Nov. 8, 1861

Nov. 8, 1861:
The Trent Affair – The Bahama Channel, Caribbean Sea. Confederate envoys James Mason and John Slidell board the British mail packet ship Trent in Havana, Cuba, and sail for Britain. On this date, in the Bahama channel, the Trent is forced to heave to and stop under orders of Capt. Charles Wilkes of the USS San Jacinto. Wilkes sends a boarding party and takes Mason and Slidell prisoner. The British protest this action that violates international maritime law. This incident will grow to international crisis proportions.

--George Templeton Strong of New York attends an organizing meeting in Philadelphia of what will be called the United State Sanitary Commission, a volunteer group dedicated to better care of the soldiers in regard to diet, clothing, medical care, and camp sanitation. As he returns to New York, "we met the distinquished Charles Sumner [US Sen. from Mass.]. He says he knows the instructions given to General [Thomas] Sherman as to his relations with the contrabands of the district he is to occupy and all the secret history of their discussion and settlement in the Cabinet, and that they are equivalent to Emancipation. We shall see. I put no great faith in Sumner, and we may as well effect our landing and secure our foothold before we consider that question." The question, of course, is what to do with the escaping slaves at the new base at Port Royal in South Carolina.

--Mary Chestnut writes in her journal about friends that were near the Port Royal area: "At any rate, Combahee is so near Beaufort. So I drove there at once. I found them at dinner and in fine spirits. No allusion whatever was made to Port Royal."