How Napoleon Nearly Became a U.S. Citizen

At 8am on July 3, 1815, a modest yellow carriage trundled into the port of Rochefort on the French Atlantic coast. It turned into the courtyard of the Marine Prefecture, and a small, stout man in a green overcoat climbed out. It was Napoleon Bonaparte, exhausted after four days on the road from Paris. Eleven days before, he had abdicated for the second time, following his final defeat at Waterloo. He spent his last fortnight in France in the port, pondering how best to save his career, and possibly his life.

Napoleon's two weeks at Rochefort are generally forgotten, sandwiched as they are between the last two great events of his life – Waterloo and his departure for St Helena. The received opinion is that one was the inevitable consequence of the other. In fact, this is not the case. After the collapse of his last bid for power in France, there were several courses open to Napoleon, and the most logical one was escape to the USA. His intention in making for Rochefort in the first place was to take ship there across the Atlantic, and he very nearly did. Had he reached America, his own history, and conceivably that of the world, might have turned out very differently.

What made flight to the USA such an attractive option for Napoleon? First of all, it was one of the few places left in the world where he could live as a free man. All the European powers had declared him an outlaw. If they captured him, his fate would be very uncertain. He might be allowed to depart to a neutral country, or be placed instead under some form of house arrest; at worst, he might be executed. The USA, on the other hand, had never been his enemy; on the contrary, it had recently been at war with his own greatest opponent, Britain. On a deeper, ideological, level, it made sense as Napoleon's destination. It was a new country, born of a revolution that had helped inspire the French Revolution of which Napoleon himself was the heir. The symbolism of the greatest adversary of Europe's old order seeking refuge in the New World would have been unmissable.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/157810

He might have had a rough time getting there.  The British had a habit of boarding US ships, which legally they considered their own.  This was one of the major causes of the War of 1812 between the US and Britain.

Although the war formally ended in December 1814, a lot of the British didn't get the message.  The Battle of New Orleans, made famous by the song, took place in January 1815, after the Treaty of Ghent. Throughout the 19th-century Britain and the US were not friends. In fact, Britain backed the South during the US Civil War.

Interesting you say that about the Civil War as I have just been reading this:


Why Englishmen Fought in the American Civil War:

During the American Civil War people from many countries fought for either the Union or Confederacy. They included immigrants from all over Europe including Scandinavia, Germany, France and Hungary. Men from the United Kingdom also fought in the conflict, the vast majority on the Union side. They included about 170,000 from Ireland and up to 50,000 from England, Scotland and Wales. Yet the number of Englishmen who fought numbered only around 10,000.

Most English immigrants to America did not consider themselves to be immigrants at all and so it is difficult to trace their history in the conflict. Many of the English saw their stay as temporary, due to the fact that the companies that employed them had sent them overseas to manage or monitor their stateside commercial interests. On the other hand, many Welsh immigrants felt their relocation to be permanent as a result of coal and slate mine closures in North Wales. They had decided to seek employment in the coal mines of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. There is the added complication that those who settled in the Northern states after the conflict wanted to keep a low profile, because of Britain’s perceived support for Confederate independence.

http://www.historytoday.com/daniel-clarke/why-englishmen-fought-american-civil-war

Interesting, but hardly a statement of national policy.  The British and the Americans were unfriendly with one another until the interests bringing about WWI brought the two together.

The Confederates States of American had no arms industry in 1861…and really no industry at all.  America was two economies: a mercantile and manufacturing North, and a cash-cropping South, highly dependent upon slave labor.  The South relied upon Britain to supply it with guns, canon and powder.

The American Civil War was the first modern war…primarily because it was the first war fought with rifled barrels instead of muskets.  Accuracy increased 10-fold, and brought about a change in warfare tactics from offensive Napoleonic charges to defensive trench warfare.  The American General most adept at realizing this was Confederate General James Longstreet from South Carolina.  If Lee had listened to him, the South would have won at Gettysburg.  Bruce Catton's Civil War (3 Volumes): Mr Lincoln's Army, Glory Road, A Stillness at Appomattox; read in particular, Catton, U.S. Grant and the American Military Tradition (1958)

So, there was a lot of interest in the American Civil War, and European nations all had representatives in the US for observation.  But again, you can’t generalize from specifics, nor predict policy from numbers.

@Quill
many of Napoleons mid level commanders escaped to the New Orleans and surrounds. that is just considered fact in French version of history.

http://www.nola.com/175years/index.ssf/2012/02/napoleon_house_the_times-picay.html

There are tales from the time that enough had gathered to attempt to rescue him and bring him to Louisiana.

How different history would have been. But as the article says, Napoleon was considered an outlaw.

I am sure that would make little difference if the man raised an army.

Remember after the wars there was many professional soldiers out of work and looking for someone to give them more (as evidenced by the amount that joined the US civil war)

To quote someone else referencing the disaffected soldiers as tinder
'Napoleon was a flint if ever enough tinder gathered around him there would be a blaze.'

I don't know how many French ex-soldiers joined the US Civil War.  Never seen any statistics on that, but I suspect it was negligibly few.

America can be obstinate.  I think that was one of the major themes of Toqueville's Democracy in America (1835).  America is, and always has been anti-Europe.  That's the origin of the term, New World.  America was supposed to be a newer, much cleaner place than Europe.  That kind of self-righteousness extended right up to WWII, and it was manifested in the Neutrality Acts of the 1930s.  Even today, RW antipathy toward the United Nations (a Roosevelt creation) could be seen in the rejection of Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan's attempts to curb the Iraq war.  For them, it was America first, and fuck the rest of the world...a sentiment that has been with America since the beginning.

Additionally, America nearly went to war against France during Adam's presidency (1796-1800):

Brookhiser wrote:During the Washington administration, France had bumptious demands that the United States maintain the wartime alliance of the two countries.  After Adams took office, a new phase of the revolutionary government, the Directory, embarked on an ambitious foreign policy, invading Italy and bullying American shipping.  When Adams sent three ministers to Paris to negotiate, including Getty, the Directory insulted them and tried to extort douceurs--bribes--from them.  The country blazed in anger at French high-handedness and rallied round the government.  Brookhiser, America's First Dynasty  (2002)

I don't no how Napoleon would have fared over here, particularly since he styled himself Emperor.  That would be like announcing yourself at a Republican National Convention, Comrade Napoleon.  Lol.

the years was 1815
12 years earlier half the USA was French territory and Florida purchase was still 4 years away

A lot more french than you'd like to admit

That doesn't impress me.  One of the major motives for the Louisiana Purchase by Jefferson was because the US didn't want France as a presence on it's western border.  

Because of the revolt in Haiti, Napoleon needed money...and he wanted to divest France of expensive overseas colonies.  And, what can I say, for $15-million it was a hell of a bargain for the US.

Finally, when you talk about the territory gained by the Louisiana Purchase, you are talking about Indian territory.  The French claimed the Louisiana territory; they never populated it.  Only New Orleans and the Bayou country had a substantial French contingent.  Quebec probably had more French ex-soldiers in it.

Lol...and they were all busy learning to be hockey players.