Edmund Kirby Smith urges Confederate foreign envoy John Slidell to get France to intervene on the Confederacy’s behalf so that the French puppet regime in Mexico will have a friendly neighbor to the north.

Exploring the most important 55 months in American history
Edmund Kirby Smith urges Confederate foreign envoy John Slidell to get France to intervene on the Confederacy’s behalf so that the French puppet regime in Mexico will have a friendly neighbor to the north.
Confederate commissioner John Slidell and representatives of Emile Erlanger, head of France’s most influential bank, negotiate a loan to the Confederacy for $15 million to help finance the war.
Confederates try to curry favor with France, and Great Britain suffers a severe economic downturn due to the lack of southern cotton.
The government of Great Britain receives the official news that the U.S. would release Confederate envoys James Mason and John Slidell, thus averting an international crisis.
Abraham Lincoln finally decides upon a course of action regarding Great Britain’s demands to release the Confederate envoys seized aboard the British steamer Trent.
The U.S. and Great Britain awaited each other’s official reactions to the seizure of Confederate envoys James Mason and John Slidell aboard the neutral British steamer Trent.