(28) The distance from Winchester to Middletown is twelve miles.
(29) War Records, vol. xliii., Part I., pp. 131, 137.
(30) Great events in war are not always measured by the quantity of blood shed. Sherman's dead and wounded list on his march from "Atlanta to the Sea" was only 531. Life of Grant (Church), pp. 297-8.
(31) Battles and Leaders, etc., vol. iv., p. 532.
CHAPTER XI Peace Negotiations—Lee's Suggestion to Jefferson Davis, 1862— Fernando Wood's Correspondence with Mr. Lincoln, 1862—Mr. Stephens at Fortress Monroe, 1863—Horace Greeley—Niagara Falls Conference, 1864—Jacquess-Gilmore Visits to Richmond, 1863-4—F. P. Blair, Sen., Conference with Mr. Davis, 1865—Hampton Roads Conference, Mr. Lincoln and Seward and Stephens and Others, 1865—Ord-Longstreet, Lee and Grant Correspondence, 1865, and Lew Wallace and General Slaughter, Point Isabel Conference, 1865.
The war had now lasted nearly four years, with varied success in all the military departments, and the people North and South had long been satiated with its dire calamities. There had, from the start, been an anti-war party in the North, and in certain localities South there were large numbers of loyal men, many of whom joined the Union Army. The South was becoming exhausted in men and means. The blockade had become so efficient as to render it almost impossible for the Confederate authorities to get foreign supplies. It seemed to unprejudiced observers that the Confederacy must soon collapse. Sherman in his march from "Atlanta to the Sea" had cut the Confederacy in twain. It was without gold or silver, and its paper issues were valueless and passed only by compulsion within the Confederate lines. Provisions were obtainable only by a system of military seizure. The Confederacy had no credit at home or abroad; and there was a growing discontent with President Davis and his advisers. There also came to be a feeling in the South that slavery, in any event, was doomed. Lastly, the "cradle and the grave" were robbed to fill up the army; this by a relentless draft. The Confederate Congress passed an act authorizing the incorporation into the army of colored men—slaves. This was not well received, though General Lee approved of the policy, suggesting, however, that it would be necessary to give those who became soldiers, freedom.( 1)
Notwithstanding the desperate straits into which the Confederacy had fallen it still had in the field not less than 300,000 well- equipped soldiers, generally well commanded, and, although forced to act on the defensive, they were very formidable.
The officers and soldiers of the Union Army longest in the field, though confident of final and complete success, desired very much to see the war speedily terminated—to return to their families and to peaceful pursuits. This desire did not show itself so much as in discontent as in a restless disposition towards those in authority, who, it might be supposed, could in some way secure a peace. The credit of the United States remained good; its bonds commanded ready sale at home and abroad, yet an enormous debt was piling up at the rate of $4,000,000 daily, and its paper currency was depreciated to about thirty-five per cent. of its face value. These and many other causes led to a general desire for peace. On both sides, those in supreme authority were unjustly charged with a disposition to continue the war for ulterior purposes when it had been demonstrated that it was no longer justifiable.
This retrospect seems necessary before giving a summary of the various efforts to negotiate a peace. About the first open suggestion to that end came from General Robert E. Lee in a letter to President Davis written at Fredericktown, Maryland, September 8, 1862. This was just after the Second Bull Run, during the first Confederate invasion of Maryland and in the hey-day of the Confederacy. Davis was requested to join Lee's army, and, from its head, propose to the United States a recognition of the independence of the Confederate States. Lee in this letter showed himself something of a politician. He urged that a rejection of such a proposition would throw the responsibility of a continuance of the war on the Union authorities and thus aid, at the elections, the party in the country opposed to the war.( 2) Nothing, however, came of this suggestion of Lee.
Fernando Wood, who had kept himself in some sort of relations with President Lincoln, though at all times suspected by the latter, pretended in a letter to him, dated December 8, 1862, to have "reliable and truthful authority" for saying the Southern States would send representatives to Congress provided a general amnesty would permit them to do so. The President was asked to give immediate attention to the matter, and Wood suggested "that gentlemen whose former social and political relations with the leaders of the Southern revolt may be allowed to hold unofficial correspondence with them on this subject."