Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 32.djvu/127

 Confederate Diplomacy. 115

before leaving their docks. All ships building m Europe on account of the Confederates then ceased. The Southern cause was dead in Europe.

GETTYSBURG AND VICKSBURG.

General Lee returned from Pennsylvania upon a drawn battle and General Johnston lost Vicksburg in the same days of midsummer in the third year of the war. Confederate sympathizers in England grew despondent. The Southern people did not grow despondent, nor did the army for a moment lose faith in the final outcome of the war. It is a notable fact that the battle of Gettysburg did not come within the plans of Lee, and would not have occurred at all had Lee's order to the marching van of his army been duly exe- cuted. Gettysburg village did not lie on his line of invasive march. It was reached by the turning of a head of corps in the van at right angles to the prescribed course from headquarters. And the move- ment was a surprise to the commanding general. Not less notable an instance of disobedience of orders from Johnston was the retreat of a wing of his army into Vicksburg and the resultant seige and inevitable capitulation that followed.

OTHER CONFEDERATE AGENTS.

Several young men were sent abroad to excite the good will of foreign people toward the government of the Confederacy and its people. Major Norman S. Walker, of Richmond, was placed at Bermuda to receive and forward merchandise both ways. Mr. Henry Holze, some time one of the editorial writers of the Mobile Register, was sent to London in a confidential government office. Mr. Edwin de Leon, a noted newspaper paragraphist, was sent to England with $25,000 to purchase, if need be, space in important journals for the discussion by him of the Southern situation for the better enlightenment of the public as well as the government. Various other citizens were sent abroad on missions of the govern- ment from time to time.

After the cruiser Alabama began upon her wonderful work on the high seas, the neutrality promised by Great Britain at the outbreak of the war languished. The United States continued to get all the support it needed from English'trade, while the corresponding bene- fit was denied to the Southern Confederacy. Both belligerents were negotiating for the construction of war ships by British build-