Confederate States of America diplomat to the Confederacy. Those nations recognized the Union and Confederate sides as belligerents. In 1863 the Confederacy expelled European diplomatic missions for advising their resident subjects to refuse to serve in the Confederate army. Both Confederate and Union agents were allowed to work openly in British territories. Some state governments in northern Mexico negotiated local agreements to cover trade on the Texas border. Pope Pius IX wrote a letter to Jefferson Davis in which he addressed Davis as the "Honorable President of the Confederate States of America". The Confederacy appointed Ambrose Dudley Mann as special agent to the Holy
Economy of the Confederate States of America war effort. With legislation authorizing "impressment" (commandeering) that same year, railroads and their rolling stock came under "de facto" control of the military. At the beginning of the war (1861), the Northern states included 20,000 miles of railroad while the Confederate states had 9,000 miles (1,700 miles total in the three border states of Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland). The Confederate Army of the Shenandoah used their railroad system effectively at the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run) on July 21, 1861. Confederate reinforcements under Brig. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston arrived from the Shenandoah Valley by railroad and the course of