarily imprison free blacks traveling into the city's port, until the ship departed, though not without the occasional illegitimate sale of said black persons. Nut it wasn't long before his bonhomie and comfort in dealing with local pro-slavery folks made him a source of inside information for the Crown.

Keep in mind, England had a great deal of stock in what took place in the soon-to-be Confederacy. They needed the cotton to keep mills in Liverpool and Manchester working, so the British economy was quite tied in with American politics. And after Lincoln was elected, and the southern states decided on secession, those states were not shy about using King Cotton as leverage in trying to obtain official recognition from the Crown. Of course, meanwhile in the North, William Seward was threatening war for any such recognition. So it was a very precarious see-saw.

And Bunch was on the middle of that see-saw. Virulently anti-slave and disgusted by what he often witnessed in Charleston, he played a strong role in convincing Carolinians he was their friend, while keeping the Foreign Office abreast of all that took place within his milieu. Unfortunately, some of his undertakings, such as communicating with pre-war Richmond attempting to get the burgeoning government to abide by the maritime laws of the Declaration of Paris, were seen by some in the North as appeasement of the South, and ultimately played into his removal from consular status.

There's a great deal of history, and for my mind, well-researched and in many cases, remarkably so. The official communications and letters Cited by author Christopher Dickey are often surprising in their breadth, and indicate an exhaustive degree of search and analysis. There are facts I've never come across, such as Britain's connection with ardent abolitionist John Brown. And once the stage has been set in the first half of the book, you can almost hear Dickey's engine rev as he steps up the pace and the narrative weaves through matters political, economic, military, and more.

Now, it's not without its flaws, as few as they may be. I took marginal issue with some awkward phrasing and distracting tangents, but not once were they substantial enough to cause a re-read or confusion. However, as this was an uncorrected proof, I might not have seen the absolutely final version.

I could long-list the highly interesting historical references and aspects dealt with in this book, many of which are surprising in their range because of the assumed central focus of the book. Instead, I'll say that Dickey takes a creative tack and artfully connects many facts and topics that might not appear to be pertinent at first glance, and every time he is justified in including them.

With a great cast provided by history and a subject of longstanding fascination for many, Dickey builds on a strong foundation and produces a tale of initially tenuous but ultimately riveting attraction. And even though that slower first half never came close to driving me away, that second half drew me in and delivered a fascinating ride.

[Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the age of 32 Robert Bunch arrived in Charleston, SC to fill the post of British Consul. This is his story. As South Carolina’s leaders became more and more belligerent in protecting their peculiar institution, Bunch finds himself in “the eye of the storm” (p. 205). Through him you see the coming of the war and the many dimensions of the British role/non-role in the US Civil War.

Bunch grew to detest slavery and the people who supported it. For 10 years he kept a poker face as he carried out his official duties. It took patience and constant dissembling, but in his first few years he was successful in negotiating moderate reform of SC's Negro Seamen Act. He was so successful in his neutral facade that almost 10 years later, the Union took him to be of Confederate sympathies.

His dispatches to the British minister in Washington and his superiors in London illustrated the horrors of slavery (slave trading in defiance of international law, the auctions, the beatings) and his very negative views of South Carolina’s planters and politicians. The reports in and of themselves are brave since he was a career diplomat and such reports should be neutral in tone and, if intercepted, he would be subject to the whim of the mob.

The Bunch story goes to the heart of a key drama not often considered in Civil War material: the desire of both sides to have British support. Bunch shows South Carolinians (ignoring the British role in anti-slavery measures) as deluded in their expectation that Britain would join their cause. The Lincoln administration, similarly, did not understand that the British had no interest in “preserving the Union” (as Lincoln had framed the war) but did in opposing slavery.

There are great portraits of planters, politicians, “fire-eaters” and British officials. You get descriptions of the slave ships (The Echo being most memorable) the pre-war visit of the Prince of Wales, the dithering of the Buchanan administration, the firing on Fort Sumter, the Trent Affair, how this consul secretly arranged a meeting with Jefferson Davis. William Seward has a very negative portrait, which is at odds with Seward: Lincoln's Indispensable Man which is cited in the Sources.

I liked that the end tells the post-war life of those mentioned earlier (one follow up I’d have like to have seen is for Daniel and Helen Blake, Bunch’s slave owning in-laws). The photos and illustrations are good as is the index and list of resources.

The author’s grasp of British politics at the time was helpful and enlightening, down the the effect of the Crimean war in its diplomatic staff in the US. Despite the early bumpiness of the prose (it either the end got smoother or I adjusted to the author’s style) this not just a great work of research, it is a page turner.

In the Acknowledgements, Dickey mentioned that Sir Richard Burton spent some time in the South in the summer of 1860. The record seems to be a black hole (Dickey calls it a “lacuna” p. 377). If Dickey treats this in either fiction or non – I’m all eyes!

[David Canford · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book based upon the writings of Britain’s Consul in Charleston from the 1850s to the early 1860s. It gave me a new perspective on that era.

The Consul feigned friendship towards the Southern slaveowners, even though he despised them, to try and get them on side with Britain's objectives although secretly he was working against them. His deception worked so well that after the Civil War began, Lincoln’s government demanded that Britain replace him as they believed him to be a supporter of the Confederacy. If his true feelings had been discovered, as they nearly were, his life would have been very much in danger.

Britain’s policy objectives at the time, which he was charged with helping take forward, were (a) to get South Carolina to amend the Negro Seamen Act which saw black men on foreign ships docking there being thrown in jail for the duration of their stay less they incite rebellion amongst local slaves and (b) to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Privateers were trying to evade the law with the connivance and encouragement of Southern States. Even when these people were caught redhanded they usually got away with it, and if challenged by a British naval ship at sea would run up the American flag to avoid being searched.

It was also interesting to learn how the Southern States backed mercenaries trying to take over Cuba, via which slaves often came, fearful that if liberals there took power or the Spanish rulers succumbed to British pressure to end slavery, there would be a country close by where slavery had ended encouraging greater challenges to slavery in the South.

What the book doesn’t shed light on is that whilst Britain had become fervently anti-slavery more quickly than America ( something which the South never really understood, convinced they could get Britain to side with them in the Civil War), its past was also shocking. Britain had been involved in the slave trade until about 1800, and slavery in her colonies wasn’t abolished until the 1830s. Today many of Britain’s wealthiest families are those who grew rich on the slave trade or from using slaves on sugar plantations in the Caribbean. They also benefitted from the compensation the British government paid to slave owners on abolition. None was paid to former slaves, however, who were forced to work for their former owners for free for four years after abolition.

[Douglas Graney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good slice of history though the title is misleading. The story of Robert Bunch is much more the years leading up to the Civil War than his experiences during the Civil War. No matter, it's a good story. What I didn't know or perhaps forgot was how the South (South Carolina especially) was so willing to bring back the slave trade (1850's and during Civil War) which had been outlawed in 1808. It was going on in a clandestine manner. How they were willing to overlook the horrors of that is one of worst examples of "how many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see..." Oh, and the Civil War was entirely about slavery not any abstract "states rights" distraction.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Note: I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads.)

A book about Robert Bunch, a British consul stationed in Charleston, South Carolina from 1853 to 1863; which meant that he was at Ground Zero during the emergence of the Confederacy. His dispatches to his superiors in London (and the British ambassador in Washington) provide the backbone information of this book, which focuses almost exclusively on his years in South Carolina; the rest of his life, before and after, is glossed over quickly. In many ways, the book is a case study of what it's like to live a life of duplicity; in order to do his job properly, and give accurate information to his government, Bunch had to pretend to fit right in to the slave-owning society around him, when in fact he hated it. He did this sufficiently well that, after the start of the war, the American government got the idea that he was secretly helping the Confederates, and demanded that London remove him from his position.

I found this a very compelling book. The most interesting part is the opportunity to see, through an outsider's eyes, exactly what Southern society was like in the 1850s leading up to war; and what the mood was among its leading citizens. South Carolina, of course, was the first state to secede from the Union, and they did so at a meeting held in Charleston; most of the major players in the secession movement were people Bunch knew, and had reported on to his superiors.

In one critical dispatch in 1857, Bunch observed that, in the decades since the outlawing of the transatlantic slave trade, agricultural production in the South had increased far faster than the slave population; demand and prices for slaves had risen so high that, in his view, the South would soon be driven to try to reopen the slave trade. And if they couldn't do so within the Union, they would try to leave it.

If you're one of those people who tries to claim that slavery wasn't the real issue in the Civil War, you're going to hate this book.

Perhaps the weakest part of this book: Dickey attempts to make Bunch's dispatches seem crucial to Britain's decision to stay neutral during the War. The South, whose cotton fed Britain's textile industry, counted on economic interests to make Britain their allies; but Britain, by this time, was so firmly opposed to the slave trade that they kept their distance. Bunch was surely a factor in this, insisting to his superiors that any Confederate promise to not reopen the slave trade was not to be trusted. But, even without Bunch, it doesn't seem likely to me that Britain would have acted at all differently.

But, whether his role in events was significant or not, I found Bunch's story fascinating.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Winning this book giveaway came at a fantastic time. My interest in how the American Civil War was viewed by or impacted the international community started to really grow just a few months before winning this puppy on LibraryThing. And what a find! Despite a hiccup in the beginning portion, this book proved to be both informative and engaging.

An English diplomat caught between two sides of a brewing civil war is a new story, for sure. Seeing the deteriorating stability of a nation through his unique eyes gives the Civil War a new angle. The author explores in devastating detail a society in freefall as the drums of war rumble louder and louder. Bunch had to do a balancing act unlike many others to serve his country and cause, all the while protecting his very life and family.

The sheer amount of information in here was fascinating. I had no idea that the Union and Britain came SO close to blows and war. Such a knife edge… Thanks to calm heads, that potential conflict was averted, despite the efforts of hotheads and war hawks.

I gotta give props for how the author chose to present his material. It’s not just a conglomeration of facts and figures thrown into paragraphs and then released. Primary source quotes are interwoven with the author’s writing instead of being inserted in block quotes. Also, the time and care given to description and scene-setting also gives this book a fictional feel to it, in that it’s easier to read for your casual history fan. For this person who fits that descriptor, everything worked perfectly in this regard.

At times, the balance of the narrative seemed a bit off. A ton of time was spent on the years leading up to the war; once the war hit, the book was actually starting to wind down already. I can see why this balance was struck as a lot of what happened in Bunch’s tale was during that time frame. Yet, there were times in the first half that I got a bit bored.

Despite this, this is a rock solid work on the subject, especially as there isn’t much on the international take on the Civil War out there. Bunch’s tale alone makes the book read worthy. I loved getting to know him and his situation. Yet, there’s so much more here. If you’re curious about this subject at all, definitely give this book a look!

Note: Book received for free from publisher via giveaway on LibraryThing in exchange for an hones review.

[Avi Morris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book on the recommendation of a Goodreads friend. I'm glad I did. I've read many books about the Civil War, but none from the perspective of Our Man in Charleston. The book is about the British Consul, Robert Bunch , to Charleston South Carolina just before and during most of the war. Charleston and South Carolina led the move to secession from the Union and that put a lot of pressure on Britain's relationship with the United States. Britain was heavily invested in American cotton but was against both slavery and the importation of new slaves. Burch's role was to keep Britain informed about events and attitudes in the American South, effectively becoming a spy, but having to hide his strong anti-slavery feelings from the people he relied on for information. The book is a wealth of information on the people who were pushing for secession and on the British Foreign Service and politicians responsible for deciding how to handle relations with both the US and the Confederacy. The author, Christopher Dickey, relying mostly on correspondence between Bunch and his superiors, presents the ups and downs of Bunch's career.

The only issue I had with the book, but not enough to affect my rating my, was the author's occasional musings about how this or that person must have felt. That really isn't history, but not too much of a distraction. Civil War buffs and anyone who likes to read history should enjoy Our Man in Charleston

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did you know that England had spies in the Confederacy? I surely did not before this book! I'm glad I saw this as a 5-star book on a friend's goodreads shelf. This read just reconfirms to me what good taste my friend has in books =) I find books about the Civil War to be intriguing, and this book offered a new perspective on the political scene in Charleston during the time period leading up to and during the beginning of the the Civil War. While the book conveys all the horrors of slavery and the slave trade, it is written in a way that is a fast read and also had many moments that made me chuckle out loud. I've always wondered about diplomats, their usefulness, and what exactly they did, so this book was also enlightening in that arena. I hope Robert Bunch feels he's finally getting the recognition he deserved, even if it is posthumous.

[Nancy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Finished: 02.09.2018
Genre: non-fiction
Rating: C-
#20BooksOfAutumn
Conclusion:
I expected a page turner.
That's what I got...but not out of interest.
I had to 'skim' and keep turning pages to get through it!
This is not my idea of 'riviting' ....it you want to really
read about a spy I suggest R. Philipps "A Spy Named Orphan".
Now that is a page turner!

[Steve Smits · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite an interesting account, Our Man in Charleston tells the story of Robert Bunch, the British government's consul in Charleston in the years preceding and into the Civil War. Bunch managed to ingratiate himself into Charleston social and political circles giving the impression he was sympathetic to the pro-slavery, secessionist ideas of the times. As his dispatches to his government reveal he was anything but supportive of the slavery-based social and economic systems in South Carolina and the other slave states. He held their reliance on slavery to be repulsive and their rabid advocacy for perpetuating and expanding slavery reckless. His reports to his government and his advice played a key role in shaping British policy toward the Confederacy, particularly with regard to its decision-making on whether to give diplomatic recognition.

The author highlights several themes I found interesting. Among many southerners there was a strong interest in reviving the trans-Atlantic slave trade banned after 1808 by the federal government. There emerged smuggling operations that the British navy aggressively attempted to interdict and the American navy half-heartedly so. The southerners misapprehended the depth of moral opposition to slavery among the British and believed, mistakenly, that the reliance of the British textile industry on cotton would compel Her Majesty's Government to recognize the statehood of the Confederacy.

There was a keen interest held by Southern leaders in expanding the territory of slavery by annexing or seizing Cuba and other Central American countries. The British government deeply worried about this possibility.

Dickey describes the diplomatic relations between the US government and Great Britain in the early war years. Secretary of State William Seward often exhibited bellicosity towards the British thinking perhaps that a foreign war would inspire unity between the severed sections of the nation. His tone alarmed the British to the point of sending troops to Canada to countervail against a possible invasion. The Trent affair in which two Confederate emissaries were seized from a British-flagged ship did bring nations near to war that was only averted when the US backed down. After this crisis Lincoln reined Seward in, but a clumsy attempt by Britain to persuade the South to accept the terms of naval neutrality backfired to the detriment of Bunch's reputation.

The inter-play among British policy makers debating recognition and intervention is well-described by Dickey, something that is not usually described in depth in Civil War histories.

What makes this book quite fascinating is seeing Bunch's birds-eye perspective on the rashness and radicalism that had infected the South in the years leading up to secession. He describes being in Charleston as living in the "epicenter of Southern madness".

[David Kent · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting perspective on the US Civil War that most people have never considered. Robert Bunch was Britain's "man in Charleston," the South Carolina city that was center of southern efforts to secede from the Union. What many perhaps don't know is that effort began long before the election of Abraham Lincoln. And Bunch was there to observe it as consul for the British government.

Arriving in 1853, Bunch abhorred slavery but was sent to Charleston to convince the state to rescind its "Negro Seaman" law. That law required local officials to arrest any black sailor arriving in port on any nation's vessel, then hold him until his vessel was ready to sail out of port. If he was lucky, the sailor would spend that time sitting in the jail; if unlucky, he could be unceremoniously murdered by the town's populace or kidnapped and sold into slavery. Bunch worked for many years to get the law repealed. But that was only part of his duties.

While the author never explicitly says so, Bunch also acted as a spy. Or maybe you could say he just provided relevant insider info to the British crown. He did this by cozying up to wealthy and influential in Charleston, successfully making them believe he was on their side while secretly sending dispatches back to England about the depravities of the southern people's attitudes towards slavery and slaves. Fundamental among them was the "official" position of being against the African slave trade while actively circumventing the law in every way in order to increase incoming slave traffic. This, as much as Secretary of State William Seward's threats, kept Britain from supporting the independence of the South despite Britain's reliance on southern cotton for its textile mills.

All of this plays out in the run up to the Civil War, which of course gets begins in Charleston harbor with the shelling of Ft. Sumter. And Bunch has a front row seat for ten years before his departure for safer climes in early 1863.

The author, Christopher Dickey, does an excellent service to Civil War studies by bringing us this combination of British and Southern perspectives on slavery, on the African slave trade, and on the Civil War. Derived largely from Bunch's own dispatches and those of other key players, Dickey has done in-depth research and yet writes an eminently readable book. All Civil War enthusiasts will do well to read this book; it will broaden your depth of knowledge immeasurably.

[Bill Tress · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written factual account of a secret agent in Charlestown. If you ever had doubts about the issue of slavery, just read this book. Dickey's narrative about slave ships and the cruelty humans inflict on other humans will make you cringe.
If you have doubts about the causes of the Civil War, just read this book. The case is made in clear and concise terms that the ability of Slave owners to profit from this immorality and the need for them to expand the number of slave states and the number of slaves brought into this country is the one overriding reason we had a civil war.
I believe this book needs to be read by anyone interested in the History of this country.

[Caitlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book through Goodreads First Reads. I absolutely love this little know historical narrative. I found this book to be both insightful and informative. I would totally recommend this book to history buffs or anyone who wants to learn a new perspective on the Civil War.

[Clay Davis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was hoping for more cloak and dagger in the vein of James Bond set in the 1860's. Bunch was just gathering intelligence for the British government and not a secret agent whose identity was known to all.

[Nita · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was tough to get through. Loved the idea of a spy nonfiction book. But I think I have read too many spy novels to have liked this one.

[Eugenea Pollock · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminded me of “In the Garden of Beasts” by Erik Larson, not for the writing style, and not for the particulars of the narrative, but for the difficult positions in which the primary diplomats find themselves. Those members of the Foreign Service are (1) Robert Bunch, the British consul in Charleston, South Carolina in the days leading up to and including the secession of that state, which instigated our Civil War; and (2) the United States’ Ambassador William Dodd, who was sent to Hitler’s Berlin in the days leading up to WWII. The peril for both is similar: who can be trusted? How close to the vest must cards be played? How secure are the usual diplomatic channels? How strong is diplomatic immunity in governments where basic human dignity and morality are under siege by slavery or Naziism? Lots to think about in this book, with or without my “compare and contrast” approach.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

First, I'll say that I learned a lot from this book so I'm glad I read it. It's about Robert Bunch, who was a British consul assigned to Charleston, SC in the years leading up to and during the Civil War and all of the political/diplomatic machinations that played out at that time among the U.S., Britain, and eventually, the Confederacy. The book is very well documented and brings to light Bunch's numerous diplomatic dispatches, building the case that his surreptitious observations helped to keep Britain from taking sides in the conflict.

While I'm not one to demand that nonfiction reads like fiction, I do think this book suffered from a very flat trajectory. It was a repetitive loop of one diplomatic episode after another that just never seemed to go anywhere. Also, it's narrow focus and myriad of characters and detail made for tedious reading at times.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This historical work takes a different spin on the issues of slavery and the American Civil War. Instead of being viewed through an American lens, it is written from a British angle. This is done by profiling the work and life of Robert Bunch, the British consul in Charleston, South Carolina.

Bunch first arrived on the scene in 1853. He was sent to Charleston to deal with the Negro Seamen Act. This act allowed the South Carolina government to imprison and sometimes enslave black British sailors. Concurrent to this, Bunch also tracked slave auctions and the illegal slave trade for the British Empire. Britain had abolished slavery in its empire decades earlier and saw itself as the protector of the African people. They patrolled the coast and tried their best to prevent the illegal activities. And it was shocking to learn just how widespread the illegal slave trade was and how crafty the slave-traders were to hide their activities. Even more appalling was that the fact was an open secret in the antebellum South and many southerners wanted to reopen the legal slave trade! And Charleston was the bastion of these desires, forcing Bunch to walk a fine line and live a double life while tending to these issues.

Also troubling was how close Britain and the United States came to war in the early 1860s. First, it was the illegal slave trade prompting the worries. Once the American Civil War began, the issue only magnified. The Confederacy thought that Britain's mills needed its cotton enough to overlook slavery and side with them, thus giving the new "nation" needed legitimacy. The Union, however, kept finding ways to irritate Britain, mainly because of Secretary of State William Seward's biased thoughts. At one point, Britain sent troops to Canada in case it was invaded by the Union! And this was not an idle threat. The last of the book's five sections details these issues, addresses the Trent Affair, and how Bunch found himself trapped in the middle of these debates. To say the least, Bunch was thought to be an ally of the fledgling Confederacy by both American nations while only Britain knew the full truth.

Also included throughout the help the readers understand is an overview of British politics at home. This is necessary because each change in the government meant a change in to whom Bunch reported and how the reporting was handled. Therefore readers will learn the names and basic facts about the prime ministers and relevant secretaries in London. Also detailed was the minister in Washington, D.C., Lord Lyons, and newspaperman William Howard Russell with whom Bunch closely worked.

Over all, this was an interesting book and I learned a lot about the country I call home. History textbooks left many of the issues mentioned in this work out of their texts. Perhaps it is because the depth of the issue was rarely known, for much of the book is based on correspondence and reports held by the British National Archives. Additionally, the text of this novel flowed very well. It read like a suspense novel. Adding to the effect, when the original text works best, it is included verbatim and logically integrated with no interruption to the story.

I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books for review.

[C. L. Deards · Rating 5 out of 5]

On the surface Robert Bunch is an unassuming British Consul in Charleston, South Carolina. He assumes his station in the decade before the first shots are fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay. Bunch sees the beginning of the Civil War, and his part in its outcome is laid out brilliantly in Christopher Dickey's book.

What drew me to the story was the cover. Not just the Confederate Flag draped next to the Union Jack, but the title: Britain's Secret Agent in the Civil War South. Before I saw the title I didn't know Britain had consuls throughout the south. I didn't know the extent to which diplomatic relations and communications were so common during this period of time.

Among the British Foreign Service in the United States at the time Bunch comes off as an unassuming brilliant man. He lives in Charleston, the heart of the south, the place where the Civil War starts. Slavery and all of its disgusting accoutrements are on full display. Bunch loathes slavery and the elite Charleston society that is so intertwined with slavery and yet he hides this loathing so well that the Charleston elite, who are so keen on cozying up with Britain, never suspect his true nature. Bunch uses his connections to report to the British Legation in American, and consequently the British Foreign Secretary, everything he can on the South's so-call Peculiar Institution.

Bunch helps to shape Britain's complicated relationship with the Confederacy. Britain had abolished slavery in its empire, but it depended on cotton to fuel its industry and the U.S. South was the world's leading exporter of cotton.

Using these touchstones, the author, Christopher Dickey, weaves the hidden history of the South before and during the Civil War. The reason for the Civil War is not as simple as the slave issue. There were nuances, diplomacy, snubs to foreign officials, and smuggling that all contributed to the start of the Civil War and its outcome.

One of the most interesting books, fiction or non-fiction, that I have read in some time.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Bunch was the British consul in Charleston, S.C. He was sent there in the early 1850s and it was his job to protect British interests. Accepted into the high planter society, he sent revealing dispatches back to London. Highlighting the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of his slave-loving neighbors; Bunch predicted that the high price of slaves would encourage the South to restart the African slave trade. The British had been fighting against the Middle Passage since the 1805. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Bunch's reports help prevent the Confederacy from gaining recognition.

Why I started this book: The title grabbed my attention, and after visiting Charleston, I was very interested.

Why I finished it: Fascinating information and a new perspective on the Civil War. I'd read about Britain's waffling between the South and the North in Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Dickey explained that it was Seward's belligerence and bluster repelled London and almost balanced it's hatred of slavery and the South's assumptions that it could compel recognition with King Cotton. Dickey uses historical documents to prove that the only state right the South was defending was the right to own slaves. And it was this very point that doomed the Confederacy.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

The primary focus of this book is the role played by Robert Bunch, the British Consul in Charleston SC from 1853-1863, in attempting to deter the recognition of the Confederacy by the British government. Mr. Dickey’s great read gives to those who enjoy history and the motives and activities behind the scenes. British involvement was critical to shore up the Confederate economy in providing British mills with cotton.
What I found intriguing was the perspective he brings into play with British attitudes towards war and yet another civil revolution. The British Prime Minister, Palmerston had seen similar revolutions in Italy, Austria, France, Germany and his own British involvement in the Crimean War. A divided America would insure British dominance with a weakened American nation who was at war for the fourth time in eighty years.
Bunch went out of his way to cultivate relationships with these powerful interests all while seeking the repeal of the Negro Seaman act under which free sailors in the British Navy were being arrested and held by the state. Eventually he succeeded.
A book of scholarship and research providing yet another perspective on our emergence as a worldwide power.

[Mike Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dickey’s thesis is that Robert Bunch, the British consul in Charleston before and during the Civil War, was able to present a sympathetic face to the fire-eating secessionists and obtain a clear understanding of their views and communicate those views along with his strong disapproval to the Foreign Office in London, which played a key role, according to Dickey, in keeping Britain from recognizing the Confederacy.
The key report that Bunch wrote was in March 1857 when he discussed the fast-rising price of slaves in the South. He reported that in the last few years, the price of a slave had almost doubled from $800 to $1,500. He explained that the cause was simple: slaves were needed to pick cotton, and cotton production had increased about 3,000% in the first half of the century, while the population of slaves only increased 150%. Thus, according to Bunch, the natural growth of slave populations was inadequate and could not begin to make up the difference. The effect was perfectly predictable: to meet the demand for cotton, the south would be forced to reopen the slave trade with Africa. Although the later Confederate constitution stated it opposed the reopening of the African slave trade, the state government were unlikely to go along and American slavers had been active in providing slaves to Cuba and even to some extent to the American South. A key problem with reintroducing the slave trade with the South was that states like Virginia and Maryland, where much of the soil was worn out, slave breeding and slave raising had become profitable industries for some of the masters. If the market were opened up to African imports, the value of those locally produced human assets would plunge. Pro-slave crusaders countered that huge numbers of Africans were needed to revive old lands as well as to open new ones, increasing production and profits everywhere. When the first states seceded, they banned the trade of slaves with states not in the Confederacy to put pressure on Virginia and Maryland to join.
Southern supporters had tried to add Cuba to the United States either through conquest via filibusteros (who invaded Cuba and Central America) to claim them for the South. All of them failed with some being shot as pirates. They were viewed as martyrs in the South, however. James Buchanan, while U.S. Ambassador to London, tried to arrange the purchase of Cuba by the U.S. and failing that, the U.S. would invade. Northerners and Britain strongly objected and later, President Buchanan tried to step up enforcement of the ban on the African slave trade with Cuba, hoping that the decrease in slave imports would make the sugar farming too expensive and lead Spain to sell Cuba to the U.S.. That would result in probably two new states with pro-slavery senators in the Senate, shifting control of the Senate to the South.
There was also a great deal of corruption in the judiciary with regard to slavery, even beyond the Dredd Scot decision by the Supreme Court. When a slave ship captain was tried in a federal court in the South, the judge declared that the people on the ship had been enslaved prior to being purchased, so that the slave ship had not actually enslaved free people. The captain was released because, by this logic, he was not a pirate since he was not kidnapping free people to begin with.
The Secession Convention in Charleston was covered by Bunch’s reporting to London as was the Democratic Party convention of 1860 also held in Charleston. The firebrands in South Carolina tried to force a Democratic platform to adopt rules that would make the federal government the defender of slavery, including on the high seas. Northern democrats defeated it, but they could not gain a majority to nominate Stephen Douglas, so the Democratic party splintered, putting up three candidates, practically guaranteeing that the Republicans would win the election. With the election of Lincoln, South Carolina delegates voted to secede and acted like their vote was the second act of the American Revolution, even though they goal was to protect slavery, not to extend freedom. There was also a lot of fear in the air of slave insurrections in the South, especially after John Brown’s suicidal raid. Of course, they were no major slave revolts. Many slaves did escape and those who reached the north did volunteer to serve in the northern armies, but most slaves remained resigned to their fate.
Dickey also discussed the Trent affair and the cotton boycott of the South in the first year of the war. The Trent involved a British steamship that was stopped by a U.S. Naval vessel to seize two Confederate representatives to Britain. Although the British had not recognized the Confederacy they strongly objected to a U.S. Naval ship seizing people off of a British-flagged vessel, and it almost led to war between the Union and Britain. Fortunately, the U.S. decided to apologize and release the representatives. The cotton boycott was declared by the new Confederate government to force the British to recognize them. There seemed to be a deep-seated belief in the Confederacy that the British would do anything to maintain their supply of cotton from the South, although Judah Benjamin, the Confederate Secretary of State, argued that it made more sense to sell as much cotton as possible to earn money to be able to carry on a war with the much more industrialized North.
Finally, Bunch’s first job as consul was to try to have South Carolina repeal the Negro Seaman Act of 1822 The state law required British African sailors to be placed in jail when a British ship docked in port, even though sometimes they would be abused or even sold into slavery. Eventually, Bunch was able to win enough good will in South Carolina to get the law reversed. Part of his success undoubtedly came from the feeling among many of the elite South Carolinians that they were quite similar to Englishmen. While Dickey’s book provides interesting perspectives on the policies of the Southern states, it seems unlikely that the reports from the British consul in Charleston had much serious influence on British policy towards the Confederacy.