Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: February 11, 1865

Cloudy and cold; froze hard last night.

Yesterday a bill was introduced into both houses of Congress authorizing the enlistment of 200,000 slaves, with consent of their owners, which will probably be amended. Mr. Miles, as a test vote, moved the rejection of the bill; and the vote not to reject it was more than two to one, an indication that it will pass.

The failure of the peace conference seems to have been made the occasion of inspiring renewed zeal and enthusiasm for the war in the United States, as well as here. So the carnival of blood will be a "success."

The enemy claim an advantage in the late battle on the south side of the James River.

Sherman's movements are still shrouded in mystery, and our generals seem to be waiting for a development of his intentions. Meantime he is getting nearer to Charleston, and cutting railroad communications between that city and the interior. The city is doomed, unless Hardee or Beauregard, or both, successfully take the initiative.

Here the price of slaves, men, is about $5000 Confederate States notes, or $100 in specie. A great depreciation. Before the war, they commanded ten times that price.

It is rumored that hundreds of the enemy's transports have come into the James River. If it be Thomas's army reinforcing Grant, Richmond is in immediate peril! Information of our numbers, condition, etc. has been, doubtless, communicated to the enemy and our slumbering government could not be awakened!

Wigfall, of Texas, Graham, of North Carolina, Orr and Miles, of South Carolina, oppose the employment of negro troops, and Gen. Wickham, of this department, openly proclaims such a measure as the end of the Confederacy! We are upon stirring times! Senator Wigfall demands a new cabinet, etc.

Two P.M. The sun has come out; warmer. But it does not disperse the prevailing gloom. It is feared Richmond must be abandoned, and our forces concentrated farther South, where supplies may be more easily had, and where it will be a greater labor and expense for the enemy to subsist his armies.

Assistant Secretary of War, Judge Campbell, is still furloughing, detailing, and discharging men from the army; and yet he thinks the country is pretty nearly exhausted of its fighting population! His successor is not yet appointed; the sooner the better, perhaps.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 416-7

Diary of Gideon Welles: Friday, August 19, 1864

Much pressed with duties. A pleasant hour at the Cabinet, but no special subject. Fessenden still absent. Stanton did not attend. Blair inquired about the Niagara peace correspondence. The President went over the particulars. Had sent the whole correspondence to Greeley for publication, excepting one or two passages in Greeley's letters which spoke of a bankrupted country and awful calamities. But Greeley replied he would not consent to any suppression of his letters or any part of them; and the President remarked that, though G. had put him (the President) in a false attitude, he thought it better he should bear it, than that the country should be distressed by such a howl, from such a person, on such an occasion. Concerning Greeley, to whom the President has clung too long and confidingly, he said to-day that Greeley is an old shoe, good for nothing now, whatever he has been. "In early life, and with few mechanics and but little means in the West, we used,” said he, “to make our shoes last a great while with much mending, and sometimes, when far gone, we found the leather so rotten the stitches would not hold. Greeley is so rotten that nothing can be done with him. He is not truthful; the stitches all tear out."

Both Blair and myself concurred in regret that the President should consult only Seward in so important a matter, and that he should dabble with Greeley, Saunders, and company. But Blair expresses to me confidence that the President is approaching the period when he will cast off Seward as he has done Chase. I doubt it. That he may relieve himself of Stanton is possible, though I see as yet no evidence of it. To me it is clear that the two S.'s have an understanding, and yet I think each is wary of the other while there is a common purpose to influence the President. The President listens and often defers to Seward, who is ever present and companionable. Stanton makes himself convenient, and is not only tolerated but, it appears to me, is really liked as a convenience.

Seward said to-day that Mr. Raymond, Chairman of the National Executive Committee, had spoken to him concerning the Treasury, the War, the Navy, and the Post-Office Departments connected with the approaching election; that he had said to Mr. Raymond that he had better reduce his ideas to writing, and he had sent him certain papers; but that he, Seward, had told him it would be better, or that he thought it would be better, to call in some other person, and he had therefore sent for Governor Morgan, who would be here, he presumed, on Monday. All which means an assessment is to be laid on certain officials and employees of the government for party purposes. Likely the scheme will not be as successful as anticipated, for the depreciation of money has been such that neither can afford to contribute. Good clerks are somewhat indifferent about remaining, and so with mechanics. I cannot, for one, consent to be an instrument in this business, and I think they must go elsewhere for funds. To a great extent the money so raised is misused, misapplied, and perverted and prostituted. A set of harpies and adventurers pocket a large portion of the money extorted. It is wanted now for Indiana, a State which has hosts of corrupt and mischievous political partisans who take to themselves large pay for professed party services without contributing anything themselves.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 111-3

Diary of Gideon Welles: Friday, July 22, 1864

At the Cabinet-meeting the President read his correspondence with Horace Greeley on the subject of peace propositions from George Saunders and others at Niagara Falls. The President has acquitted himself very well, — if he was to engage in the matter at all, — but I am sorry that he permits himself, in this irregular way, to be induced to engage in correspondence with irresponsible parties like Saunders and Clay or scheming busybodies like Greeley. There is no doubt that the President and the whole Administration are misrepresented and misunderstood on the subject of peace, and Greeley is one of those who has done and is doing great harm and injustice in this matter. In this instance he was evidently anxious to thrust himself forward as an actor, and yet when once engaged he began to be alarmed; he failed to honestly and frankly communicate the President's first letters, as was his duty, but sent a letter of his own, which was not true and correct, and found himself involved in the meshes of his own frail net.

Colonel Jaquess is another specimen of inconsiderate and unwise, meddlesome interference. The President assented to his measure and gave him a card, or passport, to go beyond our lines. There is no doubt that the Colonel was sincere, but he found himself unequal to the task he had undertaken. Instead of persuading Jeff Davis to change his course, Davis succeeded in persuading poor Jaquess that the true course to be pursued was to let Davis & Co. do as they pleased. The result was that Jaquess and his friend Gilmore (alias Kirke), who went to Richmond to shear, came back shorn.

In these peace movements, the President has pursued his usual singular course. Seward was his only confidant and adviser, as usual in matters of the greatest importance. He says that Mr. Fessenden accidentally came in on other business while he was showing Seward the Greeley correspondence, and he was let into a knowledge of what was going on, but no one else. John Hay was subsequently told, before going off, and now, to-day, the Cabinet are made acquainted with what has been done. The President, instead of holding himself open to receive propositions, has imposed conditions and restrictions that will embarrass the parties.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 83-4

The N. Y. World on the Peace Plotters.

The Copperhead press out west bloviated in favor of peace, and, and endorsed the Peace Commissioners and the peace programme of the loafing diplomats at Niagara, and denounced the President without stint. But the New York World—which has more sense if not more patriotism than these Copperhead thumb-wipers of Jeff. Davis’s myrmidons—was not to be caught in such a transparent net.  It saw through the rebel scheme of Sanders & Co. to strengthen the peace wing of the party at Chicago, and denounces and ridicules it in unsparing terms.  The World says:

We are convinced that there is no sincerity in any of the parties to this singular transaction.  The rebels naturally feel a deep interest in our presidential election, and their emissaries are in Canada with a view to influence its result.  The unflinching purpose of their leaders is separation, and to this end they are plotting to divide the Democratic party at Chicago, as they divided it at Charleston in 1860.

And the World is anxious to repudiate the entire transaction, and to place the odium of the negotiation upon other parties, and thus closes its editorial on the transaction which constitutes the chief stock in trade of the dunderhead, copperbottomed politicians hereabouts.  The editor of the World says:

Since writing the above we have received the papers that passed in this odd negotiation; and, if the subject were not to serious for laughter, we should go into convulsions.  That dancing wind-bag of popinjay conceit, William Cornell Jewett, has achieved the immortality he covets; he has reversed the adage about the mountain in labor bringing forth a ridiculous mouse—the mouse has brought forth this ridiculous mountain of diplomacy.  This is Jewett’s doings, and it is marvelous in our eyes!  He got Greeley and the President’s private secretary to the Falls on a fool’s errand, and made even the President an actor in this comedy; he has bade each of them play the part so well suited to himself, of

—“A tool

That knaves do work with, called a fool.”

Sublime impudence of George Sanders!  Enchanting simplicity of Colorado Jewett!  “But—ah!—him”—how, oh benevolent Horace, shall we struggle with the emotions (of the ridiculous) that choke the utterance of THY name?  Greeley and Jewett—Jewett and Greeley; which is Don Quixote and which is Sancho Panza?

SOURCE: The Daily Gate City, Keokuk, Iowa, Tuesday, July 26, 1864, p. 1

A New Sensation—Talk of Peace—Unofficial Commissioners to Richmond—Unofficial Rebel Commissioners—The War to be Carried on for Abolition Purposes Only.

WASHINGTON, July 21, 1864.

Editors of the Enquirer:

Since I closed my letter at noon, a new sensation has appeared on the political board.  The word Peace has been uttered this afternoon as if had some insignificance.  We find that two prominent friends of the Administration have, with the direct approval and aid of Mr. Lincoln, visited Richmond, held conferences with Jeff. Davis and his Secretary of War, and returned highly pleased with the courtesy with which they were received and treated at the Confederate Capital.  Then on the other side, we have the correspondence between certain Confederate gentlemen, Horace Greely and the President in relation to a restoration of the Union by means of peace.  No other talk has been heard this afternoon, except about these two missions.  Though neither of the quasi commissioners—those from the North to Richmond, nor those at Niagara had official authority, yet each acted with the consent of its respective government; and that is a mode often resorted to by belligerent parties, to ascertain the sentiments of the other preliminary to regulate authorized negotiations.

The Commissioners to Richmond were Colonel Jos. F. Jaques, of the 73rd Illinois volunteers, and Mr. Edward Kirke, a gentleman of some literary pretentions and merit.  They have returned to the city, and it is well understood they went to Richmond to ascertain, if the war could not be stopped by a return of the seceded states on terms alike honorable to both parties.  They were in Richmond three days, had free Conference with Mr. Davis and his Secretary, Mr. Benjamin, on the subject of their visit, were treated like gentleman, and returned in good spirits.

You have doubtless read the result of the attempt made by the Southern Commissioners, at Niagara, to obtain an interview with Mr. Lincoln. It was a failure.  The contrast between the conduct of the authorities, at Richmond, towards Messrs. Jaques and Kirke, and that of Lincoln to Messers. Clay and Holcomb, is a painful one to the people of the North.  It shows there are gentleman at the head of the government at Richmond, and a boor at the head of the government at Washington.  The former are not afraid to be talked to on the subject of our difficulties by even unofficial visitors, while the latter seems to think that not only his own dignity, but the cause of the North itself, would be compromised by a conference with gentlemen from the Confederacy.  Humanity and civilization will  accord to the authorities at Richmond the mood of the praise for their willingness to listen to any within their lines, by permission of the President of the United States.

Mr. Lincoln lays down a finality, which, will preclude any conference for a settlement.  That finality is the unconditional abolishment of slavery.  He will not listen to peace on any other terms.  He will not hear what the South may have to say.  He closes all avenues of conciliation except through that one door.  He says the war shall not stop until the blacks are all freed.  He says that this is not a war for the Union, but a war for the negro.  He says that he orders conscriptions, that men are torn from their families, their relatives and friends not to restore the Union, but to free the negro.  He admits that we are making an enormous public debt, that will bring untold sorrow upon toil and labor, not for our liberty or the protections of our government, or the preservation of our national life, but to make the negro like the white man.  He sets up a condition precedent, which must be performed before the seceded States can return to the union, and which he has no authority to impose.  This war is to be continued for no other object than the abolition of slavery. Mr. Lincoln gives that to be distinctly understood.  The country will know hereafter precisely, what the war is continued for.  Every solder will know what he is fighting for, and every one that is killed will lose his life not for the Union, the Stars and Stripes, but for the negro.

CLEVELAND.

SOURCE: The Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati, Ohio, Monday, July 25, 1864, p. 2; Maysville Weekly Bulletin, Maysville, Kentucky, Thursday, July 28, 1864, p. 2.

Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant to Edwin M. Stanton, February 1, 1865 – 10:30 p.m.

CITY POINT, VA., February 1, 1865 — 10.30 p.m.

Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War:

Now that the interview between Major Eckert, under his written instructions, and Mr. Stephens and party has ended, I will state confidentially, but not officially to become a matter of record, that I am convinced, upon conversation with Messrs. Stephens and Hunter, that their intentions are good and their desire sincere to restore peace and union. I have not felt myself at liberty to express even views of my own or to account for my reticency. This has placed me in an awkward position, which I could have avoided by not seeing them in the first instance. I fear now their going back without any expression from any one in authority will have a bad influence. At the same time I recognize the difficulties in the way of receiving these informal commissioners at this time, and do not know what to recommend. I am sorry, however, that Mr. Lincoln cannot have an interview with the two named in this dispatch, if not all three now within our lines. Their letter to me was all that the President's instructions contemplated, to secure their safe conduct, if they had used the same language to Major Eckert.

U.S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.

SOURCE: 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. 342-3

Edwin M. Stanton to Lieutenant-General Ulysses S. Grant, February 4, 1865 – 12:20 p.m.

WAR DEPARTMENT,         

Washington, February 4, 1865 — 12.20 p.m.

Lieutenant-General GRANT,

City Point, Va.:

The President desires me to repeat that nothing transpired or transpiring with the three gentlemen from Richmond is to cause any change, hindrance, or delay of your military plans or operations.

EDWIN M. STANTON,       

Secretary of War.

SOURCE: 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. 365

Diary of John Hay: about July 21, 1864

. . . . Got in to New York at 6 o'clock the 16th, Saturday, and, while I was washing my face, came up Greeley’s card. I went down to the parlor and delivered the [President's] letter to him. He didn't like it, evidently; thought he was the worst man that could be taken for that purpose; that as soon as he arrived there the newspapers would be full of it; that he would be abused and blackguarded, etc., etc. Then he said, if the President insisted on his going he would go, but he must have an absolute safe-conduct for four persons, saying the President's letter would not protect him against our own officers. This seemed to me reasonable, and I had even presented the matter to the President in the same way. I wrote the despatch, and sent it to Washington. About noon came the answer. I then wrote the safe-conduct and took it to the Tribune office. I left the names blank, and was going to let G fill them up, but he said “no,” in his peculiar, querulous tone: — “I won't write a word. I expect to be pitched into everywhere for this; but I can't help it.”I was going to write a safe-conduct for “H. G. and four others;” but he would not permit it. “I want no safe-conduct. If they will catch me and put me in Fort La Fayette, it will suit me first-rate.” I wrote the names in and gave it to him. “I will start to-night,” said he; “I shall expect to be in Washington Tuesday morning if they will come.”

He was all along opposed to the President proposing terms. He was in favor of some palaver anyhow; wanted them to propose terms which we could not accept, if no better, for us to go to the country on; wanted the government to appear anxious for peace, and yet was strenuous in demanding as our ultimatum proper terms.

As I left his office, Mr. Chase entered.

I went back to Washington, arriving there Monday morning (July 18). A few hours after I arrived, a despatch came from G. I took it to the President. He told me a few minutes afterwards to hold myself in readiness to start if it became necessary, — that he had a word to say to Mr. Seward in regard to the matter. In the afternoon he handed me the note, and told me to go to the Falls, see Greeley, and deliver that note, and, to say further, that if they, the commissioners, wished to send any communications to Richmond for the purpose indicated, they might be sent through Washington, subject to the inspection of the government; and the answer from Richmond should be sent to them under the same conditions. Provided that if there was anything either way objectionable to the government in the despatches sent, they would be returned to the parties sending them without disclosure.

I went over to see Seward; — he repeated about the same thing, adding that I had better request the commission to omit any official style which it would compromise our government to transmit; that they could waive it in an unofficial communication among themselves, and not thereby estop themselves of every claim.

I left Washington Monday evening, — arrived in New York too late Tuesday; took the evening Tuesday train and arrived at Niagara Wednesday morning (July 20) at 11½ Saw G. at once at the International Hotel. He was evidently a good deal cut up at what he called the President's great mistake in refusing to enter into negotiations without conditions. He thinks it would be an enormous help to us in politics and finance to have even a semblance of negotiations going on; — that the people would hail with acclaim such a harbinger of peace. He especially should have, as he said, shown his hand first. That he should have waited their terms — if they were acceptable, closed with them, — if they were not, gone before the country on them.

I, of course, combatted these views, saying that I thought the wisest way was to make our stand on what the moral sentiment of the country and the world would demand as indispensable, and in all things else offering to deal in a frank, liberal and magnanimous spirit as the President has done;—that the two points to insist on are such points, — that he could not treat with these men who have no powers, that he could do no more than offer to treat with any who came properly empowered. I did not see how he could do more.

Mr. Greeley did not wish to go over. He had all along declined seeing these people and did not wish to give any handle to talk. He thought it better that I should myself go over alone and deliver the letter. I really thought so too — but I understood the President and Seward to think otherwise, and so I felt I must insist on G’s going over as a witness to the interview. We got a carriage and started over.

We got to the Clifton House and met George Saunders at the door. I wrote G’s name on my card and sent it up to Holcombe, Clay being out of town at St. Kate’s.

Sanders is a seedy-looking rebel, with grizzled whiskers and a flavor of old clo'. He came up and talked a few commonplaces with G. as we stood by the counter. Our arrival, Greeley’s well-known person, created a good deal of interest, the bar-room rapidly filling with the curious, and the halls blooming suddenly with wide-eyed and pretty women. We went up to Holcombe’s room, where he was breakfasting or lunching — tea and toasting — at all events. He was a tall, solemn, spare, false-looking man, with false teeth, false eyes, and false hair.

Mr. Greeley said: — “Major Hay has come from the President of the United States to deliver you a communication in writing and to add a verbal message with which he has been entrusted.” I handed him the note, and told him what the President and Seward had told me to say, and I added that I would be the bearer of anything they chose to send by me to Washington, or, if they chose to wait, it could go as well by mail.

He said: — “Mr. Clay is now absent at St. Catherine's. I will telegraph to him at once, and inform you in the morning.”

We got up to go. He shook hands with Greeley, who “hoped to meet him again;” with me; and we went down to our carriage. Sanders was on the piazza. He again accosted Greeley; made some remark about the fine view from the House, and said, “I wanted old Bennett to come up, but he was afraid to come.” Greeley answered:— “I expect to be blackguarded for what I have done, and I am not allowed to explain. But all I have done has been done under instructions.”

We got in and rode away. As soon as the whole thing was over, G. recovered his spirits and said he was glad he had come, — and was very chatty and agreeable on the way back and at dinner.

After dinner I thought I would go down to Buffalo and spend the night. Went down with young Dorsheimer, formerly of Fremont’s staff. I found him also deeply regretting that the President had not hauled these fellows into a negotiation neck and ears without terms. He gave me some details of what G. had before talked about, — the political campaign these fellows are engineering up here. He says Clay is to write a letter giving three points on which, if the Democracy carry the fall elections, the South will stop the war and come back into the Union. These are: 1st. Restoration of the Union. 2d. Assumption of Confederate Debt. 3d. Restriction of slavery to its present limits and acknowledgment of de facto emancipation. On this platform it is thought Judge Nelson will run. . . . .

SOURCES: Abstracted from Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 212-8. See Michael Burlingame & John R. Turner Ettlinger, Editors, Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete War Diary of John Hay, p. 211-2 for the full diary entry.

In The Review Queue: The Peace That Almost Was

The Peace That Almost Was: The Forgotten Story of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference and the Final Attempt to Avert the Civil War

By Mark Tooley

A narrative history of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference, the bipartisan, last-ditch effort to prevent the Civil War, an effort that nearly averted the carnage that followed.

In February 1861, most of America’s great statesmen—including a former president, dozens of current and former senators, Supreme Court justices, governors, and congressmen—came together at the historic Willard Hotel in a desperate attempt to stave off Civil War.

Seven southern states had already seceded, and the conferees battled against time to craft a compromise to protect slavery and thus preserve the union and prevent war. Participants included former President John Tyler, General William Sherman’s Catholic step-father, General Winfield Scott, and Lincoln’s future Treasury Secretary, Salmon Chase—and from a room upstairs at the hotel, Lincoln himself. Revelatory and definitive, The Peace That Almost Was demonstrates that slavery was the main issue of the conference—and thus of the war itself—and that no matter the shared faith, family, and friendships of the participants, ultimately no compromise could be reached.

ISBN 978-0718022235, Thomas Nelson Books, © 2015, Hardcover, 320 pages, Photographs, Illustrations, End Notes,& Index. $26.99.  To purchase this book click HERE.

Edward Everett Hale to Charles Hale, March 2, 1861

I doubt if we have any news. No other paper than ours had the final report of the Peace Conference. That august body seems to have done its duty in biding over the weeks before next Monday, perhaps would have done more duty if it had bided a little longer. There is great virtue in Time.

SOURCE: Edward Everett Hale Jr., The Life and Letters of Edward Everett Hale, Volume 1, p. 326