The Milne Papers

The documents that comprise this second volume deal with topics of interest to scholars of international relations, Anglo-American affairs, the U.S. Civil War and the slave trade. Other aspects addressed include naval medicine, steam-era logistics and other elements of the Royal Navy’s modernization pertaining to its materiel, personnel, and administration. This book focusses on Admiral Sir Alexander Milne, a man who never participated in combat operations during his sixty-year naval career. It addresses the Royal Navy and the outbreak of the American Civil War, 1860-1862. In early 1861 the domestic situation in the United States became the chief focus of both Milne’s attention and the squadron’s activities. It would remain so for the remainder of the period covered in this volume, although plans for the Mexican intervention threatened briefly to take centre stage in the autumn of 1861. The first intimation that trouble was brewing in America came from the Foreign Office via the Admiralty, following South Carolina’s unilateral, illegal secession from the Union in early December 1860. Also addressed is the suppression of the Cuban slave trade, although high on the list of the British Government’s and Milne’s own priorities, was even more problematic than fisheries protection.