erstand that Walker
himself had been the responsible agent of Mississippi in those days.
From the beginning of this unpleasant advertising of former American
financiering, in which Northern States had sinned quite as flagrantly as
Southern, Confederate credit in Europe declined. Her bonds were soon
withdrawn from the market. At the same time Walker succeeded in
borrowing $250,000,000 from European bankers, and thus at a critical
period he was able to prop the declining fortunes of his country. To say
that Walker destroyed the credit of the Confederacy and at the same time
restored that of the Union would be an exaggeration. But his services
were of incalculable value to the nationalist cause. When, therefore,
Napoleon asked England to join him in intervening between the warring
parties of the United States there was other reason, besides the strong
and vigorous activity of Charles Francis Adams, for the British Ministry
to postpone or decline cooeperation.

Thus the bright Confederate outlook of 1862 had become dark in May,
1864, when General Grant, who had been brought from the field of his
brilliant operations in the West, took command of the army with which
Meade had expelled Lee from Pennsylvania. But conditions were not
encouraging in the North. Lincoln's popularity was still in eclipse.
Congress was resentful of his failures. Charles Sumner was denouncing
him every day in private and opposing him in public. Secretary Chase was
using the machinery of his great office to deprive his chief of a
renomination. The radicals of the East were still refusing their
approval of a policy which compromised with slavery in the border
States, and the Unionists of the Northwest were resentful toward a
President who was making war upon slavery. The Democrats of the North
were apparently stronger than ever, and their criticism of the
Government for suspending the writ of _habeas corpus_ and for hundreds
of arbitrary arrests gave conservative men pause. To all this must be
added the resistance in 1863 to the military drafts, the riots, the
extraordinary prosperity of business men which made recruiting, even
with the aid of laws almost as drastic as those of the South, almost
impossible. The cost in bounties to nation, state, and counties of one
enlistment in 1864 was about $1000; and when a regiment was thus made
up, a third of the men sometimes deserted within a few months and
reenlisted under other names, thus securing a second or