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318 even General Butler agreed to a cartel which virtually settled, or at least postponed the question, and we have most abundant evidence that this was a mere subterfuge to prevent exchange.

 Nor are we able at present to enter more fully into the

The mission of Vice-President A. H. Stephens, in 1863, resulted in failure, because Vicksburg and Gettysburg made the United States authorities feel that they were in a position to refuse even an audience to the "Rebel" commissioner.

General Lee's overtures to General Grant and to the Federal Government (through the United States Sanitary Commission) were equally futile; and the delegation of Andersonville prisoners, which Mr. Davis paroled to visit the President of the United States and plead for an exchange, were denied an audience, and were spurned from Washington, to carry back the sad tidings that their Government held out no hope of their release.

We have a letter from the wife of the chairman of that delegation (now dead), in which she says that her husband always said that he was more contemptuously treated by Secretary Stanton than he ever was at Andersonville.

We add upon this point the following letter in the Philadelphia Times, which was elicited by the recent discussion:

