The Civil War in the Southwest

Jefferson Davis’ Warhawks, Napoleon the Third’s France, & the Menace of England

This is part 2 of the series over the Civil War in the Southwest.

The origins of Southern imperial ambitions are old, their roots deep. Americans, especially Southerners, had long manifested a penchant for expansion. Pushing inland from coastal enclaves, they carved an empire from the wilderness.

Author Donald Frazier from his Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest

Jefferson F Davis, nobody really knows what the F stands for, but some claim its Finis, but that’s unsubstantiated. Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808 but he spent most of his childhood in Mississippi. His father was a Revolutionary War hero who had fought bravely and was then given land in Georgia for his service. Davis was one of ten children and three of his brother’s actually fought in the war of 1812. Jefferson Davis was named after Thomas Jefferson and many, if not most of his political beliefs stemmed from that founding father. The rest of his views seemed to have come from John C Calhoun. And a few others came from the Emperor of France.

Jefferson Davis would graduate from West Point and serve six years in the Army. A lot of that was in the Wisconsin Territory which he did not enjoy and whose climate made him quite sick. I know exactly how he feels since as a southerner, I myself did not enjoy the 8 years I lived in Wisconsin. After he left the army in 1835, he entered politics where he often tabled abolitionist petitions by reading Calhoun’s words. Davis was also an ardent Jeffersonian Democrat Warhawk who wanted to see Manifest Destiny cover the entire North American continent and the islands of the Caribbean. As you’ll hear, throughout his career, he supported American filibusters in Nicaragua, he supported taking Vancouver by force, and as a quote I’m about to read shows, he wanted to support Canadians who would join the United States from Quebec.

Author of Jefferson Davis, Napoleonic France, and the Nature of Confederate Ideology, Jeffrey Zvengrowski writes this of his early years in politics. It’s a long quote that also talks about the French in Canada and militias and… this was the entire book, by the way. It’s a fantastic read but it is THICK.

Quote: He first entered U.S. politics as a sympathizer with the 1837 Patriote rebellion in British North America but especially Quebec against suffrage restrictions imposed by the Family Compact of Loyalist-descended Tories. The most ardent Patriotes or "Sons of Liberty" tried to create a Republic of Lower Canada that would join the Union in exchange for U.S. support. They were rebuffed by President Van Buren, however, and routed by Britain. Patriotes who fled to the United States then formed unofficial militias (Frères chasseurs) and raided British North America with Democratic assistance until Van Buren interceded. During the uprising, moreover, U.S. fugitive slaves fought for the Family Compact, which upheld racial equality in Upper Canada. Quebec, in contrast, retained black slavery until forced to abolish it by Britain in the 1830s, and with Irish Catholic immigrants making la belle province even more hostile to British abolitionism, Davis expected future U.S. invaders to be welcomed there. End all quotes. Davis truly wanted to take most of Canada from England. A goal he’d never see attained.

Davis, like Calhoun, also wanted a transcontinental railroad and other key pieces of infrastructure to be built by the Federal Government, as opposed to state governments. He didn’t want to see the Federal Government grow, mind you. He just wanted to use the feds like Calhoun had wanted to. But he still wanted the states to participate heavily. Especially in the formation of militias. Zvengrowski again, Davis urged, quote, southern states to fund agricultural societies, underwrite banks, found public schools, and subsidize factories. Urging those states to build nonmilitary railroads as well, he would accordingly hail the completion of a "Southern Railroad" connecting South Carolina to Mississippi as a partial realization of the "conception of John C. Calhoun’s. End quote. This southern railroad would be one of the main reasons he signed off on an invasion of New Mexico… but more on that in another episode. 

While Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce, Davis also sought to greatly enlarge the army, as well as make a few key changes. He boosted hazard pay for soldiers and he made the military more of a meritocracy. He wanted to improve the lives of every white American soldier not just the ones that were able to attend West Point, like he had. He also paid military contractors extremely well to avoid having to use unionized workers who could go on strike. And quite importantly, which angered his opponents, Davis sough to end the practice of flogging as a punishment within the army. He saw this practice as an unrighteous inequality to the whites. A practice that the English used.

Zvengrowski writes that Davis would end up challenging his Federalist Whig opponents by eliminating, quote, flogging as an affront to white equality, recommended higher troop salaries, and advocated pensions for veterans as well as their families. War of 1812 hero Edmund P. Gaines, after all, had advised Secretary of War Calhoun to eliminate flogging for serious infractions in the army, noting in 1820 that whippings quoting Clahoun, have long been applied very freely to the British soldiery... In France, however, this mode of punishment was not in use, to any considerable extent, at a time when that Nation achieved great and brilliant conquests over the armies of all the rest of Europe. End quote. Besides, the flogging of whites quote, strike[s] at the vitals of our ... national character, end all quotes. After Napoleon, the English backed Louis XVIII would restore the practice of flogging in the French Army.

Davis saw England as menacing the United States from all directions. So to help alleviate this, like Calhoun, Davis wanted enormous forts on the nation’s coasts and specifically he wanted to build a giant fort on Vancouver island to strike fear into Great Britain. That would be part of this infrastructure he wanted built. He also demanded an enlarged army which would man these forts along America’s frontier in fresh waves. Like the Spanish Presidio system. This system would also include a massively defended and armed Mississippi River which would insure that the British couldn’t use the mighty river from either the north or the south.

Davis was also an ardent Warhawk who wanted the land Mexico was holding in the west. He wanted to take the continent to the pacific. This was before the Mexican American War. Before he was Secretary of War. He also wanted Oregon from the English. Davis was tired of the fact that escaped slaves could flee to Canada and gain citizenship which only enticed other southern slaves to escape. And like earlier Southerners, Davis knew the English were arming the Indians to fight Americans, a practice he planned on stopping by putting a naval blockade against Canada to stop them from receiving aid from England.

In another lengthy but great quote from Zvengrowski he quotes Jefferson Davis himself about his feelings towards that kingdom across the pond. The passage goes, quote:

My thoughts, my feelings are American," Jefferson Davis added, and "to England, the robber nation of the earth, whose history is a succession of wrongs and oppressions... to England I cannot go for lessons of morality and justice." His father, after all, had been "a Revolutionary Soldier," and his brother Samuel fought as a "gallant soldier of the War of 1812." For Davis, then, hatred of Britain, which "load [ed] the laboring masses with oppressive taxation to support a favored class," fueled his "attachment to this Union," which stood for "the equality of the white race" in "a political and social point of view.” End all quotes.

Davis was the embodiment of a Democrat Warhawk and he wanted a large American military presence and army on the continent built by the federal government. He wanted to once and for all whip the Brits. And end their spreading of abolitionist propaganda.

Like Calhoun, Davis was an ardent supporter of White Supremacy, although, he was not opposed and later advocating for shipping the slaves… well, anywhere other than the US.

His views on slavery were pretty standard for the time and lined up with his namesake’s Thomas Jefferson’s views. While Davis deemed southern slavery as humane, it was because he said, quote, our slaves are happy and contented. End quote. Of course, a southern slave may not have agreed with that. And even if they were treated humanely, they were still a slave and they would have no doubt preferred to be free. As all men desire. Zvengrowski continues this with, quote, he admitted though, that there was "cruelty" in the institution, although it "probably exists to a smaller extent than in any other relation of labor to capital. End quote.

So, our slaves are happy and we are humane to them but slavery is still cruel. Well, yes, of course. Contradictions abound.

Davis was adamant about, advocated for, and later fought for the equality of the white man. That may have been his number one focus. Even more so than destroying England’s hold on America. Davis talks about equality a surprising amount. Like in that quote above about how England was trying to destroy the equality of the white man. And yes, he was aware of Marx and may have even read him, but he was incredibly opposed to communism and the reds as I will mention later.

In one quote Davis speaks against inequality when he said, quote, "[t]he war between labor and capital" which "gives cause for gravest apprehensions. The colossal wealth of the few grows in geometrical proportions, while the toiling millions plod on their weary way. End quote.

Davis, in his heart, was a revolutionary warrior and he wanted his white race to be as equals and to rebel against England. But he felt that England’s influence had fully penetrated the thinking of the northern Whigs. And the whigs were once Federalists and would be eventually Republicans.

Davis was a massive expansionist Manifest Destiny politician. He wanted to expand the union and he accused northern Whigs of helping the British empire contain his very own Union. The same Union that the north lived in and ought to have been advocating for the expansion of. He was also leery of the Whigs who were according to Zvengrowski, espousing racial equality in addition to immediate and uncompensated emancipation via federal consolidation. Davis said that his countrymen to the north quote unquote, love the negro race because racial equality undermined white equality. He believed that if racial equality occurred and the blacks were freed without compensating the whites in the south, that the whites would be quote, reduced to an equality with the free blacks, the distinction, at once, would be made that of property of wealth between the classes, between the rich and the poor. End quote. He hated and feared a hierarchical system where whites were unequal and a nation where an aristocracy ruled over the working class whites. And he claimed many times that if another American Revolution, one which would again be fought for white equality and supremacy, if it ever happened, Davis would blame the New Englanders… and Great Britain.

While he thought southern slavery was humane and although he was in no hurry to phase out slavery, as Zvengrowski puts it, he did not reject a quote, practical and useful emancipation of the slave, end quote. He only entertained that idea though, if the blacks could remain quote, in useful employment, restrained from the vicious indulgences to which their inferior nature inclines them. End quote. Key word being inferior there for Jeff Davis. Again, he saw whites as equal but nonwhites as inferior. And the only way the slaves could be emancipated in his view, were if it were connected quote, with the idea of removal, separation of the races. End quote. He was afraid if they were not sent out abroad after they were freed that the slaves would, quote, convert a portion of the States of this Union into negro possessions, or, to witness the more probable result, extermination by a servile war. End quote. He shared the same fears that Thomas Jefferson had. The same fears that the Haitian revolution spread throughout the South.

There were some southerners that angered him though, with their view of slavery. Particularly their English style of slavery where these slaveholders and plantation owners felt like they were above the rest of the southerners. Davis and his faction called these genteel plantation owners the Quid Democrats and it was because of their class society that Davis would entertain the idea of emancipation for the slaves. He wanted equality for the whites and these southerners were undermining that goal. Emancipation he would come to understand, was inevitable. As long as the slaves did not gain citizenship.

Davis did not want a civil war, even though the New Englanders were constantly threatening to secede. He said quote, “United, we have grown to our present dignity and power- united we may go on to a destiny which the human mind cannot measure. End quote. He knew the future of the United States was bright and powerful… but only if the Union stayed together. Regardless, he was preparing his state of Mississippi for a possible war by 1850.

When I said Jeff Davis was a Warhawk, I only scratched the surface. Besides his desire to build a string of forts from Maine to Louisiana, along the Mississippi, in the interior, and all along the Pacific Coast. Besides his desire to enlarge the army and improve the soldiers lives. Besides the desire for more canals and railroads and roads and communication networks in the interior… Davis wanted two railroads. Well, three actually, but the one through Canada was impossible. So he wanted two railroads built to connect the east with the Pacific in California.

Davis was glad that California joined the United States because… of course, he feared that England had its eye on the territory. And she did! Mexico offered to sell California to her in 1846. In 1856 the London times even wrote about how in the event of another war with the states, England would seize and keep San Francisco as the quote immediate prize of the pacific squadron. End quote. Once California joined the states and then gold was found, though, Americans began to flood the territory. But due to hostile Indians in the interior between the two coasts, like say… the Apache, or Comanche, going from the east to California was dangerous and most people boarded ships and sailed through most of Nicaragua before trekking through the jungle to the Pacific and then going back up to California which was a long and arduous journey. Davis wanted to fix that by building transcontinental railroads which would stretch across the manifest destiny land.

Of course, Davis wanted the US Army to build this railroad completely and without contractors. He feared underhanded practices that would hurt the white workers or alternatively that the workers would strike. He saw later and hated how railroad workers out east would fire their white workers and replace them with cheap Chinese laborers. Davis wanted to avoid that when building his dream railroads. And those railroads were to be two routes, one to San Francisco and the other to San Diego and that San Diego route would connect the Pacific… to the South. This is key to our series and Jeff Davis’ decision to open a New Mexican Territory campaign.

California, when it joined, was immediately a democratic, pro white, anti slavery state but Davis was warned that northern abolitionists were flooding into San Francisco from New England and exerting quite a bit of sway in the politics. Davis hoped to offset this by sending southerners to San Diego.

But again, that only just scratches the surface of his Warhawk ways. Here are some of his other plans, objectives, and victories.

Because of Davis, the secretary of war built a bunch of steam ships which the United States would sail to Japan and force them to trade with us. These steam ships also forced Hawaii to become an American colony as opposed to… a British one.

Davis would also secure the Gadsden purchase from Mexico after the Mexican American War. He would have the United States threaten to invade Cuba if Spain didn’t sell it for 100$ million to the United States. But Spain’s then government was practically a British puppet so Spain and England called the American’s bluff on this threat.

Davis also turned the Smithsonian from a civilian institution to a military one, at least in part, to further improve American industrialization and weapons manufacturing. The main reason of course, was to rely less on England.

The US under the Warhawks like Davis also wanted to expel the British from the Caribbean and central America. Davis and the democrats were eager to buy Sonora and Chihuahua when they were offered to the US by the Mexican Government but the pro-British, anti catholic, quote unquote know nothings and their national republican allies refused. The National Republicans were once the Whigs who were once the Federalists and eventually these National Republicans would drop the National from their name. They would become just the Republicans and they would soon run a certain tall man as president in 1860.

Davis was also an ardent supporter of something known as Filibusters. No, not the kind in DC. Filibusters… were an incredible almost conquistador style invasion by private citizens with private armies and there were quite a few American filibusterers who ventured into the various Americas to find fortune and glory.

One of these American Filibusters was a man from Tennessee named William Walker who invaded Nicaragua, burned down the British government buildings, and started his own government there. William Walker deserves his own episode but it would be out of the scope of the American Southwest. Anyways, Davis, obviously, backed Walker completely. Before Walker had left for this expedition to take over Nicaragua with some mercenaries, then president Pierce had actually sent a US warship to bombard the major port city of San Juan del Norte after the US ambassador there was injured. Walker was an expansionist, white supremecist, Democrat Warhawk like Davis and he wanted the British and her ever expanding and rapidly spreading abolitionist creed swept from the hemisphere. At this time Nicaragua was extremely important for getting people from the east coast to the west coast of the United States as mentioned earlier.

Unfortunately for Walker, his Nicaraguan government collapsed in 1857 and he fled the country, only to return later and be executed by the British in Honduras. Davis and many other democrat Warhawks in both the north and the south blamed not only the British but also Republicans in the north for supplying the British and her allies in the region with gold and guns. Two things they most certainly were doing.

There were also some American filibusterers who headed to Cuba that Davis backed. But another incredibly interesting American conquistador filibuster saga occurred in the Yucatan Peninsula and again, even though it’s outside of the scope of the American Southwest, the area was still a frontier and the men who explored it shared many traits with those that explored the American southwest. It’s also a great story worth telling and since this is my podcast, I can venture outside the scope of its parameters all I want. 

So, in the Mexican held Yucatan Peninsula, white land owners used Mexican Mayans as laborers and opposed further white immigration in order to hold onto their wealth and prestige. In contrast, other whites in the area opposed this inequality and wanted to end the massive hacienda plantations and they wanted the government to use the Mayas as laborers to build infrastructure on the peninsula. This was kind of a mirror to the south. Davis, backed the white egalitarian quote unquote liberals who wanted the hacienda plantation system to end. These white liberals in the Yucatan, eventually sought US annexation and to further start that process, they started a war among the two factions of Yucatan whites. But it quickly spiraled into whites verses Mayans. This was during the Mexican American War in 1847. Hence why they assumed the United States would annex them. After all, the US was occupying D F. Zvengrowski writes this of the war, quote, Rumors of cannibalism and rape flew as thousands of white refugees fled from the Yucatan interior to the Union-occupied port of Carmen and Campeche, the leaders of which beseeched US intervention. End quote.

Who, do you think, was arming and aiding the Maya quote unquote insurgents in the area? The British, of course. British Honduras, aka Belize, was in fact also in the Yucatan. If you don’t know much about Belize, it is an incredible nation that I spent two weeks in back in 2008. The coast and the interior are two different places with the coast inhabited by black ex slaves, and the interior being Indigenous Maya. That was true in 2008 and that was true in 1847. These blacks and Mayas were trading guns for stolen loot and Britain threatened war on the territory if English privateers and citizens were harmed.

Davis saw all of this and urged the Congress and President Polk to build forts in the area to repel the British. Polk, his hands full with a war against Mexico, did not want to further provoke England into a war the US would have most certainly at that time lost. So Davis backed yet more Filibusters.

In 1848, with the US occupying the Mexican capitol, a certain Captain Joseph A White took up the call from Davis and recruited 938 mostly southern and mostly Democratic soldiers who mustered in New Orleans. Polk, while not wanting to send American Troops openly, backed this plan and White with his 900 mostly southerners sailed to the Yucatan unhindered. Once on land, quite a few thousand Mayas signed on with White and the whites in the hopes of being freed from the Hacienda plantation system and for some material rewards. 

So at this time you have English backed Mayans who were being armed and raiding from Belize and you had American backed Mayas being armed and fighting from the Yucatan. Most of the fighting took place in the jungle, a jungle that tried to kill me with malaria back in 2008, and this fighting was brutal. But the English backed Mayans had the upper hand and Zvengrowski writes that quote, they would enslave or kill over four thousand whites by 1861 with unofficial British support, but nonwhites declined from roughy 75 percent to 60 percent of the Yucatan’s population during the Caste War, in which about one hundred thousand people perished. End quote. That is a horrific number of people that were ostensibly killed in a proxy war between the United States and England. But Davis felt that the fight was worth it to stop a repeat of Haiti.

The Americans didn’t last too long though and while they fought bravely, they had no idea what they were doing or how to fight in the jungles of the Yucatan. Here’s a quote from Hans Von Stockhausen who wrote, The First Filibusters, Americans in the Yucatan. He also quotes a Maya soldier.

When they, the Americans, when they encountered an enemy barricade they disdained the fighting skills and tenacity of the Maya and chose to fix bayonets and launch a frontal charge with cold steel. The Indians did not run as expected and instead delivered a deadly musket volley at point blank range. Forty casualties were later brought out slung on the sides of mules. The bayonet charge became something of an American specialty. Still the Americans proved brave and aggressive soldiers and good marksmen. An Indio observer noted, quote, It was easy to kill the strange white men for they were big and fought in a line as if they were marching... [Not] as we do lying down and from behind trees and rocks ... they were brave men and shot keenly. End quote.

By 1849, White and his Americans lost 70 men to the reaper and 150 to injury. Most would go back home with some interesting tales and probably a few diseases. Although a few would stay on and fight for some time.

These examples were just SOME of the instances where Jefferson Davis thrust his Warhawk agenda foward. Eventually, his Jeffersonian Democratic Warhawk ways would culminate in a war against his own countrymen. Which was something he had desperately tried to avoid.

Where did all this desire to expand the American Empire come from? Besides Jeff Davis’ love of the Union, some of his Warhawk tendencies certainly came from a particular Colonel on the Continent.

As I mentioned in the previous episode, when the French Revolution broke out, the new nation of the united states split into two factions with the federalists in the north and new England siding with England and the southern Jeffersonian Democrats siding with Napoleon the 1st whom they eventually came to see as spreading American style republicanism throughout Europe.

Davis, being a Jeffersonian Democrat, was a huge Francophile. He had his suits custom made in New Orleans with the typical French style and he hoped New Orleans would be the seat of the quote, greatest empire the world has ever seen. End quote. He was talking about the American Empire. Not yet the doomed Southern one. Davis could also read French exceptionally well although his wife said he spoke it with no accent as if it were just English. I can feel my French friends cringe. And Davis’ wife would know. She studied under a frenchman at Madame Grelaud’s Philadelphia academy under French men and women who had fled the island of Haiti during the rebellion. The rebellion that haunted southern slave owners and non-owners alike. A rebellion that had been supplied by the English and even some Federalists in the north.

In regards to the French Revolution that ended up also shaping politics in the United States, Davis couldn’t stand the Jacobins, yeah, me neither. But he hailed Napoleon as the savior of the Revolution who ended up steering and cementing the nation of France to the right while fighting against the left. Davis also admired how Napoleon toppled countless feudal systems throughout the continent. Jefferson Davis, like Thomas Jefferson, whom Davis called the Apostle of Democracy, they both hated white inequality. Davis saw Napoleon as destroying white inequality and elevating the common white man of Europe. Davis had hopes that the same would happen in the States.

Davis would end up becoming Secretary of War and during his tenure, he would have the US Army adopt the rifled gun from Napoleon. According to Zvengrowski, quote, Davis deemed the Union's adoption of the "use of the Minnie ball" his greatest accomplishment as secretary of war. End quote.

Two of Davis’ favorite words are two words my French listeners would know well. Egalite and fraternity. Equality and fraternity. Two of the three pillars of the French Revolution. A revolution Jefferson and then Davis believed sprang from the American Revolution itself. Indeed, History of Rome and Revolutions podcaster Mike Duncan wrote a great book over the Marquis de Lafayette and his contributions to both revolutions. So when the Bonapartes returned to the throne of France in the 1850s, Davis and other Democrats were excited at the prospect of better relations with the French rulers who wanted equality among whites. The Warhawk faction and Davis also saw this new Bonaparte regime as a means to enact a second War of 1812 and finally be rid of the British menace. Which is why Davis as secretary of war from 53 to 57, did everything in his power to foment conflict between the United States and the British in the western hemisphere. But Davis also admired Napoleon for having, in his mind, freed the European people from their monarchs. Davis’ father after all had fought in the revolution.

Here’s a quote from Zvengrowski about Davis’ view of Napoleon, quote: Adulating Bonaparte, Caesar, and Frederick the Great as quote unquote, the three greatest generals, Davis attributed Napoleon's defeat by quote unquote British mercenaries, to bad luck, having studied Bonaparte's battles at West Point. Yet "the greatness of Napoleon" truly derived, in Davis's view, from saving the French Revolution, which Bonaparte had shielded from British-backed ancien régime forces and spread by "making war upon the hereditary monarchical institutions of Europe.” Davis continues, Confident reliance upon their nation's gratitude," Davis held, "led Napoleon's armies over Europe, conquering and to conquer," for "the great Emperor of Europe" had ruled with "the consent of the people. End all quotes.

Davis would write in 1860 about how important the Napoleonic Code was and how he had desired to use it in the western states, not the west as we think but the west part of the Louisiana Purchase. Adopting this could would have allowed for white supremacy and equality while outlawing abolition. He claimed those western territories which were bought by France were still held in some sort of spiritual French bonapartist law. Places like Kansas and Nebraska specifically. As you’ll hear about in the next episode, this same argument but in the opposite direction was used by abolitionists in New Mexico. The abolitionists claimed that since Mexico had outlawed slavery it should also be outlawed in the New Mexico Territory.

By 1858, with no true desire to secede from the Union but with hopes that the Union would stay preserved, Davis wrote that it may be better that the south initiate a coup against the federal government. I’ll now quote from Zvengrowski as well as Davis, quote: Davis actually did consider initiating a Bonaparte-style coup in response to a Republican victory as a more effective but less constitutional alternative to secession, asserting in 1858 that if, quoting Davis, an Abolition President should be elected in 1860," the Republican "should never be permitted to take his seat in the Presidential Chair." By "holding the city of Washington," he mused, the Democracy could force upper North Republicans to march on the capital or secede, in both of which cases blood would quote, flow in torrents throughout the land, end quote, but more so in the North. End all quotes. I don’t know if you’ve heard the words to the French national anthem but that last part reminds me of it.

Arise, children of the Motherland,
The day of glory has arrived!
All the tyranny is against us

Their blood-stained banners arise,
Do you hear in the countryside,
Their blood-thirsty soldiers ablare?
They're coming right into your arms
To tear the throats of your sons, your wives!
To arms, compatriots,
Form up your battalions
March on, march on!
Let blood impure
Onto our furrows pour! 

It is one heck of a national anthem… definitely the most hardcore that I know of. Davis knew these words as well and while he hoped it wouldn’t come to pass. He viewed the north as filled with blood thirsty soldiers ready to tear the threats of the southern wives and sons.

Going back a little to the early 1850s, Napoleon’s nephew Louise-Napoleon or Napoleon the third, came to power in France after a few failed coups in 1848. He was then elected as president before taking again the mantle of emperor of France, like his uncle had done. He came to the throne in 1853 during Jefferson Davis’ time as Secretary of War. Napoleon the third felt, well, from what we can gather from the secretive emperor, but Napoleon the third felt quite similarly to Davis. The emperor detested the left in France who promoted atheism, class warfare, and racial equality at the expense of the average White frenchman. Napoleon the third also detested those on the right who wanted to bring back the ancient regime and the Bourbons. Much like how Davis detested the Southern Quids who wanted to keep their plantations and slaves while elevating themselves in class. In the meantime, Napoleon brought back religion while allowing quote unquote nobility to live in France although they had no power whatsoever. Napoleon the third did dole out titles and merits to those who earned it, no matter their familial background. Another sentiment Davis approved of. He himself had issued promotions on merit and not just wether they graduated from West Point or not. Napoleon also put higher taxes on stock brokers while telling them they could lose their stuff at any time if the state deemed it necessary. Davis too detested the New England Bankers and their promotion of class distinction. But very importantly, Napoleon the third also instituted nationwide conscription. All of these ideas appealed to Davis and some of his Democrat party friends and allies in both the north and the south. But mostly in the south. The Jeffersonian Democrats thought that if the United States adopted these that the states would become even mightier, due to our immense resources, than even the French empire. The only thing that stood in the way were the northern British backed abolitionists and the southern slave holders who wanted British backing and inequality among whites.

Napoleon the third did quite a lot to liberalize and modernize not only Europe but parts of Africa. No matter how you feel about that, his conquests and triumphs reshaped the continent much like his uncle’s had. And all the while, at nearly every turn, Napoleon the third undermined and humiliated the British. Davis, looked upon these victories as possible hope for himself and his democrats who wanted to ally, desperately, with France.

Besides the French Napoleon rifles, Davis adopted the ironsides from the French and then the French rifled armor piercing guns that the southern democrats called Napoleons which they put on these ships. The South also attempted to build a steam powered submarine after the French had done so but they only ever achieved a hand cranked submarine. These small submersibles did wreak havoc later in the Civil War. Especially the new torpedoes the confederacy created with help from ex bonapartists. The confederate hand cranked submarine called the Hunley was the first submarine to ever sink a warship in the world.

Davis also prized his Napoleonic style camel project.

Early in the 1850s, Major Henry C Wayne, from the great state of Georgia, he wanted to emulate Napoleon’s use of the camel in Africa in the American Southwest. At this time, the US was only just beginning to infiltrate with real numbers the areas of the southwest that were conquered and bought during the Mexican American war. Major Wayne implored the Secretary of War Jefferson Davis to import camels to use against the hostile Indians like Napoleon had done against the Bedouins of Egypt.

Zvengrowski writes about this well, quote: Wayne had confronted British troops when tensions flared in Maine over the demarcation of the U.S. border with British North America in 1838. He lived during much of the 1800s in Washington, D.C., near Davis and his wife, who considered him a quote unquote dear friend, and Wayne would unsurprisingly become a Confederate brigadier general even though his reputation came to be tarnished by rumors of corruption in connection with the U.S. Army's camels. End quote.

I love this story of the camels and if you go to white sands national park in New Mexico, they even have postcards featuring the imported animals. After being asked by Wayne, Davis brought the idea to President Pierce in 1853 and he asked if he could import some camels to use against he mounted Indians which he felt were similar to the Arabs of Africa. No doubt the Comanches and Apaches. Actually, as a senator, Davis had already asked congress twice for a camel corp to be used in the Southwest but both times he’d been laughed out of the chamber. Davis had been a colonel during the Mexican American War and he had seen the deficiencies of the horse in that conflict over the rough terrain of the southwest and Mexico. In 1855, he’d finally get his wish.

At this time, Napoleon the third was about to use the camels again in Egypt. So Davis sent Major Wayne to Egypt to procure some of these beasts in 1855. I’ll quote again from Zvengrowski:

The pro-British Ottomans banned camel exports during the Crimean War, but Said Pasha helped Wayne ship a few dozen camels to Texas even though Egypt remained under nominal Ottoman rule. Davis assured Pierce in 1856 that quote, tests fully realize the anticipations entertained of their usefulness in the transportation of military supplies. End quote. He thanked Said Pasha, moreover, by ordering Wayne to give the pro-French Egyptian ruler U.S. rifles, directing U.S. officers to use "French money" in preference to British currency when in Egypt as well. Davis, too, had written Wayne in 1855 instructing him to befriend quote, General Marey Monge, Colonel Carbuccia, and other officers of the French army who were connected with the experiments... on the use of the camel in the military service of France. End quote. Wayne received a medal from the Société Impériale Zoologique d'Acclimatation for introducing camels to the U.S. southwest. And Varina Davis would recall that her husband had quote, in the evenings at home... personally translated a book on the service of camels, from the French, end quote, sent by Wayne. End all quotes.

So what happened to these camels?

By 1857, Major Wayne had secured 75 camels on multiple trips to the middle east. But… the animals would not work as planned. 

In an article for the US Army Transportation Corp by John Shepard titled The United States Army Camel Corps 1856-66, the author outlines the problems encountered.

Through Wayne’s thorough testing program, it was soon apparent that the noble animal was simply not suited to the American style of combat. The configuration of the camel’s nose, while admirably designed to filter out blowing sand, impeded breathing during violent exertion, and the camel’s lung capacity was such that it could not maintain a sustained rapid pace or violent action. Under extreme excitement, the animal would blow the buccal membrane which normally hangs in the pharynx, balloon fashion, from its mouth, further reducing its air supply, Another serious disadvantage in combat was the fact that the camel, unlike the horse, was unwieldy in close situations. End quote.

On top of these failures, the animals just weren’t respected by the men or their superiors. The camels took too much effort to keep clean and unsightly and they just straight up stank. I’ll continue quoting from Shepard:

Even after the troopers adjusted to the smell, the camels had three habits to which the men would not reconcile themselves. Although generally docile, the camels could be stubborn, and, if disciplined for their stubbornness, they would often vomit their cuds on the disciplinarian. This and the camels’ ability to defecate without any warning whatsoever to anyone standing to their rear quickly overrode whatever lovable or useful qualities they may have possessed. What is more, the shaggy creatures could deliver a vicious bite when annoyed with their keeper. Finally, the troops, almost to a man, complained of motion sickness after riding the animals for any distance or at a gallop. End quote.

While they were completely ineffective for combat, they did in fact prove useful for carrying loads, some of them even up to a thousand pounds. So in 1857, the new commander of the Camel Corps was given to former Navy lieutenant turned explorer, Edward Fitzgerald Beale. He was tasked with taking the animals on an enormous voyage from Fort Verde in Texas, about 40 miles north of San Antonio through the Llano Estacado, over my home of the Sandia Mountains, through western New Mexico, across northern Arizona, across the Colorado River, and all the way to the southern end of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. They made it, too! But not without… human errors. Many of the camels then retraced their steps to Fort Defiance on the border of Arizona and New Mexico before heading all the way back to Texas.

Elated, the the new Secretary of War, John B. Floyd in 1858 asked Congress for 1,000 more camels as they would be of absolute value to conquering the west. The order went ignored so he asked again in 1859 but… as you can imagine, Congress was busy with the upcoming Civil War, which was all but a foregone conclusion by this point.

Fast forwarding a little, in 1861, when the Confederacy assumed all posts in Texas, they inherited 38 camels which they were happy to put to use. One use was by a Confederate Captain Price. I’ll let Shepherd tell y’all about it, quote, Confederate General Magruder’s Quartermaster Department relied heavily on the Camel Corps. One officer, Captain Sterling Price of the Noxubee County, Mississippi, infantry managed to acquire one of the beasts and used it throughout the war to carry his entire company’s baggage. End quote.

But eventually, much like the Union soldiers, the Confederates came to hate the camels and many of them died or were just let loose. Although not all of them. The union camels in California were also hated and they were mostly sold at auction. They were primarily bought by circus owners in san diego. The remaining camels in the south that weren’t let go in New Mexico under Baylor, a man that will feature heavily in the coming episodes, but the camels that weren’t released into the wilds of new mexico by Baylor were also auctioned in Texas and New Orleans after the war.

Shapard finishes his article with a note on how it could have ended the Apache wars much sooner. He wrote, quote, Clearly, if the Camel Corps had enjoyed the unreserved support of military personnel and the public, it could have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in the development of the Southwest and considerably shortened the 38-year conflict with the Indians in the region. End quote.

So taking a little break from Napoleon the first and third’s influence on the southerners, to set up the coming civil war a bit more, I want to talk about Jefferson Davis’ view of some of the inhabitants of the southwest and greater west. I’ve already talked a little about California and how he thought and hoped that it would go for the south or at least the southern portion, But what about the other two big inhabitants of the region at this time?

First of all, during and after the Mexican American war, a conflict I will get into briefly in the next episode, but after that war the Mormons settled in what they had hoped was Mexico but ended up being part of the United States.

The Mormons or members of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, really wanted out of the United States. Their leader and prophet and many members had been killed in Illinois and Missouri and they had given up any hope of living peacefully in the Union. Their first hope was Texas but that was shattered when it was annexed so they next went to Mexico or, Utah. But it too was acquired by the United States.

Jefferson Davis was an ardent Catholic supporter. He had practically been raised by Catholics and he was very sympathetic to them. He also did not care for the extreme abolitionist Mormons and their views on polygamy. Davis saw them as New Englanders who, under Joseph Smith, wanted slavery abolished and citizenship given to all men. Davis also saw their polygamy as creating a hierarchical society in which the polygamists were above in class to those Mormons who were monogamous. Davis also didn’t like that many Mormons had married Indians. Davis had actually backed the Mormons expulsion from Missouri and then when he was Secretary of War, he was the one who sent the Army into Utah to bring the quote unquote Fanatics under US control. 

Even still, Davis knew the hatred the Mormons had for Washington and he hoped they would join the Confederacy once the war broke out. Ultimately, that did not happen and in fact, the Utah Mormons stayed neutral. Which is kind of surprising since so many of the members there were straight from England and most Mormons were true abolitionists.

The other group in the West and Southwest were the American Indians.

When it came to Indians in the Confederacy, Davis did not want any Indian Commander to lead white men and all Indians were under the authority of White Confederates. A move the US Army will do with the Buffalo Soldiers after the war. Davis granted the Indians seats in the Confederate Congress but they couldn’t vote. Davis was really not a fan of the Indians and he called them quote, deceptive, as blood thirsty, as treacherous, as cowardly a race of men as are to be found on the globe. End quote. Even still, many Indians in the confederacy fought for the south. The Cherokee had 12,500 black slaves, and actually Cherokee Colonel Watie of the 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles was the last confederate general to surrender in the war. He waited until June 23rd, 1865 to accept defeat and it wasn’t for another year that the Cherokee man and his people gave up their black slaves. But Davis welcomed the Indian fighters, despite complaining that they didn’t raise enough of them for the Confederacy’s defense.

On the other hand, Davis detested atrocities done against the Indians and during the Mexican American war he had chastised some of the American men at arms around him who had propagated evils against the Indians and the Mexican Indios. At the same time, Davis and the confederates did not spare pro Union Indians that they caught. The battles in Indian territory were pretty hardcore. It was noted that battles against Union forces that saw the Confederates, mostly Texan, and the Tonkawas fighting together, often ended with the Tonkawas cannibalising the white Union soldiers…

As you’ll see in the next few episodes, when the Texan Confederates entered New Mexico, they hoped that the Indios and Puebloans would side with the south.

Now let’s go internationally.

I’ve talked about 1848 before and how the mostly liberal revolutions that sprang up in Europe were put down. This led to a lot of Italians and Germans fleeing the continent and heading to both England and the Northern United States. But also the south. This movement of political dissidents would have a lasting impact on America. I have spoken of Al Sieber being a brother of a German revolutionary. Well in the north, after the 48ers arrived, many brought their left leaning politics and abolitionism with them. They would actually end up helping to sway the 1860 election in the north. And once the war started, they demanded unmitigated punishment on the southerners. In historian Carl Wittke’s Refugees of Revolution, the German forty eighter in America, Thea author claimed that these new German Americans wanted quote, the rebels severely punished, their property confiscated, and a new order created based on unconditional surrender and the enfranchisement of the negro. End quote. The Jacobins and their red message had spread. And now took hold in the United States. The Confederates likened these German revolutionaries to the King’s German mercenaries during the Revolutionary War. In 1861, the southern writer James D B De Bow called these recent immigrants who were in Texas that had voted against secession quote, crazy, socialistic Germans, end quote. And these 10,000 strong germans would hamper the war effort in that state for the Confederacy. A state that will play a large role once I began describing the war itself in the Southwest.

Italian communists would also infect the northern Union Yankee Army and many of them would even wear the red shirts popularized during 1848. French communards would also join the union. An attempt at a Confederate communist French and Italian regiment in New Orleans was actually suppressed in that city by Jefferson Davis himself and many of the reds fled north to create a similar regiment there. One of these regiments was led by a German communist whose flagrant barbarity towards Confederate prisoners actually scared many of the extreme Pro Abolitionist Yankee generals.

Scandanavians who settled the north were also pretty pro abolition and had been spreading that message through songs, tours, and writings since their arrival in the 1850s.

The more I learned about the American Civil War, the more it became an International war with implications for a lot more than just the Confederacy.

But finally I have to tie it all back to Mexico and Napoleon the Third.

In 1861, 40,000 French troops invaded Mexico to oust Benito Juarez. Davis already saw French emperor Louis Napoleon or Napoleon the third, as a natural ally in the Confederate’s war against the Northern English backed Abolitionist Yankees so while leery of French meddling in the Americas, he was happy to have what he hoped to be an ally. It helped that the Union’s blockade on the south blocked French ships from collecting their tobacco and other goods from the the Confederacy which Napoleon was rather perturbed about.

At this time, Napoleon had actually paid for a canal project in the south that would connect Virginia to Cincinnati. They spent an enormous amount of money on this project which Davis and others helped to negotiate. Many in Napoleon’s circle in France were pressuring the Emperor to assist the south overtly in the war so that this canal project could be completed which in turn would help in their own fight against the British. Thomas Jefferson’s Grandson George Wyeth Randolph would also urge help from France. He would also be awarded position of Secretary of War of the Confederacy after 1862. Randolph’s own stated goals was to industrialize Virginia and the south while removing blacks and slavery from the Confederacy. In 1864 he’d resign his position as Secretary of War and he’d go to France to procure weapons for the Confederacy from the Emperor.

Eventually, skipping ahead here, the massive canal project would be destroyed by the Yankees and the many black laborers and slaves would be conscripted into the Union army. Grant, as President, would never pay back the French and relations would sour between the US and Napoleon the Third’s France until Napoleon was later ousted by English backed Prussians.

All this canal building and relations were to secure a French Confederate cotton monopoly. A monopoly which both sides hoped would oust the Anglo Yankee Monopoly.

But back to the French invasion of Mexico. It wasn’t just French, actually. It had 700 English soldiers as well, although they departed pretty quickly once they realized Napoleon the Third’s ambitions in the country. There were also a bunch of white Mexicans and six thousand spaniards. A few of which I’m sure had conquistador ancestors. These forces would reach Mexico City by 1863 where the French would install an Austrian Archduke as Emperor Maximillian the 1st.

At the same time that all of this was happening, the US was blockading the entirety of the south. But just below Brownsville on the map is the Mexican port of Matamoros which the French kept open despite being controlled by Juarez’s opposition party to Maximillion. This was in part because the Yankees weren’t blockading it since it was controlled by Juaristas who the English were backing against Maximillion. Because of this open port in Mexico so near Confederate Texas, as Zvengrowski puts it, quote, as a result, US warships blockading the Confederacy off Brownsville could only watch in frustration as hundreds of steamships delivered confederate-bound war material at Matamoros and sailed off with confederate cotton. End quote.

There was no railroad connecting the Mexican port to the south though, so how did the goods, guns, salt, and other material reach the Confederacy in Texas? By those camels that Jefferson Davis had imported of course! These Texan Camels weren’t sold off until AFTER the war.

Back in Mexico, the pro-French Mexican Forces were slowly creeping northward, much to Davis’ joy. Davis actually offered the French up to 20,000 much needed soldiers to put down the English back Juaristas so that Mexico under Maximillion and the Confederacy could finally link up.

But this area of Texas was under a lot of strain already. The Mexican Texas border around Brownsville has an extremely interesting history in this period. Actually, Brownsville, would be the site of the very last Confederate stand in the entire war on May 13th, 1865. The area was under constant attack by pro Juarez English backed Mexicans, German Texan 48ers who sided with the Yankees but never left Texas, and eventually in that final battle, three regiments of Yankee soldiers. The White Catholic Mexican Santo Benavides Confederate Regiment combined with a famous Indian fighter named John Ford and his Jeff Davis Home Guards would defeat those three Yankee regiments. But the war had been settled by then.

Obviously, as I have outlined, France and Napoleon the Third played a surprisingly important role in the Confederacy before and during the war. Southerners were often heard singing the French revolutionary anthem of Le Marseilles which I read from earlier. Davis insisted his army fight a completely Napoleonic style warfare by surrounding the enemy and cutting off their means of escape before they surrendered. This didn’t always happen though and the southern opposition to Davis and his centralized Confederate command, they insisted that they would rather fight guerrilla style. Quite a few Confederate Battalions adopted the French Foreign Legion Zouraves way of dressing. I’ll have a picture on the page of these incredible and foreign looking uniforms. British onlookers often mistook them for the real French troops. And so did quite a few fellow Confederate Soldiers. These strangely dressed French leaning confederate soldiers became known in the South as Jeff Davis’ Pet Wolves. There were more French military leaders than you would care to hear about. There were countless French born soldiers, engineers, and gun designers. Frenchmen from the ill fated Haiti, French Protestants from Canada, and Frenchmen from the Empire itself formed bands, became chaplains, trekked from California to Louisiana to fight, created art and designed uniforms, lent their talents and their expertise, loaned their money, poured gold Napoleon’s into the south, and even the emperor himself, Napoleon the Third was remarked to have said in 1862 that quote, my sympathies have always been with the south. End quote. Davis was counting on this for a win against the Yankees. And the invasion of Mexico and later instillation of the Habsburg Lorraine Archduke of Austria, Maximillion the 1st gave him hope that the two could link up and form a new American French Confederacy.

Around this same time as this invasion of Mexico by France and to help bolster the theory that England was meddling in the north, in 1861, much to the horror of Davis and many Southern democrats, for the first time ever, British Royalty in the form of the Duke of Whales and future king of England, visited New England and the north. He refused to go south of Virginia. He was there to promote the new Republican Party… that’s a pretty big development that sort of floored me when I read it. The ties to the Republicans and the British became in that year, overt. At least in the eyes of Southern Democrats. Like Jeff Davis.

By 1860, a year before the future king’s visit, Kansas had been at Civil War and in many Democrats eyes, the abolitionists were being overtly funded and backed by Northern Republicans and England.

In 1860 when it looked like the abolitionist Lincoln would actually win the presidency, Davis for the fourth election in a row, threatened to secede, just like many northern states had threatened before… but in 1860 when Davis threatened it again, he didn’t mean it… he truly wanted to preserve the union that his father had fought in the Revolution for. The Union that his mentor Calhoun had fought to expand and that his hero Thomas Jefferson had created. Davis hoped and wanted to keep the Union strong and united. He felt it was the only way to defeat Britain once and for all. He said he would only support secession quote, under the promptings of the highest motive that sustained our fathers in the Revolution. End quote. And as Zvengrowski points out, Davis did not want to destroy the power of the federal government. He wanted to use it to strengthen this union of states. He wasn’t after all, an extreme pro states rights activist as later revisionists would say. That whole reasoning of state’s rights being the cause of the South during the war, that came from Davis’ own enemies within the democratic party. The Quids that I’ve mentioned. Davis wanted above all else, white equality, a strong union, and to defeat the British abolitionist influence that threatened to unleash the blacks with no plan but to elevate them higher than the white man. He did not want the reopening of the slave trade as other pro British southern democrats wanted. He wanted the south for whites. With the black african slaves eventually sent… anywhere. And he hoped Napoleon the third would help facilitate that movement. Davis was willing to offer France and Napoleon the Third the emancipation of all southern blacks as long as white supremacy and equality among whites remained. And as long as France offloaded the former slaves. Or at least many of them.

Seemingly, the main thing holding back the emperor in France from aligning with the South, was the fact that the south had slavery. This was very fresh on the minds of many southerners from politicians, to planters, to slaveholders, to colonels, and all the way to Jefferson Davis who would eventually admit that the institution was no longer feasible. Overtures were made by southern democrats to the French promising to abolish slavery beginning in 1863 although they would never give blacks the opportunity to become citizens. That was fine for Napoleon since he too espoused that line of thinking.

Unlike the over 50,000 men from Britain, the French under Napoleon the 3rd only sent 4,000 troops and that was to New Orleans and that was mostly to protect the many French citizens living there since the purchase of Louisiana. The fact was, too much of the south looked towards Britain as their mother country and their ancestors.

In truth, Napoleon the 3rd and his French empire most likely feared Britain too much to entangle France into another war with the British Kingdom. They simply could not afford it, and history probably bears that out with their defeat against the Prussians in 1870. Davis and pro Napoleon Confederates were at times willing to become a vassal state to France much like the Empire of Mexico was, which many agreed would be well and good to join. As long as France helped to militarily defeat The British backed Yankees.

While Davis was willing to become equals with Napoleon and France, he certainly wasn’t willing to become subordinate to him. Which also most likely irked Napoleon the 3rd. Napoleon was quite secretive so it is hard to say how much he desired but ultimately failed to assist the Confederacy. But in the end, a broader war with England which would ultimately hurt his aims in Mexico, prevented Napoleon the 3rd from interfering in the American Civil War or aiding the Confederacy. Zvengrowski sums up the reality on the continent perfectly when he wrote, quote, Napoleon the 3rds, French Empire, though, was simply not as powerful as the confederate president assumed and could not risk waging a massive war in the americas that would have left France acutely vulnerable to an alarmingly strong Prussian advert and Britain, to which the French emperor had never been quite so hostile as Davis supposed. End quote.

Davis thought he himself was fighting against the international left, the empire of Britain, and even czarist Russia. He had badly wanted Alaska from the Russians as his time at secretary of war on account of rumors that the Indians of Oregon and future Washington were being supplied with weapons by both the English and the Russians there.

During the war Russia would arrest confederate sympathizers attempting to smuggle goods to the south. They would also send warships to the pacific coast to put down rebellions in California and stop smuggling to there on behalf of the Confederacy.

Then of course during the war, to no one’s surprise, tens of thousands of Englishmen and even English Canadians fought for the Yankees. Some fifty… thousand… men from wales, Scotland, ulster, and England crossed the ocean and fought in Yankee uniforms. Often times in northern regiments, not even their own special ones. Davis was under the impression that British abolitionism, like other leftist ideologies, had infested the island of Great Britain and these men fought and died on southern soil to free the black slaves. They were often much more hardcore than American northerners over the question of abolition, too. Many of these men had indeed fought on the continent against France. Many of them saw this struggle being against Napoleon the third as much as it was against racial inequality.

Davis and his confederacy declared George Washington’s birthday as a holiday as well as July 4th. Davis was inaugurated as the Confederacy’s president on Washington’s birthday, February 22nd, 1862. In that speech he said, quote, we hope to perpetuate the principles of our revolutionary fathers. End quote. Had Davis picked up the Crown of American independence which had been thrown into the gutter of New England? He certainly may have seen himself as an American Napoleon, saving the Revolution from the Northern Jacobins. The Great Seal of the Confederacy is a man on a horse and I had actually assumed it was Davis but it is in fact George Washington. And Washington’ great grandnephew John Augustine Washington the third was a Confederate Colonel who died in 1861 fighting for the South. A confederate poet would write a poem about him after his death that read, quote, rebels before, our father of yore, rebel’s the righteous name, Washington bore. End quote.

The Confederacy called their enemy, the northerners, Yankees, which was a slang term not only for New Englanders, but for the English themselves. The Confederacy was merely finishing the American Revolution by purging itself of the Yankee, English grasp that had never truly let go after the war of independence.

Davis believed if the Union, what he termed the second Union of 1787, if it were to fall to a quote unquote unclean presence then the remaining true and pure members of the Union would have to create a new one. He said later, quote, in 1861, eleven of the states again thought proper, for reasons satisfactory to themselves, to secede from the second Union and to form a third one. End quote.

Davis saw the North the same way the revolutionary patriots saw King George, in his mind. He believed the king had began to excite the slaves into rebellion against the colonists just before the revolution which was the last straw. He said the north and her yankees were now doing the same to the south. The south truly feared a Haiti style rebellion where the whites would be slaughtered. Barring that, the north would free the slaves and elevate the black man OVER the whites while instituting hierarchical inegalitarian white rule.

But the American government from 1858 to 1860 did not want expansionism. They did not want French influence. And they did not mind allowing Britain to continue to search American ships on the guise of abolishing worldwide slavery. The Republicans in 1860 were a majority party in much of the north but a minority party in the nation as a whole. Davis and other southern democrats saw their election and pro Abolitionist pro white hierarchical and pro British leanings as a direct threat to the south and to the democracy. Davis and other Warhawks had wanted for years a second war of 1812 to finally get rid of British influence in the union but when the Republicans won, he changed his tune. The south and those who were pro American didn’t need a second War of 1812, they now needed a second 1776 war of Revolution. And like last time, Davis hoped the new Napoleon would come to the aid of the Confederacy.

But Napoleon never came to the aid of Davis and the Confederacy, the Union seemed to have an unlimited supply of men and arms, and the South’s hope of keeping the Jeffersonian and Washingtonian dream of a free and independent nation alive, would eventually die at the end of the Civil War. As Zvengrowski put it on the age of Jackson podcast, quote, Jefferson Davis fought to destroy the British hold on the Americas. They ended up destroying him. End quote.

In the next episode, I will finally be focusing on the American Southwest and I will talk about The Republic of Texas, the Mexican American war, and the territory of New Mexico in what will be the final episode on the lead up to the Civil War in the American Southwest.

Selected Sources:

Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest by Donald Frazier

Jefferson Davis, Napoleon France, and the Nature of Confederate Ideology by Jeffrey Zvengrowski

Texan Santa Fe Expedition By H. Bailey Carroll

The Skirmish at Mesilla, Arizona and the West, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Winter, 1959), by Martin Hardwick Hall

The Three Cornered War by Megan Kate Nelson

The Civil War in New Mexico by Father Stanley

The First Filibusters, Americans in the Yucatan by Hans Von Stockhausen

The United States Army Camel Corps 1856-66 By John Shapard

The Apache Wars by Paul Andrew Hutton

Rebels on the Rio Grande, The Civil War Journal of AB Peticoles by Don E Alberts

Mangas Coloradas by Edwin R Sweeney

The Civil War in the Western Territories by Ray C Colton

The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis

The Battle of Glorieta Pass by Thomas S Edrington and John Taylor

The War of 1812: Stoking the Fires. Summer 2012, Vol. 44, No. 2 Impressment of Seaman Charles Davis by the U.S. Navy By John P. Deeben

Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition by George Wilkins Kendall

Building a State in Apache Land by Charles D. Poston

Mule Bombs at Valverde By Dr. Conrad Crane, U. S. Army Military History Institute, February 9, 2009

Darryl Cooper’s Martyrmade: The Peculiar Institution, Part 14

The Age of Jackson Podcast: 091 Jefferson Davis and the Pro-Bonaparte Democrats with Jeffrey Zvengrowski