Henri Mercier and the American Civil War (review)

BOOK REVIEWS71 naval registers. Indeed, the writer's style, while interesting in personnel assessment, comes over in some places as a simple rewording of those long dead regulations and lists. As much of the Confederate naval organization, at least until mid1862 , was borrowed from the United States Navy, this work can be useful to those studying northern naval administration of the period. Any new view of the Union Navy Department at the beginning of the war might find much of value in Dr. Wells' summaries. While some minds remained attuned to American naval history of the 1860's, The Confederate Navy: A Study in Organization will prove a handy volume to have available. Myron J. Smith, Jr. Western Maryland College Henri Mercier and the American Civil War. By Daniel B. Carroll. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971. Pp. xxi, 396. $12.50.) Henri Mercier, the French Minister to the United States, 1860-1863, has appeared as a controversial and somewhat enigmatic figure, avowedly pro-southern, in most historical accounts. Professor Daniel Carroll ably corrects that image and expands our knowledge of Franco-American relations in the first published study of Mercier's diplomatic career in Washington. Though he mixed mainly with southerners and their northern sympathizers before secession and believed that the separation was final, Mercier was, according to Carroll, primarily concerned with protecting French interests and avoiding a war with the United States. The French economy required a quick end to the fighting so that France could resume imports of southern cotton and, just as important, market its luxury exports to the United States. Mercier was thus willing to recognize the Confederacy as soon as war seemed inevitable; thereafter, he proposed foreign mediation, generally in concert with Great Britain but sometimes by France alone. To make it more palatable to all parties, he urged the creation of a common market under which the South would gain independence and the North economic advantages. While most northerners rejected the mere hint of permanent separation, Mercier could conceive of it because he did not think that a bloody war was justified in order to preserve the vague concept of American nationality and the experiment in popular democracy. Given also Mercier's mercurial and impulsive personality and, Carroll theorizes, the need of this middle-class professional diplomat to cut a figure with his aristocratic wife, the conduct of France's envoy becomes more understandable. Returning constantly to the theme of Mercier's desire for mediation on the basis of commercial union, Carroll discusses the highlights of Franco-American relations during the war: the recognition of southern belligerency, the joint interview of June 15, 1861, the blockade, the Trent 72CIVIL WAR HISTORY Affair, the peace proposals of 1862-63, and the Mexican intervention. Throughout, Carroll's treatment of Mercier is both sympathetic and critical. He faults him for narrowly viewing America in economic terms and indicates that Mercier's reaction to the Emancipation Proclamation revealed a greater fear of the economic repercussions of freedom and an underlying racism than contempt for slavery. On the other hand, he argues that Mercier did not actually call for recognition of the Confederacy in March 1861, defends him for taking the Richmond trip, and demonstrates that Mercier originally opposed French involvement in Mexico. Joining Blumenthal and Case and Spencer, Carroll shows that the threat of French intervention in the Civil War was not as great as has been supposed. However, in stressing that Mercier, in March, 1861, only wanted discretionary authority to recognize the Confederacy at the right moment, Carroll virtually disguises the fact that he favored recognition, a point which he admits in the footnotes. Mercier's plan for a common market was both more naive and more clever than Carroll indicates. Nor does the author question, as Blumenthal has done, whether France's economic troubles were due solely to the Civil War. Finally, Carroll overstates the accuracy and objectivity of Mercier's despatches, especially regarding the Lincoln Administration. Overall, Carroll has written a sound, intelligent and useful study of Mercier's career in Washington. He has done extensive research in manuscript collections in the United States and France. The footnotes, conveniently located at the bottom of the...