Browsing named entities in John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History. You can also browse the collection for December 27th or search for December 27th in all documents.

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John G. Nicolay, A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln, condensed from Nicolay and Hayes' Abraham Lincoln: A History, Chapter 35. (search)
red of their nominal owners for almost nothing-merely enough to keep up a show of vassalage. In effect, any one could hire a negro for his keeping — which was all that anybody in Richmond, black or white, got for his work. Even Mr. Davis had at last become — docile to the stern teaching of events. In his message of November he had recommended the employment of forty thousand slaves in the army — not as soldiers, it is true, save in the last extremity — with emancipation to come. On December 27, Mr. Benjamin wrote his last important instruction to John Slidell, the Confederate commissioner in Europe. It is nothing less than a cry of despair. Complaining bitterly of the attitude of foreign nations while the South is fighting the battles of England and France against the North, he asks: Are they determined never to recognize the Southern Confederacy until the United States assent to such action on their part? And with a frantic offer to submit to any terms which Europe might