Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/360

 344 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Virginia. The Hon. J. P. Benjamin, then Secretary of War, was transferred to be Secretary of State, Mr. William M. Browne, the Assistant Secretary of State, became one of the President's aids, and, as chief clerk, I performed the usual duties of the former posi- tion until the close of the struggle in April, 1865. In this way I became conversant with all that wa^ being done or that had been done by the State Department, and I also learned confidently much of what was being done by the other departments. With the heads of these departments, as well as the President, I had cordial rela- tions, and most of them I had known before for years. The im- portant military news came to us, of course, and also many of the plans of military operations. I had so many friends in Congress that I was easily kept advised of what it was doing. On the other hand, no one on the outside knew the business of the State Depart- ment except the President, and he was not the kind of a man to gossip or to be questioned.

THE LOST CHAPTER.

With these opportunities for an inside view of all that passed at Richmond from October, 1861, to April, 1865, I have been able to appreciate at its true value the fiction in reference to the Confederate Government concocted from time to time. If there be a " lost chap- ter " of the history of the Confederate State Department, I believe that I am the only one capable of supplying it. The story that has been made public to the effect that Prince Polignac was sent by the Richmond government about the close of the civil war on a mission to the Emperor Napoleon, with authority to offer a transfer of Lou- isiana to France in exchange for his intervention in favor of the Con- federacy is not a "lost chapter," for the good and sufficient reason that no such chapter was ever written, and, therefore, could not well be lost. Mr. Davis was always a great stickler for adhering to the Constitution, and he clearly had no constitutional authority to pro- pose such a transfer. Moreover, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri were three of the States belonging to the Confederacy, though at the time largely occupied by the Federal troops, and their soldiers were performing their duties in the Confederate army with singular zeal, fortitude and heroism. The suggestion to turn over these soldiers, their homes, and liberties to any European government in order to save the other States from being overrun would not have been entertained for a moment by Mr. Davis or any one of his Cab-