The Peace epidemic could be stayed, and the consequent danger to the country averted, it seemed to me, only by securing in a tangible form, and before a trustworthy witness, the ultimatum of the Rebel President. That ultimatum, spread far and wide, would convince every honest Northern man that war was the only road to lasting peace.
To get that ultimatum, and to give it to the four winds of heaven, were my real objects in going to Richmond.
I did not shut my eyes to the possibility of our paving the way for negotiations that might end in peace, nor my ears to the blessings a grateful nation would shower on us, if our visit had such a result; but I did not expect these things. I expected to be smeared from head to foot with Copperhead slime, to be called a knight-errant, a seeker after notoriety, an abortive negotiator, and a meddlesome volunteer diplomatist; but I expected also, if a good Providence spared our lives, and my pen did not forget the English language, to be able to tell the North the truth; and I knew that the Truth would stay the Peace epidemic, and kill the Peace party. And by the blessing of God, and the help of the Devil, it did do that. The Devil helped, for he inspired Mr. Benjamin's circular, and that forced home the bolt we had driven, and shivered the Peace party into a million of fragments, every fragment now a good War man until the old flag shall float again all over the country.
If we accomplished this, "the scoffer need not laugh, nor the judicious grieve," for our mountain did not bring forth a mouse,—our "mission to Richmond" was not a failure.
It was a difficult enterprise. At the outset it seemed wellnigh impossible to gain access to Mr. Davis; but we finally did gain it, and we gained it without official aid. Mr. Lincoln did not assist us. He gave us a pass through the army-lines, stated on what terms he would grant amnesty to the Rebels, and said, "Good-bye, good luck to you," when we went away; and that is all he did.
It was also a hazardous enterprise,—no holiday adventure, no pastime for boys. It was sober, serious, dangerous work,—and work for men, for cool, earnest, fearless, determined men, who relied on God, who thought more of their object than of their lives, and who, for truth and their country, were ready to meet the prison or the scaffold.
If any one doubts this, let him call to mind what we had to accomplish. We had to penetrate an enemy's lines, to enter a besieged city, to tell home truths to the desperate, unscrupulous leaders of the foulest rebellion the world has ever known, and to draw from those leaders, deep, adroit, and wary as they are, their real plans and purposes. And all this we had to do without any official safeguard, while entirely in their power, and while known to be their earnest and active enemies. One false step, one unguarded word, one untoward event would have consigned us to Castle Thunder, or the gallows.
Can any one believe that men who undertake such work are mere lovers of adventure, or seekers of notoriety? If any one does believe it, let him pardon me, if I say that he knows little of human nature, and nothing of human history.
I am goaded to these remarks by the strictures of the Copperhead press, but I make them in no spirit of boasting. God forbid that I should boast of anything we did! For we did nothing. Unseen influences prompted us, unseen friends strengthened us, unseen powers were all about our way. We felt their presence as if they had been living men; and had we been atheists, our experience would have convinced us that there is a God, and that He means that all men, everywhere, shall be free.