Our One Common Country (51 page)

101.
Lee issued a public plea for weapons and saddles: Richmond Dispatch,
reprinted in
New York Times,
February 7, 1865.

101.
“They do us no good”:
Gorgas, p. 166.

102.
making no one rich:
Browning Diary, vol. 2, pp. 4–6 and 12–15;
CW
, vol. 8, pp. 353 and 410; Crist, vol. 2, p. 480 n. 10; Johnson,
Mission,
pp. 98–99; Flood, p. 415.

102.
The
Rebel flag-of-truce boat appeared with Blair:
OR,
ser. 1, vol. 46, pt. 2, p. 261.

102.
Admiral Lee had pressed for more ships:
Elizabeth Blair Lee, p. 469.

102.
her husband had been known to indulge her:
Julia Grant, pp. 129–30 and 135.

102.
Blair gets home in the cold:
New York Times
, January 27, 1865, reprint from
Baltimore American.

102.
looking weary:
Elizabeth Blair Lee, p. 468.

102.
Blair's letter to Greeley: Horace Greeley Papers, New York Public Library.

102.
“Great was the excitement”:
Brooks,
Washington in Lincoln's Time,
p. 223.

103.
“a total failure”: New York Times,
January 28, 1865.

103.
Lincoln's note on the back of the letter:
CW,
vol. 8, p. 276.

103.
Blair's list of requests: Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress; Smith,
Francis Preston Blair,
p. 374.

103.
must have given Lincoln some encouragement:
See Westwood, “Hampton Roads Conference,” p. 247.

103.
Brooks thought Lincoln had no faith: Brooks,
Washington in Lincoln's Time,
p. 224.

103.
Welles's speculations: Welles Diary, vol. 2, pp. 231–32.

 

CHAPTER 13

Hunter's biographers are his daughter and a fellow Virginian: Martha T. Hunter,
A Memoir of Robert M. T. Hunter
(Washington, DC: Neale Publishing Company, 1903) (“Hunter,
Hunter
”), and Henry H. Simms,
Life of Robert M. T. Hunter
(Richmond, VA: The William Byrd Press, 1935) (“Simms”).

104.
[Not given to] “gossiping intercourse”:
Hunter,
Hunter,
p. 78.

104.
“tardy and sluggish”:
Foote,
Casket of Reminiscences,
p. 311.

104.
any plain Virginia farmer's:
L. Quinton Washington, quoted in Hunter,
Hunter,
p. 162; Simms, p. 27.

105.
financial strain: Id.,
p. 19.

105.
tableau vivant of temperaments:
Pollard, pp. 31–32.

105.
Hunter listening quietly:
Jones, vol. 1, pp. 64–65.

105.
Condescending,
Davis made him Secretary of State: Rowland, vol. 8, p. 124; Simms, p. 188.

105.
Resignation as Secretary of State: Hendrick,
Statesmen of the Lost Cause,
p. 186.

106.
Death of Hunter's son: Hunter,
Hunter,
pp. 88 and 115.

106.
“ruin stared him in the face”: Id.,
pp. 122 and 162.

106.
who found himself nudging:
Graham, p. 224.

106.
“great exposure and suffering”:
Willcox, p. 603.

106.
burgled their neighbors' coal bins:
Brock, p. 341.

106.
Hunter hurrying down the street: Jones, vol. 2, pp. 400–01.

106.
Davis sent Hunter for Stephens: Stephens,
CV,
vol. 2, p. 590; Stephens to Linton Stephens, January 26, 1865, Manhattanville Library.

106.
Hunter went to see Campbell: See Jones, vol. 2, p. 400.

106.
Davis was home with neuralgia: Crist, vol. 11, p. 356.

106.
Stephens had not spoken to Davis since 1863: See Schott, p. 440; Graham, p. 225.

106.
The scathing Davis-Stephens correspondence preceding their meeting is in
OR,
ser. 4, vol. 3, pt. 1, pp. 840, 934, and 1000–04. For more on the exchange, see Rowland, vol. 6, pp. 439–45; Stephens,
CV
, vol. 2, pp. 583–84; Avary,
Recollections,
pp. 75–77; and Schott, pp. 433–35. It was hot gossip in Richmond. See Kean, pp. 188–89.

106.
Davis sought Stephens's judgment: Stephens,
CV
, vol. 2, pp. 590–91.

107–108.
Stephens's conversation with Davis: Stephens recounted it in Stephens,
CV
, vol. 2, pp. 591–94, and described it to his authorized biographers in Johnston and Browne, p. 484. It is also mentioned in the
Augusta Chronicle & Sentinel,
June 7, 1865, reprinted in
New York Times,
June 26, 1865 (“
Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel, in New York Times, June 26, 1865
”), purportedly based on an interview with Stephens, who denied he had given it but verified some of the article's contents (Avary,
Recollections,
pp. 264–65, 271, 275, 280–81, and 373). The accurate elements are discernible by Stephens's failure to deny them, and their consistency with other sources.

108.
“whither, of course, it was not proper for me to go”:
Davis, “Peace Conference,” p. 68.

108.
The ice had been broken:
Crist, vol. 11, p. 310. n. 11.

108.
“Can't find a thermometer”; “many smiling faces”:
Jones, vol. 2, pp. 401–02.

108.
Breckinridge a rival in the old concern:
Id.,
p. 401.

108–109.
Stephens's second conversation with Davis: Stephens recounts it in Stephens,
CV,
vol. 2, pp. 594–95. See also Crist, vol. 11, pp. 355–56.

109.
a crippled negotiation was better than none:
Stephens,
Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel, in New York Times, June 26, 1865.

109.
Arthur Colyar, John Baldwin, and peace resolutions: Colyar tells the story in Rowland,
Davis
, vol. 8, p. 30. See also Westwood, “Hampton Roads Conference,” p. 248; Rowland, vol. 8, p. 27; Foote,
Casket of Reminiscences,
p. 298; Foote,
War of the Rebellion,
p. 375; Schott, pp. 438–39; “Arthur St. Clair Colyar 1818–1907,”
The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture,
http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net.

109.
a fact-finding committee:
Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861–1865
, 7 vols. (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1904–05) (
“Journal of the Congress”
), vol. 7, pp. 393–94.

110.
It was not the first such resolution to be offered: Id.,
pp. 360 and 363–64.

110.
Stephens's edit of Colyar's draft: The edited version is in Johnston & Brown,
pp. 480–82; an explanation of the various drafts is in
id.,
pp. 482–83 and in Von Abele, p. 233 n. 93. The version reported to the House on February 12 is in
Journal of the Congress
, pp. 451–52.

110.
North-South collaboration to enforce the Monroe Doctrine:
Id.,
pp. 451–52.

110.
They had struck their bargain without him:
Davis responds to Colyar's story in Rowland, vol. 8, p. 27, and denies no part of it. At bottom, he merely says he knew nothing about it and expresses surprise that Stephens did not address it in
CV
. Stephens told a friend that Davis appointed the commissioners to preempt a congressional demand (Johnston and Browne,
Stephens
, p. 486). Davis discusses his choice of commissioners in Davis, “Peace Commission”. See also Schott, pp. 432–38 and Von Abele, p. 233.

110.
The Cabinet chooses the commission: Crist, vol. 11, p. 379 n. 2; Mallory, vol. 2, p. 208; Rowland, vol. 8, pp. 27–28. In the North, no leading Rebel had a stronger reputation as a peacemaker than Stephens. Greeley had told Blair he was “looking for” Davis's death, since Stephens would succeed him, and “I guess that would soon end the war” (Greeley to Blair, December 23, 1864, Blair Family Papers, Library of Congress).

110–111.
Benjamin Hill and his relationship with Stephens: Benjamin Harvey Hill Jr.,
Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia: His Life, Speeches and Writings
(Atlanta: H. C. Hudgins, 1891) (“Hill”), pp. 19–30; Schott, pp. 216–21, 500–01; Haywood J. Pearce,
Benjamin H. Hill: Secession and Reconstruction
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1940) (“Pearce”), pp. 104–05, footnotes 50–52.

111.
Davis confers with
Hill on Stephens's appointment:
Atlanta Constitution,
April 22, 1874, letter to the editor from Hill; Crist, vol. 11, p. 379 n. 2.

111.
Hill's own deal with Stephens: Schott, p. 441; Pearce, pp. 102–05.

111.
Judah Benjamin: A profile of Benjamin, from which some references to him in this chapter and elsewhere in the book are drawn, is in Hendrick,
Statesmen of the Lost Cause,
pp. 157–87.

112.
The
Times of London
on Benjamin: Russell, pp. 252–53.

112.
A wellborn junior officer:
Wise, pp. 401–02.

112.
“the brains of the Confederacy”:
Hendrick,
Statesmen of the Lost Cause,
p. 153.

112.
Benjamin's relationship with Davis:
Congressional Globe
, June 9, 1858, p. 2823
,
Hendrick
, Statesmen of the Lost Cause,
pp. 174–75 and
passim;
Mallory, vol. 2, p. 206; Bill, pp. 207 and 243.

113.
Davis's conversation with the commissioners: Campbell tells the story in John A. Campbell,
Reminiscences and Documents Relating to the Civil War during the Year 1865
(Baltimore: John Murphy & Co., 1877) (“Campbell,
Reminiscences
”), pp. 3–4, in Campbell, “Open Letters,” p. 951, and in “The Hampton Roads Conference, Letter of Judge Campbell,”
The Southern Magazine,
November 1874, vol. 8, pp. 187–90, (“Campbell, ‘Hampton Roads Conference,
Southern Magazine
' ”), p. 187. Stephens recalls the conversation in Stephens,
CV
, vol. 2, pp. 619–22. Davis's comments to Senator Hill are in Hill, p. 409. See also Graham, p. 235, and Johnston and Browne, p. 484.

113.
“did not find their passport available”:
Campbell, “Hampton Roads Conference,”
Southern Magazine,
p. 187.

114.
Stephens's draft statement to the Associated Press: Stephens to Davis, Duke University Library, Charles Colcok Jones Papers, Georgia Portfolio; Crist, vol. 11, pp. 357–58. See Schott, pp. 442–43.

114.
Drafting and revising credentials: Benjamin's draft and Davis's are in
Rise and Fall,
vol. 2, p. 617, and in Crist, vol. 11, p. 356, with a narrative of the events. Davis and Benjamin give their versions of those events in Davis, “Peace Commission,” pp. 210–11 and Rowland, vol. 7, pp. 570–71. Bromwell gives his in William Bromwell, “Peace Conference,”
Southern Bivouac
, December 1886, vol. 2, no. 7, p. 424.

115.
“to defeat the objects of the conference”:
Strode, p. 469.

115.
“But none of us . . . dreamed of reconstruction”: Richmond Sentinel,
February 10, 1865, reprinted in
New York Times,
February 13, 1865.

115.
not to bargain it out of existence:
Strode, pp. 468–69.

115.
it must be clear that Mr. Lincoln had not been misled:
Rowland, vol. 7, pp. 570–71.

116.
Washington replied that . . . The subject was closed:
Campbell,
Reminiscences,
pp. 8–9.

116.
Davis's conversation with Barksdale: Rowland, vol. 8, p. 247, which includes Barksdale's rebuttal of Colyar's account and assessment.

116.
“utterly unfit”; could not have been trusted with “the powers of negotiation”:
Strode, p. 483.

116.
three of his most reluctant Rebels:
See Fitzhugh Lee, “Failure of the Hampton Roads Conference,” 52
The Century Magazine
(July 1896) (“Lee, ‘Failure' ”), pp. 476–77; Sanders, pp. 815–17; Randall and Current, pp. 329 and 333.

116.
a “humbug” from the start:
Schott, p. 442.

116.
“the monkey that took the paw of the cat”:
Stephens,
Augusta Chronicle and Sentinel, in New York Times, June 26, 1865.

117.
Hunter's assessment of Davis's motives: Hunter, “Peace Commission,” pp. 169–70. Intelligent analysts have debated whether Davis's choice of commissioners was made cynically or in good faith (e.g., Davis,
Davis
, pp. 591–92; James M. McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era
(New York: Harper Collins, 1991), p. 591; Westwood, “Hampton Roads Conference,” pp. 248 and 255 n. 52; and Sanders,
passim
. In the author's view, the weight of the evidence favors cynicism.

 

CHAPTER 14

118.
cold Sunday morning:
Jones, vol. 2, p. 402.