A series of acts and events, more or less menacing in character, seemed to indicate a concerted purpose on the part of some, at least, of the leading nations of Europe to interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States against the government of the United States. The powerful rams, intended for the recapture of New Orleans, that were being almost openly built to the order of the Confederacy in the port of Liverpool, in the very shipyards whence the _Alabama_ had gone to sea, were approaching completion. Other iron-clads, not less powerful, were under construction in France, with the personal connivance of the Emperor, under the flimsy pretence that they were intended for the imperial government of China. Finally, on the 10th of June, casting all promises and pretexts to the winds, the French troops had marched into the capital of Mexico, made themselves masters of the country, vamped up a sham throne, and upon it set an Austrian puppet. That Napoleon III. nursed among his favorite dreams the vision of a Latin empire in America, built upon the ruins of Mexican liberty and taking in at least the fairest portion of the Louisiana that his illustrious uncle had parted with so cheaply, was well known. Against the inconvenient spread of his ambition the occupation of some part, of any part, of Texas, was intended as a diplomatic caution. That the warning cast its shadow even upon the dark mind of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte there can be no doubt; yet in the meantime there had occurred in quick succession three events that must have sounded in his ears with tones that even his dull imagination could not easily misunderstand. These were Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Port Hudson. He had not the least notion of helping the unsuccessful.
The whole Confederate force under Kirby Smith in the trans-Mississippi region numbered at this time about 33,000 effective. Of these, about 4,000 were in the Indian country, 8,000 in Arkansas, less than 14,000 in Western Louisiana, and rather less than 7,000 in Texas. Of the forces in Louisiana under Taylor, about 3,000 were in the extreme northern district. Magruder, whose headquarters were at Houston, and who commanded not only the whole of Texas but nominally New Mexico and Arizona besides, was keeping rather more than two thirds of his forces for the defence of Galveston and the line of the Sabine, while the remainder were distributed on the Rio Grande, at Corpus Christi, San Antonio, and Indianola; he had not 2,000 men together anywhere, nor could even Kirby Smith have concentrated 20,000 at any single point without giving up all the rest of the vast territory confided to his care.
