Thomas F. Harney

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thank you so much, Rick! (And I just realized a linguistic fauxpax...should read "sought alliance with her"!)

International affairs is an interesting topic to me, also the question how serious the threat of foreign intervention from any side actually was. Due to sickness I had a lot of boring resting time to fill, so I apologize in advance if I bore y'all now with another lengthy post on Gene's recent question whether the Confederate government gained any official recognition. Please ask for (further) sources if you are interested in.

As for international recognition - Jefferson Davis himself wrote in his memoirs: "The course of action adopted by Europe...was a refusal to treat us as an independent government." (J. Davis: "The Rise and Fall of the Confed. Government II", p.370.)

The Confederate government sent repeatedly delegations to Europe, e.g. James M. Mason to London and John Slidell to Paris. They were unofficially interviewed, but neither secured official recognition for the Confederacy. The Union victories at Antietam, Vicksburg and Gettysburg, and abolitionist opposition in Britain put an end to any British and French interest in recognition or even at least mediation of the war.

However, several European nations maintained diplomats in place who had been appointed to the US (e.g. the United Kingdom and France maintained consular offices in Charleston, St Louis and in Texas, but limited their activities to diplomatic protection of their own nationals), but no country appointed any diplomat to the Confederacy. But those nations did recognize the Union and Confederate sides as belligerents. Both Confederate and Union agents were allowed to work openly in British territories. Also European military "advisors" and observers were appointed to both sides, both official and unofficial, to assess the de facto establishment of independence, but it is uncertain the extent to which those officers represented an attempt to keep a foot in both camps - just in case the Confederacy won. In 1863, the Confederacy expelled the European diplomatic missions for advising their resident subjects to refuse to serve in the Confederate army.

The closest Confederate government probably came to recognition was in 1863, when the Confederacy appointed Ambrose Dudley Mann as special agent to the Holy See on September 24. After a meeting, Mann received by His Holiness Pope Pius IX a letter addressed to the “Illustrious and Hon. Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, Richmond,” that concluded with a hope for a union in “perfect friendship".Mann, in his dispatch to Richmond, interpreted the letter as "a positive recognition of our Government."
The pope's letter to Jefferson Davis was accompanied by an autographed picture of the pope.

Davis interpreted this communication as a form of recognition and hoped that this letter would be the first step towards widespread European recognition. The letter was reported in Southern newspapers with the implication that Pope Pius IX supported the Confederacy.

Judah P. Benjamin, however, interpreted it as "a mere inferential recognition, unconnected with political action or the regular establishment of diplomatic relations" and thus not as formal recognition. (See his letter of Jan. 29, 1864, last passage and next side - but I'm afraid you have to go to p.1013 first, doesn't work to post a "direct link":
http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t...t;size=100 Letter of Pope Pius IX to Jefferson Davis in: Varina Davis: "Jefferson Davis: Ex-President of the Confederate States of America: A Memoir By His Wife Varina Davis", Vol. 2, p.448.)

General Robert E. Lee kept a portrait of the Pope in his house, and referred to him as "the South's only true friend during her time of need".