Reddit reviews A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War

First of all, the United States was not yet important as a world power, so European issues such as the Italian War of Independence of 1859 or the Prussian-Danish War of 1864 were far more important than the internal squabbles on a distant continent.

Until the end of 1862, both North and South supported slavery, seen by most of Europe as a vile outdated abomination. In Europe, it was game over for the South as soon as Lincoln made the war into one against slavery. Amanda Foreman's A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War becomes rather boring after 1863 precisely because the issues had been settled.

Sharp observers like Karl Marx noticed that the North's resources and infrastructure would crush the decadent Southerners. Not so smart observers like Napoleon III thought that the American distraction would allow him (and the British and the Spanish) to dabble in a colonial venture in Mexico.

Generally, the South's support was limited to their trading partners (textile mill owners, shipping magnates, bankers) and parts of the nobility while the working public and the religious were vocal opponents. Foreman even presents the case of a Southern false flag operation of claiming to fight for the abolishment of slavery to garner support.

Overall, support for the South was tepid at best. Support for the North was stronger (especially among the Irish and Germans). Anti-Irish and anti-German resentments within the US dampened the support for the North as the war progressed.

I'm not sure how to put this any other way, but time simply moves faster these days. Culture fluctuates so rapidly in our modern world that we can see a very distinct shift every decade, and even quicker sometimes. In the past, events and changes in culture moved at a slower pace. That could be why there aren't as easy categorizations for the 19th century as there appear to be for the 20th.

Below are two big changes I haven't seen mentioned yet, which may not seem obvious, but affected American culture in a big way in the 19th century.

• The Second and Third Great Awakening took place in America all throughout the 1800's; this was a Protestant revival of traditional religious values and was a reaction against the scientific and skeptical nature of the Enlightenment in the previous century.
  
  
• Synthetic dyes were invented in the late 1850's and were in popular use by the 1860's. The introduction of hues such as mauve, fuchsia, and safrin revolutionized the fashion world. In 1859, there was a ball in Washington which was the highlight of the social season; it was a farewell party for the British ambassador and his wife, Mrs. Napier. Mrs. Napier made quite a splash when she appeared at the ball in pure white. As all of the other ladies were wearing dresses with the newly popular bright synthetic dyes in garish styles, she stood out from them with her daring simplicity. (source: A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War)

Seward's life from 1860 onward was a Shakespearean tragedy. Seward stated late in his life that he wished he had just died when he was attacked: "I have always felt that Providence dealt hardly with me in not letting me die with Mr. Lincoln. My work was done, and I think I deserved some of the reward of dying there." (source, from A World on Fire, cited below)

Here's a synopsis off the top of my head:

Seward was a respected career politician and the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 1860, but did not attend the party convention in Chicago. Lincoln supporters packed the convention (Illinois was his power base, after all) and managed to get their dark horse candidate nominated instead of Seward. This was a shock to the establishment-- it took the media a couple weeks to figure out for sure whether the nominee's name was "Abraham" or "Abram," for example, which illustrates how much of a nobody he was.

Lincoln offered Seward a position as his Secretary of State, which was humiliating for Seward, who considered Lincoln to be a country bumpkin who was absolutely his inferior. He grudgingly accepted the position. But after assuming the role of Secretary of State, Seward privately tried to pressure Lincoln into letting him set the administration's policies and be the head decisionmaker. Lincoln shot him down.

It also turned out that despite how intelligent and generally competent he was, Seward was awful at his job at maintaining foreign relations. He had unashamedly imperialistic ambitions for the United States, and this put him at odds with the rest of the world. He was tactless, and he tended to overdrink in the presence of foreign ministers, which further loosened his tongue. He seemed to view his position as a bully pulpit from which to help bring North and South back together by uniting them against Canada, Mexico, and Europe. His words and actions constantly antagonized the European powers, and he was ridiculed and considered a pompous, overblown windbag by the British in particular.

Seward gradually grew more effective in his role over time, and he grew to respect Lincoln more and more. The two developed a good working relationship. By 1865, they were close friends; Seward was clearly Lincoln's right-hand man.

In April 1865, Seward was seriously injured when he was thrown from a carriage. While recuperating in bed with numerous broken bones, he and his family were brutally attacked on the day of Lincoln's assassination. No one died, but Seward suffered grievously grisly injuries. From the way he was butchered, Seward was in fact assumed dead until he miraculously regained consciousness.

After the attack, Seward's wife, Frances, had a nervous breakdown, and she died of a heart attack. She was followed in quick succession by their final living daughter, Fanny, whose health plummeted after she witnessed her father's gruesome attack and her mother's sudden death; a bout of tuberculosis finished her off.

Seward's dear friend Lincoln was dead, but Seward was still Secretary of State. He had an antagonistic, frustrating, and fruitless relationship with Andrew Johnson, the next president.

Seward's thankless years under Johnson had one bright spot: he initiated the purchase of Alaska from the Russians (which fit perfectly into Seward's dream of annexing the entire continent-- remember what I said about him being AWFUL at foreign relations?), which is now considered to have been a genius move. At the time, though, Seward was absolutely ridiculed by the American public he had spent his life serving.

So ended his decades-long career: from his height as a respected national politician and presidential front-runner, he ended up a traumatized, ridiculed object of scorn whose family and closest friends were dead.

NB: I am not a historian. Don't take all this as gospel. But to cite a couple sources, Team of Rivals and A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War taught me most of what I know about Seward's life and career.