ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the ways in which the international press covered Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. It begins with neighbours to the north of the United States, then Europe, and sets the stage for a later discussion of his presidency relative to international movements toward emancipation. The chapter examines the various ways the international press saw Lincoln and the central issue of his administration, the internecine war. The American Civil War seemed more like a colony trying to remove itself from the mother country—in other words, the Hamilton editors believed the South should win recognition as an independent nation because the Confederate Army had become a "formidable" power. William Howard Russell's coverage of the US Civil War between 1861 and 1862 is remarkable in its descriptive quality, his observations on Lincoln and Americans in general, and his thoughts about the culture—north and south.
