Mr. Lincoln, whose power to discern a sham, or a false pretense, exceeded that of any other man of his time, promptly responded: "I strongly suspect your information will prove groundless; nevertheless, I thank you for communicating it to me." He said further to Mr. Wood that if "the people of the Southern States would cease resistance, and would re-inaugurate, submit to, and maintain the national authority within the limits of such States, the war would cease on the part of the United States, and that if, within a reasonable time, a full and general amnesty were necessary to such an end, it would not be withheld." The President declined to suspend military operations "to try any experiment of negotiation." He expressed a desire for any "exact information" Mr. Wood might have, saying it "might be more valuable before than after January 1, 1863," referring, doubtless, to the promised Emancipation Proclamation. Wood's scheme, evidently having no substantial basis, aborted.( 3)
Others, about the same time, pestered Mr. Lincoln with plans and schemes for the termination of the war. One Duff Green, a Virginia politician, wrote from Richmond in January, 1863, asking the President for an interview "to pave the way for an early termination of the war." He asked the same permission from Jeff. Davis. His efforts came to nothing.
Alexander H. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, conceiving, in the early summer of 1863, that the times were auspicious for peace negotiations, wrote Mr. Davis, asking to be sent to Washington, ostensibly to negotiate about the exchange of prisoners, but really to try to "turn attention to a general adjustment, upon such basis as might be ultimately acceptable to both parties, and stop the further effusion of blood." He assured Mr. Davis he had but one idea of final adjustment—"the recognition of the sovereignty of the States." Mr. Davis wired Stephens to repair to Richmond, and he arrived on June 22, 1863. Davis and his Cabinet appear to have seconded, with some heartiness, Stephens' scheme; all thinking it might result in aiding the "peace party" North. The Confederate leaders had been greatly encouraged by the gains of the Democratic party in the elections of 1862; by repeated attacks on the Administration by some of Lincoln's party friends; by public meetings held in New York City at which violent and denunciatory speeches were listened to from Fernando Wood and others, and by the nomination of Vallandigham for Governor of Ohio. The military situation was critical to both governments when Stephens reached Richmond. Pemberton was besieged and doomed to an early surrender at Vicksburg. On the other hand Lee was invading Pennsylvania, having just gained some successes in the Shenandoah Valley; and there was a great battle imminent on Northern soil. Stephens was directed to proceed by the Valley to join Lee, and from his headquarters try to reach Washington. Heavy rains and bad roads deterred the frail Vice- President. At length the Secretary of the Confederate Navy sent him in a small steamer (the Torpedo) under a flag of truce, accompanied by Commissioner Robert Ould as his secretary, to Fortress Monroe. He wrote from this place a letter to Admiral S. P. Lee in Hampton Roads, of date of July 4, 1863, saying he was "bearer of a communication in writing from Jefferson Davis, Commander-in- Chief of the land and naval forces of the Confederate States, to Abraham Lincoln, Commander-in-Chief of the land and naval forces of the United States," and that he desired to go to Washington in his own vessel. The titles by which Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Davis were designated had been previously determined on by Davis and his advisers. Anticipating there might be objection to the latter being referred to as President of the Confederacy, the foregoing was adopted as likely to be least objectionable. It was, however, solemnly agreed at Richmond that if the designations or titles adopted were such as to cause Mr. Stephens' communication to be rejected, he was to say that he had a communication to "President Lincoln from the President of the Confederacy." If this were objectionable as an apparent recognition of Davis as President of an independent nation, then Mr. Stephens' mission was to forthwith terminate. Admiral Lee wired to Mr. Lincoln Mr. Stephens' arrival, his mission, and desire to proceed to Washington. Mr. Lincoln did not stand on punctilio. He was, at first, inclined to send a long dispatch refusing Mr. Stephens permission to go to Washington, and saying nothing would be received "assuming the independence of the Confederate States, and anything will be received, and carefully considered by him, when offered by any influential person or persons, in terms not assuming the independence of the so-called Confederate States." This was, however, decided to be too much in detail, and the Secretary of the Navy was ordered to telegraph Admiral Lee:
"The request of A. H. Stephens is inadmissible. The customary agents and channels are adequate for all needful communication and conference between the United States and the insurgents."
This ended Mr. Stephens' first plans to secure peace. He, in his book written since the war, admits or pretends that the ulterior purpose of his proposed trip to Washington was, through a correspondence that would be published, "to deeply impress the growing constitutional (sic!) party at the North with a full realization of the true nature and ultimate tendencies of the war . . . that the surest way to maintain their liberties was to allow us the separate enjoyment of ours."( 4)
Great events took place the day Mr. Stephens reached Fortress
Monroe. Vicksburg fell and Lee was, on that memorable Fourth of
July, sending off his wounded, preparatory to a retreat from the
fated field of Gettysburg.
Horace Greeley, a sincere enemy to slavery, who had somehow become imbued with the notion that the Administration was responsible for a prolongation of the war, became restless and complaining. He, at the head of the New York Tribune, gave vent to much criticism, which encouraged those in rebellion, and their friends in the North. He listened to all sorts of pretenders and, finally, was duped into the belief that a peace could be made through some Southern emissaries in Canada. An adventurer calling himself "William Cornell Jewett of Colorado," from Niagara Falls, July 5, 1864, wrote Mr. Greeley:
"I am authorized to say to you . . . that two ambassadors of Davis & Co. are now in Canada with full and complete powers for peace, and Mr. Sanders requests that you come on immediately to me at Cataract House to have a private interview; or, if you will send the President's protection for him and two friends, they will come on and meet you. He says the whole matter can be consummated by me, you, them, and President Lincoln.( 5)
Mr. Greeley was seemingly so impressed with this as an opening for peace that he wrote a dictatorial letter to Mr. Lincoln reminding him of the long continuance of the war; asserting the country was dissatisfied with the manner in which it was conducted and averse to further calls for troops; avowing that there was a widespread conviction that the government did not desire peace; rebuking the President for not having received Mr. Stephens the year before, and prophesying that unless there were steps taken to show the country that honest efforts were being made to secure an early settlement of our difficulties the Union party would be defeated at the impending Presidential election. Greeley suggested this wholly impracticable and impossible plan of adjustment: (1) The Union to be restored and declared perpetual; (2) slavery abolished; (3) complete amnesty; (4) payment of $400,000,000 to slave States for their slaves; (5) the slave States to have representation based on their total population, and (6) a national convention to be called at once. With a tirade on the condition of the country and its credit and more warnings as to the coming election, Mr. Greeley concluded by demanding that negotiations should be opened with the persons at Niagara.
Mr. Lincoln, though without faith in either the parties in Canada or Greeley's plan, wrote the latter, July 9th, saying: