Finally, in The Battle of the “Kearsarge” and the “Alabama,” Manet’s pro-Napoleonic sentiment is most overwhelmingly apparent, suggesting the most pronounced diversion from his stated anti-Napoleonic sentiment. Here, the distanced, neglected presence of the Kearsarge is punctuated most overwhelmingly in this culmination of Manet’s Civil War works painted in 1864 (Wilson-Bareau, 40), building on his unfavorable presentations of the Union ship in the previous two paintings. While this distanced, undermining portrayal of the Union warship is decidedly present in both the previous watercolor and oil paint versions of The Kearsarge at Boulogne, the ship remained alone and unchallenged – when a challenger, the Napoleonic and imperialist Alabama, is present, Manet’s pro-imperialist sentiment, and digression from his stated anti-imperialist convictions, is strongest. Wilson-Bareau and Deneger note that “anti-Bonapartists like Manet may well have viewed the sinking of the Alabama as a defeat for the French emperor” (Wilson-Bareau and Deneger, 61), but this painting very substantially contradicts this assumption. Manet not only places the Kearsarge in the distance, but envelops the boat in a mammoth shroud of smoke. For someone who is not aware of the outcome of the battle, it could be nearly impossible to distinguish the victor from the vanquished. The Kearsarge could just as well have suffered the same type of emasculating blow it gave the Alabama; its presence, after all, is permeated by the same wall of smoke. But the Kearsarge, in this instance, is not the belligerent that escapes from this wall: it is the Alabama that is able to pierce it and exhibit its presence in the center of the canvas. Its angled position does not connote sinking or a “disabled” status, as Wilson-Bareau contends (Wilson-Bareau, 41), but rather enhances a sense of movement, a sense of dominance, virility. In this painting, the Alabama is angled, continually rising, surmounting the wave in front of it as any victorious battleship should. While the Confederate cruiser continually displays its vitality in piercing the smoke cloud, however, the Kearsarge remains overwhelmed by it, distant in the background, wallowing in ignominy. The Union warship appears impotent, incapacitated, and defeated in comparison with its resilient Confederate counterpart. It does not retain, as Wilson-Bareau contends, its “bold…composition” (Wilson-Bareau, 56). Rather, Manet, who might have been expected to portray the Confederate cruiser negatively and the Union warship favorably had he reflected his stated belief in the necessity of getting “rid of the Empire” (Proust, 58) and its “senile crew” (Brombert, 391) in his letters around the time of the battle, does just the opposite in obscuring the Kearsarge behind the heavy smoke. The smoke, in essence, serves not only to obscure the Kearsarge in the distance but also to obscure Manet’s stated political feelings.