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HomeEventsClarksville Civil War Roundtable's next meeting is August 19th, 2015

Clarksville Civil War Roundtable’s next meeting is August 19th, 2015

Our 137th meeting.

Clarksville Civil War RoundtableClarksville, TN – The next meeting of the Clarksville (TN) Civil War Roundtable will be on Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 at the Bone & Joint Center, 980 Professional Park Drive, right across the street from Gateway Medical Center. This is just off Dunlop Lane and Holiday Drive and only a few minutes east of Governor’s Square mall.

The meeting begins at 7:00pm and is always open to the public. Members please bring a friend or two – new recruits are always welcomed.

Topic: “Why Europe Didn’t Intervene in the Civil War”

“Why Europe Didn’t Intervene in the Civil War” is the topic for the next Clarksville Civil War Roundtable meeting.
“Why Europe Didn’t Intervene in the Civil War” is the topic for the next Clarksville Civil War Roundtable meeting.

In 1861 Southern foreign strategy was myopic and focused on solely on King Cotton and the belief that the withholding of these supplies to European markets would force Europe to intervene.

As noted historian Frank Owsley, author of the excellent book King Cotton Diplomacy, noted that Great Britain, upon becoming a net food importer around the time of the Civil War, decided that Northern corn beat King Cotton.

Additionally, the British Lion soon learned that the making of arms and equipment for both the Union and Confederacy made them a lot more money that supporting any one side over the other. The increase in the military equipment factories help take up the slack in the textiles mills that had initially laid off workers due to the Confederate cotton embargo.

Britain was also gaining new sources of cotton from India and Egypt and while not as good in quality as Southern cotton, it made do.

The rest of Europe also was happy to sell arms and equipment to both sides and did so for most of the war. Only France was openly supportive of the Confederacy and that was driven by French intervention in Mexico which bordered the Confederacy.

This violation of the Monroe Doctrine would hopefully not see a Confederate response, Napoleon III hoped, and he was happy to do what he could for that to remain status quo. But he would do nothing, indeed as would most of Europe, until the British Lion made a decision one way or another.

Our speaker this month, Greg Bayne, will do his best to debunk the idea that Confederate withholding of cotton was a good plan and introduce other ideas to the debate. We all know the final result but was it a case of “who would blink first?” that will hopefully prove that Europe did intervene throughout the war, but not in the way that the South thought they would.

Greg Bayne is a Lecturer in Business and Accounting at Canterbury College in the United Kingdom. He is an Accountant and prior to his current position he was a Maths teacher for 10 years. His father hailed from Virginia and was in the USAF. Greg spent his first eleven years living in the US until his father retired and moved to England with his English wife.

His interest in the Civil War started when he was first given the “Golden Book of the Civil War” as a present and an early memory of a visit to Harpers Ferry in the mid-60’s still lingers.

For years he hid his passion until he joined the American Civil War Round Table of the United Kingdom in 2001 and in 2003 became editor of Crossfire, a magazine produced for its members. In 2009 he became President of the American Civil War Roundtable of the United Kingdom, a position he held until last year.

He has spoken to his RT on numerous occasions; highlights include the Battle of Brawners Farm, and Union General Robert Milroy. Lowlights include proposing at one of their annual conferences that PGT Beauregard was a Confederate Hero not a Zero. The audience was particularly unforgiving that day!

He has written extensively for Crossfire magazine and the ACWRTUK website and has two long term projects that he hopes to develop into print. In July 2014 he was invited to join the Editorial Board of the UK Military History Monthly magazine to advise on ACW and 19th century warfare articles.

Please join us with a maximum attendance effort to hear a great program by our guest speaker from across the pond. We do not secure speakers like Greg all the time and his perspective will be very informative.

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