34 Facts About Henry Hotze

Henry Hotze was a Swiss American advocate for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.

Henry Hotze acted as a Confederate agent in Great Britain, attempting to build support for the Southern cause there.

Henry Hotze promised that the Confederacy would be a low-tariff nation in contrast to the high-tariff United States, and he emphasized the consequences of cotton shortages for the industrial workers in Britain, as caused by the Union blockade of Southern ports.

Henry Hotze was the son of Rudolph Hotze, a captain in the French Royal Service, and Sophie Esslinger.

Henry Hotze was educated in a Jesuit setting and emigrated to the United States in his youth.

Henry Hotze became a naturalized citizen in 1855, and lived in Mobile, Alabama, where he made important connections through his social skills and intelligence.

In 1856 Hotze was hired by Josiah C Nott to translate Joseph Arthur Comte de Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races entitled The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races.

Henry Hotze was a secretary for the US legation in Brussels in 1858 and 1859, and when he returned, worked as an associate editor of the Mobile Register, owned by John Forsyth.

Henry Hotze joined the Mobile Cadets when the Civil War began.

Walker ordered Henry Hotze to go to London to assist in providing funds for Confederate agents in Europe, and help with the acquisition of munitions and supplies for the conflict.

Henry Hotze went through the North and Canada before his departure, and collected some intelligence on the Union's mobilization efforts.

Henry Hotze returned to Richmond and made his argument to the Confederate leadership.

Henry Hotze was given $750 by the Confederate government to influence the British press with pro-Confederate propaganda.

Henry Hotze realized that propaganda effort had to be about more than cotton alone.

Henry Hotze appealed to anti-American sentiment in the United Kingdom, British naval rights, and the rights of smaller nations.

Henry Hotze paid English journalists to support the cause and wrote his own pieces in the Morning Post, the London Standard, the Herald, and the financial weekly paper Money and Market Review.

When sources were available, Henry Hotze developed topics that influenced or helped the Confederate envoys in their official missions.

Henry Hotze participated in a number of other important activities to support the south.

Henry Hotze assisted in writing Lord Campbell's speech against the Union blockade given in the House of Lords on March 10,1862.

Henry Hotze had an important dinner with William Ewart Gladstone, where he stressed that the Union and Confederacy could negotiate their boundaries in a mediation effort.

In London, Henry Hotze took under his wing the famous Confederate spy Belle Boyd who had fled to England.

When James M Mason was withdrawn, Hotze was the only remaining agent for the Confederacy in Britain.

Henry Hotze continued to draw on negative sentiments related to Union actions against Confederate attempts to build ironclad ships in Britain and concerns over occasional Union actions against British shipping.

Henry Hotze worked to obtain signatures for petitions for peace and was able to influence French newspapers by affecting Havas Agency telegraphs.

Henry Hotze learned that it was the Havas Agency that spread the world news to the French press.

Henry Hotze returned to London during the Franco-Prussian War and is known to have visited Istanbul for a newspaper assignment.

Henry Hotze operated from the rue de Lisbonne in Paris.

Henry Hotze died of a stomach cancer in Zug, Switzerland on April 19,1887, at the age of 53.

Henry Hotze married Ruby Senac in 1867 at the American Legation in Paris.

Henry Hotze had come to England with her parents in 1863 and had appeared at Court, being presented to Queen Victoria.

Henry Hotze's father Felix Senac, born in Pensacola on July 28,1815, to Pierre Senac and Agnes Senac, had been the Confederacy's purchasing agent and paymaster in New Orleans and then Europe.

Henry Hotze continued to live in England and then moved to Washington, DC, with her mother Marie Louise who died on October 2,1898.

Henry Hotze was transferred to the Weather Bureau in 1891.

Henry Hotze died on January 3,1929, in Washington, DC, at the age of 84.