Spain and the American Civil War

Conclusion

Conclusion  The American Civil War officially ended for Spain even later than it did for the Confederacy, when, on June 5, 1865, Spain withdrew its recognition of Confederate belligerent rights. Even though this gesture was a formality, coming almost two months after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender of April 9, still in this action Spain showed its sympathy toward the defunct Confederate States of America, by being the last European state to do so. Britain had withdrawn belligerent rights on June 3 and France on May 30.1 It is possible to assign too much significance to this delay, but it was in keeping with the poor relations between Spain and the United States that both preceded and followed the American Civil War. Spain also allowed a handful of Confederate leaders, including General John C. Breckinridge, to escape to Cuba with a few dozen supporters and family members in advance of the Union armies and their probable capture. Breckinridge , a former vice president of the United States, had served as the last secretary of war in the Confederate government. Despite US diplomatic protests, Spain later allowed Breckinridge to leave for refuge in Great Britain, where he remained until a federal amnesty allowed him to return safely to reside in the United States in 1869.2 The delays by Spain, France, and Britain in complying with US demands after the end of the American Civil War would not have been a surprise to Secretary Seward had he noted the development of relations between the Confederacy and these three European powers . At every critical juncture, these three countries responded, not to the needs of the Confederacy or even to their own stated moral imperatives, but to their own national interests. While the European 149 150 Spain and the American Civil War states looked upon the American Civil War with great concern and preferred to see two American nations emerge in place of one larger one, their greater fear was to become engaged in another distant conflict . The dread of another war on the scale of the Napoleonic struggles haunted the courts and parliaments of Europe. While Spain’s occupation of Santo Domingo and France’s occupation of Mexico brought major formations of European combat troops into the Western Hemisphere, these military operations also limited the power of both nations to contemplate additional expeditions. Similarly, British fears of a conflict on the European continent—over Poland, Italy, or some other dispute or entanglement—caused hesitation even among the most strident British advocates for the Southern cause to encourage direct involvement in the American Civil War. Ironically, the conviction in the royal courts of Europe that the Union could not defeat the South—a message reinforced by Confederate propagandists and agents—accrued against the cause of the CSA. Convinced that the Union could not achieve a total military victory over the armies of the Confederacy, there seemed less urgency to involve the European states in forcing the inevitable negotiated settlement . France, Britain, and Spain, it seemed, could reap the benefits of a divided North America without alienating either of the two republics, both of them expected to survive, providing markets and other forms of engagement. In truth, the interests of all three nations, especially Spain, were best served by a war between the Confederacy and the Union that did not end but instead continued to divert the strength of the United States away from Latin America, from economic prosperity , and from interest in the affairs of other nations. Even a negotiated settlement between Confederate and Yankee governments would presumably have given both a free hand in the Americas: potentially two governments—the CSA and USA—would be then vying for control over Cuba.3 Spain’s chief diplomat to the United States, Gabriel García Tassara, could view with some personal relief that the American Civil War had ended without Spain’s entrance into the conflict. Unlike other Spanish politicians, Tassara had always been wary of entanglement with the Confederacy, recognizing the superior economic and military strength of the United States. His health always precarious, Tassara had rarely intervened in a significant way to achieve this or other 151 Conclusion goals of Spain, but he could nonetheless also be pleased that Cuba remained a Spanish colony. With his medical condition deteriorating and major changes in Spanish domestic politics, Tassara was recalled from his posting at the end of 1866. The stress...