The Confederate Navy in Europe (review)

book reviews355 Constitution. Seldom does the reader see Cobb's accomplishments or his failures in the context of his life. Still trying to link the various interests in Cobb's life, McCash superimposes the theme that Cobb "came very close to being a representative southerner, if such can be said of anyone" (p. ix), that he "personified southern distinctiveness" (p. 328). That point is debatable. Cobb, the "representative southerner," compared New Orleans, the South's largest city, to Sodom and Gomorrah and criticized his fellow Southerners at Rock Alum Springs, Virginia, for cardplaying, billiards, bowling, and dancing. About then Confederate Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin, Cobb wrote, "/ do not speak to Benjamin and have denounced him as a dirty dog" (p. 286). About Jefferson Davis, Cobb wailed that the "President's conduct to me has been infamous" (p. 294). Of J. E. B. Stuart, Cobb complained, "I was left to do all the dirty and hard work on the way, while his old West Point friends . . . were assigned every desirable position . . . "(p.207)."Leehatesme"(p.303), Cobb wrote. Robert E. Lee was "haughty and boorish and supercilious"; nor in Cobb's eyes did Lee have "the first feeling of a gentleman" (p. 307). If Cobb "personified southern distinctiveness," he certainly had some negative things to say about Southern social mores and members of the pantheon of Southern heroes and statesmen. And in light of Cobb's narrow-minded Calvinism, his educational conservatism, his legalistic outlook and his combative personality, McCash might have made a better case for the analysis of Linton Stephens, which he quotes—"Tom Cobb was very much of a yankee by nature" (p. 100). When Douglas S. Freeman finally completed his fourvolumes of R. E. Lee, he reportedly moped about his house for several days, saddened at having to leave Lee's company. It is highly unlikely that McCash felt anything but relief at parting company with Thomas R. R. Cobb. Thanks to McCash's fortitude, though, Cobb "needs" a biography no longer. And if McCash's work is fragmented, it may be that Cobb received the biography he deserves. Emory M. Thomas University of Georgia The Confederate Navy in Europe. By Warren F. Spencer. (University: University of Alabama Press, 1983. Pp. xii, 268. $19.95.) According to Warren F. Spencer, the Confederacy never had much hope of building a navy in Europe because both the British and the French remained consistently neutral throughout the American Civil War. There were several reasons for the Anglo-French stand, but the most basic was that intervention was not in their interest. By legislation in both countries, Spencer explains, their "subjects could not build, 356CIVIL WAR HISTORY equip, fit out, or arm belligerent vessels; they could not enlist on belligerent vessels or in any way contribute to the fighHng abiliHes of such vessels" (p. 9). But the Confederacy's early success in contracHng the Florida highlighted a dangerous loophole in BriHsh law: the government had no authority to detain a vessel designed for ulHmate use in the war. Foreign Minister Lord John Russell quickly became convinced that in the naHonal interest he could not allow domesHc legislaHon to restrict neutrality. After the C. S. S. Nashville sank a Union merchant ship in the AtlanHc in November 1861 and later arrived in England for repairs, he and other BriHsh leaders agreed that BriHsh hospitality would not extend beyond making a visiHng ship seaworthy, a principle laterincorporated into internaHonal law at the Geneva ArbitraHon Tribunal of 1872. But there was considerable confusion in late 1861 because of the ongoing Trent crisis. As Spencer shows, this Union-BriHsh war scare had two negaHve effects on Confederate shipbuilding efforts. First, it clouded the importance of the Nashville decision, allowing Confederate agents in Europe to believe it possible to conHnue securing ships. Second, it encouraged the BriHsh to seek restraints on such shipbuilding acHvities to avoid further trouble with the Union. By late 1861 the Confederacy's chances for securing a significant number of ships had disappeared. Confederate shipbuilding efforts, Spencer argues, set the course of Anglo-French neutrality more than did the battles of the Civil War. Because BriHsh law did not provide...