In December 1864, Camille de Polignac, a Confederate general serving in the Trans-Mississippi, requested a conference with department commander Edmund Kirby Smith to discuss a matter of diplomatic importance. Polignac proposed a mission to his native France “in order to awaken sympathy” on behalf of the Confederacy. Smith responded positively and arranged to meet with Polignac and Louisiana governor Henry Watkins Allen. Together, the three men crafted an agenda for Polignac that included a modification of French neutrality to favor the Confederacy and a plan to emancipate and arm Trans-Mississippi slaves. Despite the nature of the proposal, Smith had neither the time nor the wherewithal to contact Richmond for permission to undertake such a venture. Instead, he acted unilaterally and ordered Polignac to proceed.[1]
Allen drafted the formal proposal and in it, he stressed the “strong and sacred ties that bound France and Louisiana.” He also affirmed that should the Confederacy fall, France would soon find “an immense Federal Army . . . turned toward Mexico.” Allen’s friend Sarah A. Dorsey read the letter and described a tone of “the most anxious fears, unless there should be foreign intervention in behalf of the Confederacy.” Meanwhile, Polignac assembled a diplomatic team consisting of his own chief-of-staff Major John C. Moncure and Allen’s aide-de-camp Colonel Ernest Miltenberger. Thus, the diplomatic team included a representative from a state government and of the Confederate government. Finally, Smith notified the Confederate commissioner to France, Louisianan John Slidell, of the mission. “Our cause has reached a crisis to call for foreign intervention. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the Emperor of the French that the security of his empire in Mexico and the interests of his own Government all demand immediate interference to restore peace and establish firmly the nationality of the Confederate States.” As for the slaves, Smith affirmed, “the planters would at this time willingly accept any system of gradual emancipation to insure our independence as a people.” Polignac went a step further and insisted that the position regarding slaves was not a radical departure from Confederate war aims. He asserted that “the leading minds” of the Confederacy were “very far from identifying slavery, in the abstract, with the Confederate cause” of independence.[2]
Polignac and his team left for France on January 9 and traveled through Texas before entering Mexico. En route, they met with other Confederate officials including Missouri’s governor in exile Thomas Reynolds. Reynolds gave Polignac a letter for Napoleon III asking the Emperor to delegate a special envoy to conduct business with the Trans-Mississippi. Polignac took the letter but considered the request imprudent. On January 25, the team sailed to Havana on a British steamer and left for Europe on February 28. They arrived in Spain on March 18 and then traveled through Seville and Madrid to Paris, arriving in late March.[3]
Polignac was to meet with his friend the Duke De Morny, an advisor to Napoleon III. De Morny would then secure an audience for Polignac with the Emperor. Upon their arrival in Paris, however, the Confederates learned that De Morny had recently died. Polignac called it an “irony of fate.” He nearly abandoned the mission entirely but another friend, Major De Vatry a member of Napoleon’s military staff, promised to intervene on Polignac’s behalf and arranged a meeting with the Emperor.[4]
Polignac presented his credentials and his case to Napoleon III but the meeting did not go well. The Emperor remained standing throughout the conversation, which “lasted only a few minutes” while Polignac talked about states rights and the war. Polignac described Napoleon as courteous but “guarded” and recalled that the Emperor did not address the issue of politics nor did he reply directly to inquiries about French intervention. When pressed on the topic he responded that he had tried unsuccessfully to get England to intervene with France on two previous occasions but reiterated that France could not act alone. In addition, he told Polignac “that it was too late to take further action.” Finally, Napoleon accepted Allen’s letter from Miltenberger but put it on a table unopened. The meeting ended and the mission had failed. “The news of General Lee’s surrender reached us almost immediately afterward,” Polignac later recalled.[5]
[1] Smith to Slidell, January 9, 1865 in OR, 48, pt. 1, 1319-1320; Camille J Polignac, “Polignac’s Mission.” in Southern Historical Society Papers. 32 (1904): 365-367, 370-371; Ibid., 35 (1907): 326-334; Jeff Kinard, Lafayette of the South: Prince Camille de Polignac and the American Civil War (College Station: Texas A & M Press, 2001), 180-183.
[2] Smith to Slidell, January 9, 1865, OR, 48, pt. 1, 1319-1320; Polignac, “Polignac’s Mission,” 365, 369-371; Sarah A. Dorsey, Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen, (New York: M. Doolady, 1866), 284; Miltenberger cited in Kinard, Lafayette of the South, 181.
[3] Polignac Letters, Special Collections, Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Polignac, “Polignac’s Mission,” 367-368; Kinard, Lafayette of the South, 182-183.
[4] Camille Armand Jules Marie de Polignac Diary, United States Army Military Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, March 18, 21, 1865; Kinard, Lafayette of the South, 183.
[5] “Polignac’s Mission,” 368-369; Kinard, Lafayette of the South, 183.
Jeff Prushankin's News 
Leave a comment