Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/635

Rh armies crossed the Potomac and threatened Washington, producing a state of feeling in the cabinet of Mr. Lincoln which seemed to Mr. Stephens to be unfavorable to any negotiations. He was, however, commissioned by Mr. Davis to make the effort to secure exchanges of prisoners, and did so with the result of a prompt refusal by the Federal authorities to receive any commissioner on that subject.

Mr. Stephens thought in 1864 that the reaction against Mr. Lincoln’s war policy was on account of the fear that the so-called war power would become as dangerous to the liberties of the Northern States, and he. entertained the opinion that a proper encouragement given to the peace people throughout the North would result in their political success in the elections of that year, and thus bring into power at Washington a body of men who would treat with the South. &quot;It was our true policy,&quot; he writes, &quot; while struggling for our own independence, to use every possible means of impressing upon the minds of the real friends of liberty at the North the truth that if we should be overpowered and put under the heel of centralism that the same fate would await them sooner or later.&quot; On this line he sympathized with the resolutions passed in March, 1864, by the legislature of Georgia, evidently prepared to strengthen the opposition at the North to the administration of Mr. Lincoln. But the overwhelming re-election of Mr. Lincoln dissipated the hope of adjustment.

The final effort at negotiation was made through Mr. Stephens and his associate commissioners, Campbell and Hunter, appointed by Mr. Davis, who met Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward at Hampton Roads February 3, 1865, in informal and futile conference. Mr. Stephens was chief spokesman in that famous interview, and has given his recollections very fully of all that occurred. He pressed Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward to consent to an armistice with the view of arranging a demand by the United States