So your upset I used hyperbole, and a bit of sarcasm? I seem to recall during a thread on the War of 1812, and you saying that Jefferson, and Madison couldn't produce their citizenship papers on demand from the British Government. In this reply you said, "I wonder how American troops are going to fight without money, rifles or ammunition. By waving at the thin air and waving swords at rifles?" Do you think that's not a bit of Hyperbole? You talk about the economic facts, but counter arguments were made about alternate Union Sources of lead, and nitrates, that loss of reciprocal trade, and investment would hurt both sides, you ignore those facts. You also ignore the lack of popular support for a war with the union in Britain, France, or Canada. I'm sure Ireland would prove a great recruiting ground.
So while it
is hyperbole to suggest the US would have run out of money and weapons to fight with if Britain intervened, it doesn't detract from the very real issue that the Union faced in the historic Trent affair that the British slammed the valve for war materials the Union was buying in bulk shut on them in December 1861. This did cause a fairly large crisis because, as the article
Dupont and the Nitre Crisis lays out, the Union had not actually gotten around to properly tooling up to support an army of 400,000 men in 1861-62 (and arguably didn't until 1863) because the amount on hand was judged adequate after the Mexican American War, a war which involved only some 70,000 troops and volunteers at the maximum. The DuPont company was
the only large provider of Union powder during the war (not the only one, but they had the necessary industrial apparatus to churn the stuff out, their competitors were all smaller) and so they realized the problem first and told the navy, who then told the army, who then got the smart idea to actually make a centralized process to begin a centralized method for making the stuff, but they were still dependent on British sources for 1862-63 and by 1864 were arguably independent, but losing that supply they bought in December/January of 1861-62 would have been a colossal set back. While it's true they
could have overcome the deficiency with things like nitre beds, those would take till roughly late 1863-64 to actually be productive which
would have an adverse effect on their ability to wage the same kind of war they did historically.
The Confederacy overcame their deficiency by running the blockade with nitre from Britain, the Union wouldn't have the same options and would basically be dependent on importing from other European nations or a very convoluted buy around system.
That's just one complication. Another would be that, while the British not selling rifles to them wouldn't be the end of the world, the Enfields were pretty damn good rifles. They could buy French, Austrian, and Belgian rifles, and they did OTL in 1861-63, but they bought
a lot of Enfields. And they can't just make up for that with Springfields either as the Springfield armory found itself in a very peculiar position of having to be reliant on British made iron for their machinery. Not using it involves a lot of dismantling and retooling their machines to use a different source which again takes time and is a big set back, and probably leads to inferior quality product. Not the end of the world, but a really bad set back if you have to fight a campaign against the South and Britain and try to expand your army at the same time.
Another complication is indeed the economic factor. There was a bank run in December 1861 which caused all the banks to stop issuing payments in gold (but that wasn't specifically because of the British, it did have an aspect that the war was becoming more expensive than people realized so they were afraid of not having cash to hand), and it took a lot of the brilliance of Salmon Chase to work out, But if the British went to war, much of the trade and government revenue which did supply the Union finances with stable currency to pad the printing of green backs would vanish almost overnight and cause economic shock. This would mean that the Union basically has to print money in 1862 to finance the war and that's not really great. They have a larger more diverse economy than the Confederacy yes, but that doesn't make them immune to inflation. The trade issue is problematic because Britain was America's biggest trading partner, the United States however, was not Britain's biggest trading partner, accounting for, roughly speaking, 16% of both imports and exports to Britain, which isn't an enormous economic investment. The war would hurt the US disproportionately in economic terms compared to the British, whose economy was, pre-war, already 3x larger than that of the US besides.
These issues alone, I think, just show that had Britain decided to put its military and economic weight into the conflict in
Trent or even late 1862 after some huge Confederate victory, it would have been a pretty dire situation for the Union.
As for popular support against the war...well that's questionable. Certainly during the only actual war scare we find that support for war
with the United States was pretty overwhelming, both in the government, the newspapers, and by all accounts, the streets. In Canada it was the same, and they were going to be the front lines. Granted, after the war scare the war fever died down, but pro and anti Union was, by all the accounts I can figure, pretty well divided.
I find it hard to understand your argument. You say only during the Trent Affair was war likely, yet you keep talking about intervention later on, and that it would have been the death knell of the Union. You correctly point out building armed raiders for the CSN was illegal under British, and international law, yet they turned a blind eye to the Alabama, and other British built raiders. A little due diligence please, the British did lose the Alabama Claims Case. The U.S. also did warn the British Government about the Laird Rams, and they woke up in time to prevent delivery.
Well,
Trent was a direct war scare where the British believed they were being goaded into a
casus belli by the Union. After that, intervention was punted around as an economic and political solution to the very real cotton famine that began to impact the French and British economies. Political and economic intervention by an Anglo-French diplomatic effort would have been rebuffed, but if the Anglo-French had really pushed the issue diplomatically and turned the economic screws, they could have made a very forceful gesture short of war for Lincoln to sit down and negotiate. Though it's more complicated than that as Britain wanted Russia to back their diplomacy in order to make it look less threatening, and Russia pointedly declined.
Britain though, wanted to wait for the Confederacy to win some great victory in order to have the 'established fact' that the Confederacy was capable of winning on its own so that diplomatic pressure could also pay off. That Confederate victory never came, and so British diplomatic intervention (backed by France which waited for Britain) never materialized.
As for things like the
Alabama and the Laird Rams, well the US never actually threatened war over the issue. That would have been insane. Ambassador Adams did make the snarky comment that it the rams sailed it would be an unfriendly act, but outside diplomatic saber rattling the Union never said they would declare war on any European power which recognized the Confederacy. The British on the issue of warships built in Britain stuck pretty scrupulously to the law, for instance the
Alabama was being built as a merchant supposedly, but with warlike accouterments. That wasn't illegal. Nor was it sailing from a British harbor illegal, since it got its guns outside British waters. Basically, the British followed the law and told the Americans 'prove it' when they claimed that the ships being built were privateers.
The rams were a pretty exceptional case because they were very much warships and in no way could they have the cover of being merchant ships. They were supposedly being built for the Ottomans, and the American diplomats forced Britain's hand when they contacted the Ottomans to prove they weren't being built for them. That finally prompted the Foreign Office to recognize that, yes, these are not going to be sold to a power not at war but directly to a combatant, which is illegal. Even had the British turned a blind eye to it, basically all the US could have done was wait until the ships left British waters and then ambush them.
After the war the British pretty much refused point blank to even consider the
Alabama Claims. No matter what the Americans put forward the British rebuffed it. It wasn't until the British reached out about settling the Northwest Boundary Dispute (of Pig War fame) that the Americans maneuvered them into considering addressing the issue of the
Alabama claims. It was only after that, and then a settlement at Geneva, that the British consented to pay a single penny.
In summation, the United States was never really able to compel Britain by threat of force to do anything regarding the Civil War, and even after it, they basically used canny legal scholarship and diplomacy to get Britain to play ball.
That too really, is another big mistake for the Confederacy as they really needed outside help to win. They were never able to use adroit diplomacy to get more from their successes. The Union on the other hand, very skillfully used diplomacy to maneuver around Britain and France to keep them out of the conflict.
