Trent Affair was a naval incident in the first year of the American Civil War (1861-1865). It almost brought Britain into the conflict on the side of the South. In the fall of 1861, two men representing the Confederacy, James M. Mason and John Slidell, set sail for Europe. Their mission was to enlist the aid of neutral France and Britain to the Southern cause. Since Northern ships were blockading Southern ports, they boarded a British ship, the Trent, in Havana, Cuba. Charles Wilkes, commander of the USS San Jacinto, stopped the British ship without orders to do so. He took Mason and Slidell prisoner and brought them to Boston. This act violated the principle of freedom of the seas, because Britain was a neutral nation.
The people of the North rejoiced, but the British government demanded an apology and the immediate release of Mason and Slidell. To back up these demands, it ordered 8,000 troops to Canada. President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward realized that Wilkes was wrong. The U.S. government ordered the prisoners released. Mason and Slidell went on to Europe, but their mission failed.
