 In 1863 – 1864 during the American Civil War, Edward traveled through Europe, taking the opportunity to visit the most esteemed museums and societies of the time. Initially, he seemed interested in helping out at a field hospital, but in letters to his father later on in the war, this aspiration seemed to disappear; instead Edward considered working in the American South to assist freed African Americans. Davidson suggests Edward's correspondence with Leidy and Ferdinand Hayden, who worked as field surgeons during the war, might have informed Edward of the horrors of the occupation. Edward was involved in a love affair; his father did not approve. Whether Edward or the unnamed woman (whom he at one point intended to marry) broke off the relationship is unknown, but he took the breakup poorly. Biographer and paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn attributed Edward's sudden departure for Europe as a method of keeping him from being drafted into the Civil War. Cope did write to his father from London on February 11, 1864, "I shall get home in time to catch and be caught by the new draft. I shall not be sorry for this, as I know certain persons who would be mean enough to say that I have gone to Europe to avoid the war." Eventually, Cope took the pragmatic approach and waited out the conflict. He may have suffered from mild depression during this period, and often complained of boredom.
