Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain - by Michael Turner (Hardcover)

About the Book

"In his book, Michael Turner examines British sympathy for the Confederacy during the American Civil War and in the postwar period. He focuses on British-American interactions of the nineteenth century, responses to the American crisis, international perspectives on the war, the South, and the nature of the American Union. His study offers fresh insights gleaned from research into previously neglected sources and historical agents. Mainly, Turner explores new avenues of inquiry through an extended analysis of the ideas and activities of A.J. Beresford Hope (1820-1887), one of the leaders of the pro-southern lobby in Britain. Historians already know much about how economic interest, political ideas, and concern about Britain's global reach and geostrategic position influenced its foreign policy during the Civil War. Indeed, for these reasons, many people in Britain were sympathetic toward the Confederate cause. Hope spoke and wrote about them at length, but he also brought forth other considerations-social, cultural, and religious reasons why British people should favor the South. Turner suggests that modern scholarship has not paid these non-economic and non-political factors sufficient attention. During the war, Hope also noticed a tendency--which he forcefully expressed and promoted--to prefer the South over the North on the basis that southerners were engaged in a "heroic" struggle. By the 1880s, as he looked back on the war years, Hope suggested that respect for southern heroism was the main reason why British people had wished the Confederacy well. The lasting popularity in Britain of a renowned southerner, "Stonewall" Jackson, indicates to Turner that Hope was on to something. As well as using Hope's activism to cast light on pro-southern sentiment, he uses the British reputation of Jackson (from the 1860s into the early twentieth century) to facilitate a deeper understanding of contemporary ideas and affiliations. Turner suggests that Jackson rapidly became a British hero because of public support for his merits as a soldier and a man and because he was taken to represent values and goals that had widespread approval. Such was his stature that pro-southerners led by Hope arranged to set up a memorial in his honor and quickly raised more than enough money than needed to fund the project. Their Jackson statue was not completed until 1875, fully ten years after the end of the war. It was unveiled in Richmond, Virginia, in circumstances quite unlike those that had prevailed back in 1863, when it was commissioned shortly after Jackson's death. Turner includes a detailed discussion of the Jackson statue, the controversy surrounding it, and what it reveals about the meaning of the American Civil War in Britain. Turner's study fills a gap in the relevant historiography of British-American interaction during the nineteenth century. His work is also the first in-depth study of Hope as a leading pro-southern activist and of Jackson's reputation in Britain during and after the war. His work will attract readers interested in the American Civil War, the internationalization of the war, transnational approaches to the history of the war and southern history, and British policy and opinion during and after the war"--

Book Synopsis

In this comprehensive examination of British sympathy for the South during and after the American Civil War, Michael J. Turner explores the ideas and activities of A. J. Beresford Hope--one of the leaders of the pro-Confederate lobby in Britain--to provide fresh insight into that seemingly curious allegiance. Hope and his associates cast famed Confederate general Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson as the embodiment of southern independence, courage, and honor, elevating him to the status of a hero in Britain. Historians have often noted that economic interest, political attitudes, and concern about Britain's global reach and geostrategic position led many in the country to embrace the Confederate cause, but they have focused less on the social, cultural, and religious reasons enunciated by Hope and ostensibly represented by Jackson, factors Turner suggests also heightened British affinity for the South.

During the war, Hope noticed a tendency among British people to view southerners as heroic warriors in their struggle against the North. He and his pro-southern followers shared and promoted this vision, framing Jackson as the personification of that noble mission and raising the general's profile in Britain so high that they collected enough funds to construct a memorial to him after his death in 1863. Unveiled twelve years later in Richmond, Virginia, the statue stands today as a remarkable artifact of one of the lesser-known strands of British pro-Confederate ideology.

Stonewall Jackson, Beresford Hope, and the Meaning of the American Civil War in Britain serves as the first in-depth analysis of Hope as a leading pro-southern activist and of Jackson's reputation in Britain during and after the Civil War. It places the conflict in a transnational context that reveals the reasons British citizens formed bonds of solidarity with the southerners whom they perceived shared their social and cultural values.

Review Quotes

In a thoughtful and well-researched work that is thoroughly contextualized by references to the latest historiography, Turner investigates why so many Britons sympathized with the Confederacy during the Civil War.--Hugh Dubrulle, author of "Ambivalent Nation: How Britain Imagined the American Civil War"

Michael J. Turner's new work brings together the prevailing trends within the study of the American Civil War in an international context while adding additional layers to our understanding.--Peter O'Connor, author of "American Sectionalism in the British Mind, 1832-1863"

This magisterial study of the Confederacy's British partisans reminds us that Britain had its own traditions of liberalism, democracy, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism through which it saw the conflict. This is a long-overdue corrective to less rigorous scholarship.--Duncan Andrew Campbell, author of "English Public Opinion and the American Civil War"

About the Author

Michael J. Turner is the Roy Carroll Distinguished Professor of British History at Appalachian State University. He has published widely in the fields of British-American interaction, reform politics in nineteenth-century Britain, and modern British foreign policy.