With Edwards having obtained a land grant from Maximilian, this enabled Shelby to found the Colony of Carlota. Backed by the publishing and rhetorical skills of Edwards and recent Governor of Louisiana Henry Watkins Allen, thousands of other Confederate soldiers also arrived. Here the ex-Confederates rebuilt their arms and temporarially their fortunes. Allen had received a $10,000 grant from Maximilian to establish a full English language newspaper, "The Mexican Times." He was joined by Edwards who continued the venture after Allen's death from yellow fever. The grant exhausted, Edwards' business skills were insufficient to retain the paper. It was sold to C.B. Barksdale under whom it prospered until suppressed by Porfirio Diaz's supporters after they captured Mexico City. Edwards wrote his first book while in Mexico, "An Unwritten Leaf of the War".