Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 11.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[534] required, it seems to me on every account advisable that I should communicate with him by telegraph, and solicit fresh instructions, which I shall at once proceed to do. I hope to be able to transmit the result this afternoon, and at all events I shall do so at the earliest moment.

Yours truly,

We have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of this date by the hands of Colonel Jewett, and will await the further answer which you promise to send to us.

Very respectfully, &c.,

Gentlemen: At a late hour last evening, too late for communication with you, I received a despatch from the President, informing me that further instructions left Washington last evening, which must reach me, if there be no interruption, by noon to-morrow. Should you decide to await their arrival, I feel confident that they will enable me to answer definitely your note of yesterday morning. Regretting a delay which I am sure you will regard as unavoidable on my part, I remain, yours truly,

sir: Colonel Jewett has just handed us your note of this date, in which you state that further instructions from Washington will reach you by noon to-morrow, if there be no interruption. One, or possibly both of us may be obliged to leave the Falls to-day, but will return in time to receive the communication which you propose to-morrow.

We remain, truly yours, &c.,

Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States, will be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms in substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.

The following is a copy of the original letter held by me to deliver to Hon. Horace Greeley, and which duplicate I now forward to the Associated Press.

sir: The paper handed to Mr. Holcomb on yesterday, in your presence, by Major Hay, A. A. G., as an answer to the application in our note of the eighteenth instant, is couched in the following terms:

Exeutive mansion, Washington, July 18, 1864.
To whom it may Concern:

Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace, the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that can control the armies now at war against the United States will be received and considered by the Executive Government of the United States, and will be met by liberal terms on other and substantial and collateral points, and the bearer or bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways.

Abraham Lincoln.

The application to which we refer was elicited by your letter of the seventeenth instant, in which you inform Mr. Jacob Thompson and ourselves that you were authorized by the President of the United States to tender us his safe conduct on the hypothesis that we were duly accredited from Richmond as bearers of propositions looking to the restoration of peace, and desired to visit Washington in the fulfilment of this mission. This assertion, to which we then gave, and still do, entire credence, was accepted by us as evidence of an unexpected but most gratifying change in the policy of the President; a change which we felt authorized to hope might terminate in the conclusion of a peace mutually just, honorable, and advantageous