The Supplies for the Confederate Army,: How They Were Obtained in Europe and How Paid For.

In the darkness of Union naval blockade, the Confederacy's survival depended on what happened in European counting houses and shipyards. Caleb Huse was the man they sent to make it happen. This memoir chronicles Huse's extraordinary mission as the Confederacy's secret purchasing agent in England and France during the Civil War. With the Union navy strangling Southern ports, Huse operated in a world of anonymous warehouses, black-market arms dealers, and nervous diplomats. He describes negotiating contracts for rifles and artillery, arranging for cotton bales to serve as collateral against British loans, and navigating the treacherous politics of a European establishment that wanted Southern cotton but feared Northern retaliation. Huse's account also reveals the bitter infighting within Confederate leadership over procurement priorities, and the constant fear of discovery that would have meant imprisonment or execution. Originally published in 1911 from faded memories, this is an indispensable primary document for understanding how the South fought a war on two fronts: one on American battlefields, another in the shadowy world of international commerce.