Edward Alfred Pollard, The lost cause; a new Southern history of the War of the Confederates ... Drawn from official sources and approved by the most distinguished Confederate leaders.

[106] mediation of Judge Campbell of Alabama. Through this gentleman, the commissioners, who had consented to waive all questions of form, received constant assurances from the Government of the United States of peaceful intentions, of the determination to evacuate Fort Sumter; and further that no measures, changing the existing status, prejudicially to the Confederate States, especially at Fort Pickens, were in contemplation; but that, in the event of any change of intention on the subject, notice would be given to the commissioners.

It was confidentially explained to the commissioners that to treat with them at that particular juncture might seriously embarrass the administration of Mr. Lincoln with popular opinion in the North; and they were recommended to patience and urged to confidence by assurances which keener diplomatists than these ill-chosen representatives of the Confederacy might have had reason to doubt.

But, at last, at the opportune time, this game with the commissioners was to be terminated. Dull and credulous as they were, their attention was, at last, attracted to the extraordinary preparations for an extensive military and naval expedition in New York, and other Northern ports. These preparations, commenced in secresy, for an expedition whose destination was concealed, only became known when nearly completed, and on the 5th, 6th, and 7th April transports and vessels of war, with troops, munitions, and military supplies, sailed from Northern ports bound southwards. Alarmed by so extraordinary a demonstration, the commissioners requested the delivery of an answer to their official communication of the 12th March, and thereupon received, on the 8th April, a reply dated on the 15th of the previous month, from which it appeared that during the whole interval, whilst the commissioners were receiving assurances calculated to inspire hope of the success of their mission, the Secretary of State and the President of the United States had already determined to hold no intercourse with them whatever; to refuse even to listen to any proposals they had to make, and had profited by the delay created by their own assurances, in order to prepare secretly the means for effective hostile operations.

Of this remarkable deception, and the disreputable method by which it had been obtained, President Davis justly and severely remarked, in a message to the Confederate Congress: “The crooked paths of diplomacy can scarcely furnish an example so wanting in courtesy, in candour, and directness, as was the course of the United States Government towards our commissioners in Washington.”

While the Confederate commissioners were thus being hoodwinked and betrayed, the reinforcement of Sumter was the subject of constant Cabinet consultation at Washington, held in profound secresy from the public, and surrounded by an air of mystery that gave occasion for the most various