Chapter 9

A Game Of Chance

With dramatic completeness in the summer and autumn of 1864, the foundations of the Confederate hope one after another gave way. Among the causes of this catastrophe was the failure of the second great attempt on the part of the Confederacy to secure recognition abroad. The subject takes us back to the latter days of 1862, when the center of gravity in foreign affairs had shifted from London to Paris. Napoleon III, at the height of his strange career, playing half a dozen dubious games at once, took up a new pastime and played at intrigue with the Confederacy. In October he accorded a most gracious interview to Slidell. He remarked that his sympathies were entirely with the South but added that, if he acted alone, England might trip him up. He spoke of his scheme for joint intervention by England, France, and Russia. Then he asked why we had not created a navy. Slidell snapped at the bait. He said that the Confederates would be glad to build ships in France, that "if the Emperor would give only some kind of verbal assurance that the police would not observe too closely when we wished to put on guns and men we would gladly avail ourselves of it." To this, the imperial trickster replied, "Why could you not have them built as for the Italian Government? I do not think it would be difficult but will consult the Minister of Marine about it."

Slidell left the Emperor's presence confident that things would happen. And they did. First came Napoleon's proposal of intervention, which was declined before the end of the year by England and Russia. Then came his futile overtures to the Government at Washington, his offer of mediation--which was rejected early in 1863. But Slidell remained confident that something else would happen. And in this expectation also he was not disappointed. The Emperor was deeply involved in Mexico and was busily intriguing throughout Europe. This was the time when Erlanger, standing high in the favor of the Emperor, made his gambler's proposal to the Confederate authorities about cotton. Another of the Emperor's friends now enters the play. On January 7, 1863, M. Arman, of Bordeaux, "the largest shipbuilder in France," had called on the Confederate commissioner: M. Arman would be happy to build ironclad ships for the Confederacy, and as to paying for them, cotton bonds might do the trick.

No wonder Slidell was elated, so much so that he seems to have given little heed to the Emperor's sinister intimation that the whole affair must be subterranean. But the wily Bonaparte had not forgotten that six months earlier he had issued a decree of neutrality forbidding Frenchmen to take commissions from either belligerent "for the armament of vessels of war or to accept letters of marque, or to coöperate in any way whatsoever in the equipment or arming of any vessel of war or corsair of either belligerent." He did not intend to abandon publicly this cautious attitude--at least, not for the present. And while Slidell at Paris was completely taken in, the cooler head of A. Dudley Mann, Confederate commissioner at Brussels, saw what an international quicksand was the favor of Napoleon. It was about this time that Napoleon, having dispatched General Forey with a fresh army to Mexico, wrote the famous letter which gave notice to the world of what he was about. Mann wrote home in alarm that the Emperor might be expected to attempt recovering Mexico's ancient areas including Texas. Slidell saw in the Forey letter only "views ... which will not be gratifying to the Washington Government."

The adroit Arman, acting on hints from high officers of the Government, applied for permission to build and arm ships of war, alleging that he intended to send them to the Pacific and sell them to either China or Japan. To such a laudable expression of commercial enterprise, one of his fellows in the imperial ring, equipped with proper authority under Bonaparte, hastened to give official approbation, and Erlanger came forward by way of financial backer. There were conferences of Confederate agents; contracts were signed; plans were agreed upon; and the work was begun.

There was no more hopeful man in the Confederate service than Slidell when, in the full flush of pride after Chancellorsville, he appealed to the Emperor to cease waiting on other powers and recognize the Confederacy. Napoleon accorded another gracious interview but still insisted that it was impossible for him to act alone. He said that he was "more fully convinced than ever of the propriety of a general recognition by the European powers of the Confederate States but that the commerce of France and the interests of the Mexican expedition would be jeopardized by a rupture with the United States" and unless England would stand by him he dared not risk such an eventuality. In point of fact, he was like a speculator who is "hedging" on the stock exchange, both buying and selling, and trying to make up his mind on which cast to stake his fortune. At the same time he threw out once more the sinister caution about the ships. He said that the ships might be built in France but that their destination must be concealed.

That Napoleon's choice just then, if England had supported him, would have been recognition of the Confederacy, cannot be doubted. The tangle of intrigue which he called his foreign policy was not encouraging. He was deeply involved in Italian politics, where the daring of Garibaldi had reopened the struggle between clericals and liberals. In France itself the struggle between parties was keen. Here, as in the American imbroglio, he found it hard to decide with which party to break. The chimerical scheme of a Latin empire in Mexico was his spectacular device to catch the imagination, and incidentally the pocketbook, of everybody. But in order to carry out this enterprise he must be able to avert or withstand the certain hostility of the United States. Therefore, as he told Slidell, "no other power than England possessed a sufficient navy" to pull his chestnuts out of the fire. The moment was auspicious, for there was a revival of the "Southern party" in England. The sailing of the Alabama from Liverpool during the previous summer had encouraged the Confederate agents and their British friends to undertake further shipbuilding.

While M. Arman was at work in France, the Laird Brothers were at work in England and their dockyards contained two ironclad rams supposed to outclass any vessels of the United States navy. Though every effort had been made to keep secret the ultimate destination of these rams, the vigilance of the United States minister, reinforced by the zeal of the "Northern party," detected strong circumstantial evidence pointing toward a Confederate contract with the Lairds. A popular agitation ensued along with demands upon the Government to investigate. To mask the purposes of the Lairds, Captain James Bullock, the able special agent of the Confederate navy, was forced to fall back upon the same tactics that were being used across the Channel, and to sell the rams, on paper, to a firm in France. Neither he nor Slidell yet appreciated what a doubtful refuge was the shadow of Napoleon's wing.

Nevertheless the British Government, by this time practically alined with the North, continued its search for the real owner of the Laird rams. The "Southern party," however, had not quite given up hope, and the agitation to prevent the sailing of the rams was a keen spur to its flagging zeal. Furthermore the prestige of Lee never was higher than it was in June, 1863, when the news of Chancellorsville was still fresh and resounding in every mind. It had given new life to the Confederate hope: Lee would take Washington before the end of the summer; the Laird rams would go to sea; the Union would be driven to the wall. So reasoned the ardent friends of the South. But one thing was lacking--a European alliance. What a time for England to intervene!

While Slidell was talking with the Emperor, he had in his pocket a letter from J. A. Roebuck, an English politician who wished to force the issue in the House of Commons. As a preliminary to moving the recognition of the Confederacy, he wanted authority to deny a rumor going the rounds in London, to the effect that Napoleon had taken position against intervention. Napoleon, when he had seen the letter, began a negotiation of some sort with this politician. It is needless to enter into the complications that ensued, the subsequent recriminations, and the question as to just what Napoleon promised at this time and how many of his promises he broke. He was a diplomat of the old school, the school of lying as a fine art. He permitted Roebuck to come over to Paris for an audience, and Roebuck went away with the impression that Napoleon could be relied upon to back up a new movement for recognition. When, however, Roebuck brought the matter before the Commons at the end of the month and encountered an opposition from the Government that seemed to imply an understanding with Napoleon which was different from his own, he withdrew his motion (in July). Once more the scale turned against the Confederacy, and Gettysburg was supplemented by the seizure of the Laird rams by the British authorities. These events explain the bitter turn given to Confederate feeling toward England in the latter part of 1863. On the 4th of August Benjamin wrote to Mason that "the perusal of the recent debates in Parliament satisfies the President" that Mason's "continued residence in London is neither conducive to the interests nor consistent with the dignity of this government," and directed him to withdraw to Paris.

Confederate feeling, as it cooled toward England, warmed toward France. Napoleon's Mexican scheme, including the offer of a ready-made imperial crown to Maximilian, the brother of the Emperor of Austria, was fully understood at Richmond; and with Napoleon's need of an American ally, Southern hope revived. It was further strengthened by a pamphlet which was translated and distributed in the South as a newspaper article under the title France, Mexico, and the Confederate States. The reputed author, Michel Chevalier, was an imperial senator, another member of the Napoleon ring, and highly trusted by his shifty master. The pamphlet, which emphasized the importance of Southern independence as a condition of Napoleon's "beneficent aims" in Mexico, was held to have been inspired, and the imperial denial was regarded as a mere matter of form.

What appeared to be significant of the temper of the Imperial Government was a decree of a French court in the case of certain merchants who sought to recover insurance on wine dispatched to America and destroyed in a ship taken by the Alabama. Their plea was that they were insured against loss by "pirates." The court dismissed their suit and assessed costs against them. Further evidence of Napoleon's favor was the permission given to the Confederate cruiser Florida to repair at Brest and even to make use of the imperial dockyard. The very general faith in Napoleon's promises was expressed by Davis in his message to Congress in December: "Although preferring our own government and institutions to those of other countries, we can have no disposition to contest the exercise by them of the same right of self-government which we assert for ourselves. If the Mexican people prefer a monarchy to a republic, it is our plain duty cheerfully to acquiesce in their decision and to evince a sincere and friendly interest in their prosperity.... The Emperor of the French has solemnly disclaimed any purpose to impose on Mexico a form of government not acceptable to the nation...." In January, 1864, hope of recognition through support of Napoleon's Mexican policy moved the Confederate Congress to adopt resolutions providing for a Minister to the Mexican Empire and giving him instructions with regard to a presumptive treaty. To the new post Davis appointed General William Preston.

But what, while hope was springing high in America, was taking place in France? So far as the world could say, there was little if anything to disturb the Confederates; and yet, on the horizon, a cloud the size of a man's hand had appeared. M. Arman had turned to another member of the Legislative Assembly, a sound Bonapartist like himself, M. Voruz, of Nantes, to whom he had sublet a part of the Confederate contract. The truth about the ships and their destination thus became part of the archives of the Voruz firm. No phase of Napoleonic intrigue could go very far without encountering dishonesty, and to the confidential clerk of M. Voruz there occurred the bright idea of doing something for himself with this valuable diplomatic information. One fine day the clerk was missing and with him certain papers. Then there ensued a period of months during which the firm and their employers could only conjecture the full extent of their loss.

In reality, from the Confederate point of view, everything was lost. Again the episode becomes too complex to be followed in detail. Suffice it to say that the papers were sold to the United States; that the secret was exposed; that the United States made a determined assault upon the Imperial Government. In the midst of this entanglement, Slidell lost his head, for hope deferred when apparently within reach of its end is a dangerous councilor of state. In his extreme anxiety, Slidell sent to the Emperor a note the blunt rashness of which the writer could not have appreciated. Saying that he feared the Emperor's subordinates might play into the hands of Washington, he threw his fat in the fire by speaking of the ships as "now being constructed at Bordeaux and Nantes for the government of the Confederate States" and virtually claimed of Napoleon a promise to let them go to sea. Three days later the Minister of Foreign Affairs took him sharply to task because of this note, reminding him that "what had passed with the Emperor was confidential" and dropping the significant hint that France could not be forced into war by "indirection." According to Slidell's version of the interview "the Minister's tone changed completely" when Slidell replied with "a detailed history of the affair showing that the idea originated with the Emperor." Perhaps the Minister knew more than he chose to betray.

From this hour the game was up. Napoleon's purpose all along seems to have been quite plain. He meant to help the South to win by itself, and, after it had won, to use it for his own advantage. So precarious was his position in Europe that he dared not risk an American war without England's aid, and England had cast the die. In this way, secrecy was the condition necessary to continued building of the ships. Now that the secret was out, Napoleon began to shift his ground. He sounded the Washington Government and found it suspiciously equivocal as to Mexico. To silence the French republicans, to whom the American minister had supplied information about the ships, Napoleon tried at first muzzling the press. But as late as February, 1864, he was still carrying water on both shoulders. His Minister of Marine notified the builders that they must get the ships out of France, unarmed, under fictitious sale to some neutral country. The next month, reports which the Confederate commissioners sent home became distinctly alarming. Mann wrote from Brussels: "Napoleon has enjoined upon Maximilian to hold no official relations with our commissioners in Mexico." Shortly after this Slidell received a shock that was the beginning of the end: Maximilian, on passing through Paris on his way to Mexico, refused to receive him.

The Mexican project was now being condemned by all classes in France. Nevertheless, the Government was trying to float a Mexican loan, and it is hardly fanciful to think that on this loan the last hope of the Confederacy turned. Despite the popular attitude toward Mexico, the loan was going well when the House of Representatives of the United States dealt the Confederacy a staggering blow. It passed unanimous resolutions in the most grim terms, denouncing the substitution of monarchical for republican government in Mexico under European auspices. When this action was reported in France, the Mexican loan collapsed.

Napoleon's Italian policy was now moving rapidly toward the crisis which it reached during the following summer when he surrendered to the opposition and promised to withdraw the French troops from Rome. In May, when the loan collapsed, there was nothing for it but to throw over his dear friends of the Confederacy. Presently he had summoned Arman before him, "rated him severely," and ordered him to make bona fide sales of the ships to neutral powers. The Minister of Marine professed surprise and indignation at Arman's trifling with the neutrality of the Imperial Government. And that practically was the end of the episode.

Equally complete was the breakdown of the Confederate negotiations with Mexico. General Preston was refused recognition. In those fierce days of July when the fate of Atlanta was in the balance, the pride and despair of the Confederate Government flared up in a haughty letter to Preston reminding him that "it had never been the intention of this Government to offer any arguments to the new Government of Mexico ... nor to place itself in any attitude other than that of complete equality," and directing him to make no further overtures to the Mexican Emperor.

And then came the débâcle in Georgia. On that same 20th of September when Benjamin poured out in a letter to Slidell his stored-up bitterness denouncing Napoleon, Davis, feeling the last crisis was upon him, left Richmond to join the army in Georgia. His frame of mind he had already expressed when he said, "We have no friends abroad."