Gen. Longstreet is now in command of Gen. Smith's late
department, besides his own corps. Richmond is safe.
Our papers contain a most astonishing speech purporting to
have been delivered by Mr. Conway, in the United States Congress. Mr. C. is
from Kansas, that hot-bed of Abolitionism. He is an avowed Abolitionist; and
yet he advocates an immediate suspension of hostilities, or at least that the
Federal armies and fleets be ordered to act on the defensive; that the
independence of the Confederate States be recognized, upon the basis of a similar
tariff; free-trade between the North and South; free navigation of the
Mississippi, and co-operation in the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine. I like
the indications apparent in this speech. Let us have a suspension of hostilities,
and then we can have leisure to think of the rest. No doubt the peace party is
growing rapidly in the United States; and it may be possible that the
Republicans mean to beat the Democrats in the race, by going beyond them on the
Southern question. The Democrats are for peace and Union; the Republicans may
resolve to advocate not only peace, but secession.
SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 263-4
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