If by we you mean the UK , we weren ' t . This is how it went to the best of my limited understanding the Confederates tried to get us on side via the King Cotton strategy withholding cotton exports which was meant to hurt British textile industry but it was a failure for various reasons , mainly that they just found other sources from inside the Empire . So most of the war we were neutral , some people siding with the South some with the North . Then when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation it put us fairly firmly on the side of the Union , but even then never really got officially involved . <| sep |> So it seems , which is kinnda strange . I find it weird that that bug is not mentioned anywhere .