Jones studies the crisis in Anglo-American relations during the Civil War and its impact on the South's attempt to win foreign support during the crucial years of 1861 and 1862. He argues that the central issue was the possibility that Britain would grant diplomatic recognition to the Confederacy, a move that would have legitimized secession and undermined the Constitution. Originally published in 1992. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

In September 1862, the United States had been ripped apart by a civil war entering its 18th month and it was the nation's, and Mr. Lincoln's, most trying period, as Gen. Robert E. Lee invaded Union soil, panicking cities, destroying political alliances and causing the North to reconsider whether it was best to redouble its war efforts or give up and let the South pursue its own course. The author looks at a cache of newspapers from this time to demonstrate just how fragile the national bond had become by the autumn of 1862

In this examination of Union and Confederate foreign relations during the Civil War from both European and American perspectives, Howard Jones demonstrates that the consequences of the conflict between North and South reached far beyond American soil. Jones explores a number of themes, including the international economic and political dimensions of the war, the North's attempts to block the South from winning foreign recognition as a nation, Napoleon III's meddling in the war and his attempt to restore French power in the New World, and the inability of Europeans to understand the interrelated nature of slavery and union, resulting in their tendency to interpret the war as a senseless struggle between a South too large and populous to have its independence denied and a North too obstinate to give up on the preservation of the Union. Most of all, Jones explores the horrible nature of a war that attracted outside involvement as much as it repelled it. Written in a narrative style that relates the story as its participants saw it play out around them, Blue and Gray Diplomacy depicts the complex set of problems faced by policy makers from Richmond and Washington to London, Paris, and St. Petersburg.

"It's history that reads like a race-against-the-clock thriller." —Harlan Coben Daniel Stashower, the two-time Edgar award–winning author of The Beautiful Cigar Girl, uncovers the riveting true story of the "Baltimore Plot," an audacious conspiracy to assassinate Abraham Lincoln on the eve of the Civil War in THE HOUR OF PERIL. In February of 1861, just days before he assumed the presidency, Abraham Lincoln faced a "clear and fully-matured" threat of assassination as he traveled by train from Springfield to Washington for his inauguration. Over a period of thirteen days the legendary detective Allan Pinkerton worked feverishly to detect and thwart the plot, assisted by a captivating young widow named Kate Warne, America's first female private eye. As Lincoln's train rolled inexorably toward "the seat of danger," Pinkerton struggled to unravel the ever-changing details of the murder plot, even as he contended with the intractability of Lincoln and his advisors, who refused to believe that the danger was real. With time running out Pinkerton took a desperate gamble, staking Lincoln's life—and the future of the nation—on a "perilous feint" that seemed to offer the only chance that Lincoln would survive to become president. Shrouded in secrecy—and, later, mired in controversy—the story of the "Baltimore Plot" is one of the great untold tales of the Civil War era, and Stashower has crafted this spellbinding historical narrative with the pace and urgency of a race-against-the-clock thriller. A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2013 Winner of the 2014 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Winner of the 2013 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction Winner of the 2014 Anthony Award for Best Critical or Non-fiction Work Winner of the 2014 Macavity Award for Best Nonfiction

In a searing analysis of the Civil War North as revealed in contemporary letters, diaries, and documents, Gallagher demonstrates that what motivated the North to go to war and persist in an increasingly bloody effort was primarily preservation of the Union.

In Abraham Lincoln and a New Birth of Freedom, Howard Jones explores the relationship between President Lincoln's wartime diplomacy and his interrelated goals of forming a more perfect Union and abolishing slavery. From the outset of the Civil War, Lincoln's central purpose was to save the Union by defeating the South on the battlefield. No less important was his need to prevent a European intervention that would have facilitated the South's move for independence. Lincoln's goal of preserving the Union, however, soon evolved into an effort to form a more perfect Union, one that rested on the natural rights principles of the Declaration of Independence and thus necessitated emancipation.

"Do you know what military glory is? It is 'that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood--that serpent’s eye, that charms to destroy.’” --Abraham Lincoln The Union in dire peril! The war that began in Peter G. Tsouras’s previous alternate history, Britannia’s Fist, accelerates during a few desperate weeks in October 1863. From the bayous of Louisiana to the green hills of the Hudson Valley, from Chicago in flames to the gates of Washington itself, the Great War uncoils in ropes of fire. French and British armies are on the march, and heavy reinforcements have put to sea. Copperheads have risen in revolt to drag the Midwest into the Confederacy as a vital Union army stands starving and under siege in Tennessee. Meanwhile, Robert E. Lee and the Royal Navy set in motion a stroke that is boldness itself. The Union staggers under these blows. While the Grenadier Guards march into glory in upstate New York’s apple orchards, from the second story of a shot-up Washington hotel Abraham Lincoln watches a forest of the red flags of rebellion waving over a Confederate column rushing across the Long Bridge. To stop them is a war-worn regiment of New York soldiers. To their backs Washington burns. But new technologies and the art of intelligence are thrown onto the scales, while Russia plans to enter the war to avenge its humiliation in the Crimean War. A Rainbow of Blood brings forward the Great War from its outbreak to the first great crisis of the embattled republic. Peopled with remarkable personalities of the age, the book rattles with the tramp of armies marching down one of the most intriguing roads not taken--or even imagined--until now.