Trent Affair

TRENT AFFAIR

TRENT AFFAIR. When Captain Charles Wilkes, commanding the sloop San Jacinto, arrested two Confederate delegates onboard the British ship Trent on the high seas, he created an incident that endangered Union relations with neutral Great Britain during the Civil War. James M. Mason and John Slidell had been selected by the Confederate president Jefferson Davis to ask Great Britain and France for material aid and diplomatic recognition. After running the Union blockade, Mason and Slidell took passage on the Trent in Havana, Cuba, on 7 November 1861. The next day the ship was stopped, the arrests were made, and the Trent was allowed to continue on its voyage.

Rejoicing in the Northern states soon gave way to more sober contemplation. Although Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles had given orders to apprehend Mason and Slidell, Wilkes had violated accepted maritime behavior. International law would have prescribed seizing the Trent, placing a crew aboard, and sailing it into a harbor for adjudication by a prize court that would determine if the Trent had violated neutrality. Arresting Mason and Slidell without taking the Trent as a prize was considered equivalent to the impressment the Americans had so vehemently opposed fifty years earlier.

Immediately the British protested and demanded the release of the prisoners. When the Union realized that Great Britain was preparing for war with the Union and was sending troops to Canada, Mason and Slidell were released on 26 December 1861.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ferris, Norman B. The "Trent" Affair: A Diplomatic Crisis. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977.

Warren, Gordon H. Fountain of Discontent: The "Trent" Affair and Freedom of the Seas. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981.

Michael Wala

See also Civil War ; Confederate States of America ; Great Britain, Relations with .