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The American Civil War...A Very British Affair

	Mr. Lincoln put out his hand in a very friendly manner, and said, 'Mr. Russell, I am very glad to make your acquaintance, and to see you in this country. The London 'Times' is one of the greatest powers in the world - in fact, I don't know anything which has much more power - except perhaps the Mississippi
	London 'Times' journalist William Howard Russell on meeting President Abraham Lincoln, March 1861

"So, why are you interested in the American Civil War?" just about every member of the Round Table will be asked at some point – and very often by Americans! And there will be as many answers as members, who come from a variety of backgrounds and from all across Great Britain.

Perhaps it all started with the film version of Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With The Wind", which generated a great amount of interest in the glamour of the Civil War during a period of sustained austerity in post-war Britain. In 1953, a gathering of interested people formed the Confederate Research Club, making it pretty obvious where their interests - and possibly sympathies - lay. But the Club sustained itself under the guidance of the late Patrick C. Courtney. At the approach of the anniversary of the Civil War the CRC was invited to become a "corresponding member of the Civil War Centennial Commission", through which it was made aware of the existence of Civil War Round Tables in the USA. The CRC changed its name to conform and also demonstrate its wider interests resulting from membership growth.

Our members have a wide variety of hooks for their interest: from the blockade-runners into Southern ports to the evolution of modern warfare: from the ancestry of those who fought on both sides to concerns about the scenes of their exploits disappearing forever to development (and perhaps worse, to ignorance). From the politics of slavery to the politics of reform and the literature generated by both. We even owe our current political system to the outcome of that war.

And unlike the Confederate Research Club we have some superb advantages for the historian and enthusiast. Travel to the USA is now almost a routine and many members will have seen for themselves the places that would have been largely inaccessible to our founders. And of course we have the Internet and the possibility of instant communication with anyone, anywhere who shares our interests. So in spite of our title, we are not parochial: we are a band of enthusiasts who often astound each other and our contacts in the USA with the knowledge of something that happened nearly a century and a half ago, yet which clings to our popular culture as much as it does in the USA.

So however much you know – or don’t know - about the blue and the grey and wherever you are, come and join us! You will find us all as ready to share knowledge as to learn more.