HEADQUARTERS FIRST ARMY
CORPS,
March 1, 1865.
General R. E. LEE,
Commanding:
GENERAL: I had another interview with Major-General Ord
yesterday and expressed the opinions that were spoken of in our interview at
the President's mansion on Sabbath last. He acceded promptly to my proposition
that the war must cease, if we are to go to work to try to make peace, and to
the proposal for a military convention. I further claimed that we could not go
into convention upon any more favorable basis than an earnest desire to arrange
plans for peace that should be equally honorable to both parties. To this,
also, I understood him to give his unqualified consent. He says that General
Grant has the authority to meet you, if you have authority to appoint a
military convention, and proposes that you should indicate your desire to meet
General Grant, if you feel authorized to do so. As he made this proposition
before mine, to the effect that General Grant should express his desire to meet
you, and as the interview between General Ord and myself had been brought on at
the request of General Ord, I did not feel that I could well do otherwise than
promise to write to you of the disposition on their part to have the interview.
If you think it worth your time to invite General Grant to an interview it
might be upon some other as the ostensible grounds, and this matter might be brought
up incidentally. I presume that General Grant's first proposition will be to go
into convention upon the basis of reconstruction; but if I have not
misunderstood General Ord's conversation; General Grant will agree to take the
matter up without requiring any principle as a basis further than the general
principle of desiring to make peace upon terms that are equally honorable to
both sides. I would suggest that the interview take place on this side and at
the place of meeting between General Ord and myself, because there are several
little points upon which you should be posted before the interview, and I do
not see that I can well do this by writing. Besides, as “the ice has already
been broken” on this side, your interview would be relieved in a measure of the
great formality incident to such occasions. If it should be on this side I hope
that you will give me two or three days' notice.
General Stevens is of the opinion that 1,000 negro laborers
on this line during this month will so strengthen our position that we will be
able to spare a division, and I am satisfied we can do so if we can have the
work proposed completed and can get the aid that General Ewell promises us.
I remain, very
respectfully, your obedient servant,
J. LONGSTREET,
Lieutenant-General.
SOURCES: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of
the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume
46, Part 2 (Serial No. 96), p. 1275-6; James Longstreet, From
Manassas to Appomattox, p. 647-8
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