Lincoln, Seward, and U.S. Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era by Joseph A. Fry

Abstract

Reviewed by: Lincoln, Seward, and U.S. Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era by Joseph A. Fry David Sim Lincoln, Seward, and U.S. Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era. By Joseph A. Fry. Studies in Conflict, Diplomacy, and Peace. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2019. Pp. [viii], 241. $40.00, ISBN 978-0-8131-7712-0.) Joseph A. Fry has written a brisk, readable account of the Union's diplomatic efforts, with the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and William H. Seward at its heart. The book is, he notes, "an unapologetic synthesis of the rich literature on Lincoln, Seward, and U.S. foreign relations preceding, during, and following the American Civil War" (p. 6). Though the book contains a largely biographical chapter on the two men's lives before the Civil War and a final chapter that examines Seward's statecraft during the administration of Andrew Johnson, the heart of the book is a convincing, chronological narrative that demonstrates that forestalling foreign intervention was absolutely central to the prosecution of the Union war effort. Fry argues that the combination of Lincoln and Seward's strategic vision and Seward's willingness to deploy effectively [End Page 718] both threats and conciliation meant that foreign governments—and particularly the British and French governments—feared the costs of intervention more than they anticipated its benefits. Throughout, Fry manages to balance the structural forces that mitigated against intervention with a sense of contingency and uncertainty. Though his protagonists on both sides of the Atlantic eventually came to appreciate their counterparts' goals and motivations, this process was educative. Only gradually did British statesmen, for instance, come to fully grasp the Lincoln administration's intentions with regard to abolition. Fry narrates the central episodes that one expects, including the Trent affair, foreign reception of the Emancipation Proclamation, and controversies over Britishand French-built Confederate raiders, with skill and subtlety. There is some great detail, too, on the depth and endurance of Charles Sumner's antipathy toward Seward; Sumner and Salmon P. Chase emerge from the book with little credit. Fry is absolutely right to emphasize the importance of public diplomacy to Lincoln's administration and demonstrates that such efforts were often paired with private reassurance. The least persuasive part of the narrative is the one that reaches beyond the book's titular focus on Lincoln and Seward to examine Seward's postwar vision. Here, Fry emphasizes the coherence of Seward's imperial ambition at the expense of the haphazard nature of American foreign policy making after the Civil War. The latter arguably tells us more about how contemporaries conceptualized American power in the postwar period. Readers who are seeking fresh archival insights should look elsewhere: that is not Fry's aim. In terms of conceptual or methodological innovation, there is a nod to Joshua Wolf Shenk's theoretical work on the development of productive alliances between pairs of talented figures, but for the most part this is framed conservatively. The narrative that Fry offers is very much about American decision-making and agency, and, as the title suggests, Lincoln, Seward, and U.S. Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era does not really seek to escape the focus on the two pivotal figures in Civil War statecraft. In that respect, it eschews the transnationalism of recent work by Don H. Doyle, for instance, and even the international contextualization offered by Niels Eichhorn in favor of high politics and a prioritization of British and French diplomacy. Overall, however, Fry has produced an impressive and judicious account of Lincoln and Seward's conduct of Civil War foreign relations, and, while his book may not reinvent the wheel, it is an excellent, slim volume to recommend to undergraduates and lay readers alike. David Sim University College London Copyright © 2020 The Southern Historical Association