Secret History of Confederate Diplomacy Abroad: Edwin De Leon, Late Confidential Agent of the Confederate Department of State in Europe. Edited by William C. Davis. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, c. 2005. Pp. xxxii, 224. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-7006-1411-0.)

In its original publication

in 1867-1868 in the New York Citizen, Edwin De Leon's Secret History of the Confederate Diplomacy Abroad presented views that were later developed into major theses by Frank Owsley and Samuel Flagg Bemis. De Leon argued that Confederate leaders wrongly banked on international recognition because of Europe's need for cotton, a view embraced by Owsley. He also, howbeit from the nonbenefiting side, touched on the Bemis thesis that European distresses work for American successes when he credited Giuseppe Garibaldi's attack on Rome in 1862 with preventing Louis Napoleon III from extending French recognition to the Confederacy.

De Leon received news of South Carolina's secession while serving as United States consul general and diplomatic agent to Egypt. He immediately resigned his post and sailed home. With hopes for an army command ignored, he readily accepted an appointment as an ex officio diplomat to oversee Confederate propaganda efforts in England and France. He left for Europe in the spring of 1862.

Once in Europe, De Leon found fault with most of his diplomatic colleagues and was especially critical of John Slidell. He saw Henry Hotze's propaganda newspaper, the Index, as ineffective because it was openly published as a Confederate organ. He apparently saw himself as the one agent who possessed the necessary skills and views to serve his government well.

De Leon's candid visit with the British prime minister in July 1862 convinced him that there was little hope of obtaining British recognition of the Confederacy, a conviction reinforced by his readings of the Times of London. He felt that the Times was a strong voice in shaping European opinion of the American Civil War. He saw the great newspaper as switching from a pro-southern position after the battle of Bull Run to a pro-northern stance following the battle of Antietam in September 1862. Once it adopted a position favorable to the North, it stood fast, running editorials and articles that embraced the Washington government.

In an interview later that month with Napoleon III, De Leon concluded that the French emperor favored recognition of the Confederacy. De Leon then began to develop a scheme that focused on France as the key to European diplomatic recognition. He suggested that the Richmond government offer the French gradual emancipation of slaves and a monopoly of the Confederate cotton trade in Europe in exchange for diplomatic recognition. Playing the French card, he believed, would force England to either recognize the South or fall behind France in the European textile industry. The plan never reached fruition because the Confederate government refused to adopt gradual emancipation and Napoleon III became preoccupied with Garibaldi's threat to Rome.

By the end of 1863, De Leon, having been dismissed for shortcomings in diplomatic protocol, had come to believe that Confederate diplomacy had also failed in part because it was being manipulated by stodgy old men who refused to move from their traditions and prejudices to listen to the more innovative ideas of the younger diplomats.

William C. Davis has done a masterful job in editing, correcting, and placing De Leon's work in context. Although the latter is not remembered as one of the outstanding Civil War diplomats, his book, including his negative reviews of his colleagues, provides the historian and general reader with interesting and colorful insight into the work of the Confederate diplomatic corps in Europe during 1862 and 1863.

JIM DADDYSMAN

Alderson-Broaddus College