Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/610

 578 Colonel Jaquess and President Davis. [1863-4 President's memorandum effectively counteracted the advantage they had hoped to gain through the influence of their intrigue upon politics and diplomacy. The particulars of this Niagara intrigue were fully published in the newspapers, and acquainted the public with the exact terms on which Lincoln would consent to peace with the insurrectionary States. Even while it was in progress, another unauthorised embassy obtained from Jefferson Davis the equally precise terms upon which alone he as the head of the Confederate government was willing to agree to the cessation of war. Colonel Jaquess, formerly a Methodist preacher, now commanding an Illinois regiment in the West, was a man of somewhat morbid religious enthusiasm, who believed that through his affiliations with the Methodist Church in the South he could gain the ear, and work upon the patriotic sympathies, of his fellow-Methodists in the Con- federacy, and persuade them of the hopelessness of their enterprise. In the summer of 1863, General Rosecrans recommended him to President Lincoln as a sincere, if infatuated apostle, who was at least willing to risk his life in his self-appointed mission. The President directed that General Rosecrans might give him an indefinite furlough, but upon the clear and imperative condition that he should go without any government authority whatever. A brief excursion into the Confederate lines in 1863 was without result; but, nothing daunted, Jaquess renewed his experiment in 1864, in company with a literary friend of his named Gilmore. Proceeding from Fortress Monroe by the route over which the exchanges of prisoners were carried on, the two amateur envoys were so fortunate as to make their way with comparatively little difficulty to Richmond, where they passed the night of July 16, 1864, under close surveillance at the Spotswood Hotel. Next morning, Sunday, July 17, they asked for an interview with President Davis, as private citizens having no official character or authority. After they had been thoroughly cross-questioned by the Confederate Secretary of State Benjamin, he arranged the desired interview for them ; and, on the same evening they were admitted to a two-hours' conference with the Confederate President and Secretary of State. To the entirely un- authorised as well as utterly impracticable suggestions which they advanced as a method of adjustment, they received the distinct reply from President Davis "that the separation of the States was an accomplished fact; that he had no authority to receive proposals for negotiations except by virtue of his office as President of an independent Confederacy ; and on this basis alone must proposals be made to him." While the clamour for peace exercised of itself but little political influence, it counted for something as an addition to the stock of accusations against the administration of President Lincoln, of which the Democratic party made unceasing use in its attempt to retrieve its fallen fortunes at the approaching presidential election. Their