him severely," and ordered him to make bona fide sales of the
ships to neutral powers. The Minister of Marine professed
surprise and indignation at Arman's trifling with the neutrality
of the Imperial Government. And that practically was the end of
the episode.

Equally complete was the breakdown of the Confederate
negotiations with Mexico. General Preston was refused
recognition. In those fierce days of July when the fate of
Atlanta was in the balance, the pride and despair of the
Confederate Government flared up in a haughty letter to Preston
reminding him that "it had never been the intention of this
Government to offer any arguments to the new Government of Mexico
...nor to place itself in any attitude other than that of
complete equality," and directing him to make no further
overtures to the Mexican Emperor.

And then came the debacle in Georgia. On that same 20th of
September when Benjamin poured out in a letter to Slidell his
stored-up bitterness denouncing Napoleon, Davis, feeling the last
crisis was upon him, left Richmond to join the army in Georgia.
His frame of mind he had already expressed when he said, "We have
no friends abroad."



Chapter IX. Desperate Remedies

The loss of Atlanta was the signal for another conflict of
authority within the Confederacy. Georgia was now in the