France's involvement in the American Civil War was critical to its unfolding, but the details of the European power's role remain little understood. Here, Steve Sainlaude offers the first comprehensive history of French diplomatic engagement with the Union and the Confederate States of America during the conflict. Drawing on archival sources that have been neglected by scholars up to this point, Sainlaude overturns many commonly held assumptions about French relations with the Union and the Confederacy. As Sainlaude demonstrates, no major European power had a deeper stake in the outcome of the conflict than France. Reaching beyond the standard narratives of this history, Sainlaude delves deeply into questions of geopolitical strategy and diplomacy during this critical period in world affairs. The resulting study will help shift the way Americans look at the Civil War and extend their understanding of the conflict in global context.

"Thoroughly researched . . . [Hubbard's] interpretation is solid, well supported, and touches all of the major aspects of Confederate diplomacy."--American Historical Review "As the first examination of the topic since King Cotton Diplomacy (1931), this work deserves widespread attention. Hubbard offers a convincingly bleak portrayal of the limited skills and myopic vision of Rebel diplomacy at home and abroad."--Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Of the many factors that contributed to the South's loss of the Civil War, one of the most decisive was the failure of Southern diplomacy. In this penetrating work, Charles M. Hubbard reassesses the diplomatic efforts made by the Confederacy in its struggle to become an independent nation. Hubbard focuses both on the Confederacy's attempts to negotiate a peaceful separation from the Union and Southern diplomats' increasingly desperate pursuit of state recognition from the major European powers. Drawing on a large body of sources, Hubbard offers an important reinterpretation of the problems facing Confederate diplomats. He demonstrates how the strategies and objectives of the South's diplomatic program--themselves often poorly conceived--were then placed in the hands of inexperienced envoys who were ill-equipped to succeed in their roles as negotiators. The Author: Charles M. Hubbard is associate professor of history at Lincoln Memorial University and executive director of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Museum in Harrogate, Tennessee.

In this examination of Union and Confederate foreign relations during the Civil War from both European and American perspectives, Howard Jones demonstrates that the consequences of the conflict between North and South reached far beyond American soil. Jones explores a number of themes, including the international economic and political dimensions of the war, the North's attempts to block the South from winning foreign recognition as a nation, Napoleon III's meddling in the war and his attempt to restore French power in the New World, and the inability of Europeans to understand the interrelated nature of slavery and union, resulting in their tendency to interpret the war as a senseless struggle between a South too large and populous to have its independence denied and a North too obstinate to give up on the preservation of the Union. Most of all, Jones explores the horrible nature of a war that attracted outside involvement as much as it repelled it. Written in a narrative style that relates the story as its participants saw it play out around them, Blue and Gray Diplomacy depicts the complex set of problems faced by policy makers from Richmond and Washington to London, Paris, and St. Petersburg.

One of the South's most urgent priorities in the Civil War was obtaining the recognition of foreign governments. Edwin De Leon, a Confederate propagandist charged with wooing Britain and France, opens up this vital dimension of the war in the earliest known account by a Confederate foreign agent. First published in the New York Citizen in 1867-68, De Leon's memoir subsequently sank out of sight until its recent rediscovery by William C. Davis, one of the Civil War field's true luminaries. Both reflective and engaging, it brims with insights and immediacy lacking in other works, covering everything from the diplomatic impact of the Battle of Bull Run to the candid opinions of Lord Palmerston to the progress of secret negotiations at Vichy. De Leon discusses, among other things, the strong stand against slavery by the French and a frustrating policy of inaction by the British, as well as the troubling perceptions of some Europeans that the Confederacy was located in South America and that most Americans were a cross between Davy Crockett and Sam Slick. With France's recognition a priority, De Leon published pamphlets and used French journals in a futile attempt to sway popular opinion and pressure the government of Napoleon III. His interpretation of the latter's meeting with Confederate diplomat John Slidell and the eventual mediation proposal sheds new light on that signal event. De Leon was a keen observer and a bit of a gossip, and his opinionated details and character portraits help shed light on the dark crevices of the South's doomed diplomatic efforts and provide our only inside look at the workings of Napoleon's court and Parliament regarding the Confederate cause. Davis adds an illuminating introduction that places De Leon's career in historical context, reveals much about his propagandist strategies, and traces the history of the Secret History itself. Together they open up a provocative new window on the Civil War.

During the American Civil War, the British legation and consuls experienced strained relations with both the Union and the Confederacy, to varying degrees and with different results. Southern consuls were cut off from the legation in Washington, D.C., and confronted their problems for the most part without direction from superiors. Consuls in the North sought assistance from the British foreign minister and followed the procedures he established. Diplomatic relations with Great Britain eased tensions in the North; the British consuls in the South were expelled in 1863. Eugene H. Berwanger uses archival sources in both Britain and the United States as a basis for his reevaluation of consular attitudes. Because much of this material was not available to earlier historians of British-American diplo-macy, the author expands upon their conclusions and suggests reinterpreta-tions in light of the new information. The first comprehensive investigation of Anglo-American relations during the Civil War, The British Foreign Service and the American Civil War will interest scholars of American history and diplomatic relations.

"This volume is a study of the efforts of the Confederate authorities ... to secure foreign recognition and support. It considers also the forces which controlled the European powers and defeated the attempt to divide the American Union ... It attempts to give a careful and purely historical presentation of the theories, purposes, policies, diplomatic efforts, and difficulties of the Secessionists ... It traces the inner working of the diplomatic machine during the many variations of the military and political situation, closely observes the attitude, motives, and policy of the great nations with whom the Confederate agents sought to negotiate, and throws light upon international questions arising between the United States and foreign powers"--Pref.

"This volume is a study of the efforts of the Confederate authorities ... to secure foreign recognition and support. It considers also the forces which controlled the European powers and defeated the attempt to divide the American Union ... It attempts to give a careful and purely historical presentation of the theories, purposes, policies, diplomatic efforts, and difficulties of the Secessionists ... It traces the inner working of the diplomatic machine during the many variations of the military and political situation, closely observes the attitude, motives, and policy of the great nations with whom the Confederate agents sought to negotiate, and throws light upon international questions arising between the United States and foreign powers"--Pref.