I could be wrong but I don't think France jumped into aid Washington's little band of merrymen at the beginning either. No, English aid was not there, we were shooting at them. Spain was having it's own little financial problem so it decided to bow out and pretty much sold out it's interest in our corner of the big ball. Some take recognition by England or France as a done deal because they both did offer assistance, for a price. Build ships, sell supplies, that sort of stuff. Mercenary critters weren't they? No, neither of those governments were going to commit to what they saw by 1863 as a suicide mission. Those dang French are good at cutting and running. Look what they did in Nam. They just up and left. It's a real surprise they last through the end of the Revolutionary War. It's no surprise they had short terms as owners of land in the New World. Bad managment.
So, how were Davis and his cabinet s'posed to pull the rabbit from the hat? They had no rabbit. It wasn't there. I think they'd eaten it. I'm not too sure they had a hat left. The money for hats went toward ammo. While there pretty much had to have been some Black Confederate Soldiers, at the point they would have been really needed most had gone (not South) West or were slowing Sherman down. How could the Confederate States train troops and gear them up when they were playing with real ammo daily? The logical instructors were either Generals or dead. There simply was not enough of anything left to try. That's what Davis and his Cabinet saw and they were right.
We can look at situations and play armchair General all day long. We can see things that maybe they didn't but then again, we weren't there. We do not know just exactly what was really going on. The best records are the diaries or journals. If it was a post war biography or memo, it was heavily edited and probably isn't a good one stop source. I just really wish my GGGrands had left some written something on their travels. All I have are the bare bones CSR's. I do have a couple of family stories on them and to a man, all fought for the Confederate Army and never apologized. There had to be something there for so many to give so much for so little a return in the end. Oh, they all hated "Yankee's" til the day they died. Another 'to a man' thing they had in common.
Pam