**“**The Confederates couldn't repair their rail-roads or buy new equipment...

**“**The Confederates couldn't repair their rail-roads or buy new equipment, so transportation was almost at a standstill; corn that could be purchased for two dollars a bushel in Georgia, brought fifteen dollars in Richmond. People in Virginia were going hungry. **“**Something had to be done at once. So the South offered to give Napoleon III twelve million dollars’ worth of cotton if he would recognise the Confederacy and use the French fleet to lift the blockade.

Besides, they promised to overwhelm him with orders that would start smoke rolling out of every factory chimney in France night and day. **“**Napoleon therefore urged Russia and England to join him in recognising the Confederacy. The aristocracy that ruled England adjusted their monocles, poured a few drinks of Scotch Whisky, and listened eagerly to Napoleon's overtures. The United States was getting too rich and powerful to please…