The Trent Affair during Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency was one situation that brought two giants, the U.S and Britain closer to war. In the winter of 1861 the Union became involved with Britain in an incident, known as the Trent Affair that almost led to war. The Confederacy had sent James Murray Mason and John Slidell to Britain and France to win support for the Southern cause. After slipping through the Northern blockade to Cuba, they boarded the British ship Trent. On its first day at sea the ship was stopped and searched by a Union naval captain, Charles Wilkes, and the two Southerners were taken off the ship as prisoners. Wilkes’s act was a violation of the international law over which the United States had gone to war with Britain in 1812. Britain demanded an apology and the release of the two prisoners. Wilkes was a hero in the North, and many Union partisans were demanding war against Britain. Lincoln patiently let the agitators have their say. Then he released the Southern envoys, and Britain agreed to accept Lincoln’s assurance that Wilkes had acted without authority. In this way, Lincoln averted what might have been a fatal conflict with Britain. The Trent Affair during Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency was however controlled with some diplomatic edge on the part of Lincoln.
