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surrendering piecemeal we might arrange terms that would embrace all the Confederate armies.
I asked him if he could control other armies than his own. He said not then, but intimated that he could procure authority from Mr. Davis.
I then told him that I had recently had an interview with General Grant and President Lincoln, and that I was possessed of their views. * * * * That the terms that General Grant had given to General Lee's army were certainly most generous and liberal.
All this he admitted, but always recurred to the idea of a universal surrender, embracing his own army, that of Dick Taylor in Louisiana and Texas, and of Maury, Forrest, and others in Alabama and Georgia. * * * *
‘Our conversation was very general and extremely cordial, satisfying me that it could have but one result, and that which we all desired, viz.: to end the war as quickly as possible; and, being anxious to return to Raleigh before the news of Mr. Lincoln's assassination could be divulged, on General Johnston's saying that he thought that, during the night, he could procure authority to act in the name of all the Confederate armies in existence, we agreed to meet again the next day at noon, at the same place, and parted, he for Hillsboro and I for Raleigh.’
On the 18th the two
Generals met again near
Durham.
The
Memoirs give the following account of the interview:
* * * * We again entered Bennett's house and I closed the door.
General Johnston then assured me that he had authority over all the Confederate armies, so that they would obey his orders to surrender on the same terms with his own, but he argued that, to obtain so cheaply this desirable result, I ought to give his men and officers some assurance of their political rights after their surrender.
I explained to him that Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of amnesty of December 8, 1863, still in force, enabled every Confederate soldier and officer below the rank of colonel to obtain an absolute pardon by simply laying down his arms and taking the common oath of allegiance, and that General Grant, in accepting the surrender of General Lee's army, had extended the same principle to all the officers, General Lee included.
Such a pardon, I understood, would restore to them all their rights of citizenship.
But he insisted that the officers and men of the Confederate army were unnecessarily alarmed about this matter as a sort of bugbear.
He then said that Mr. Breckinridge was near at hand, and he thought that it would be well for him to be present.
I objected on the score that he was then in Davis' Cabinet, and our negotiations should be confined strictly to belligerents.
He then said Breckinridge was a Major-General in the Confederate army, and might sink his character of Secretary of War.
I consented, and he sent one of his staff officers back, who soon returned with Breckinridge, and he entered the room.
General Johnston and I then again went over the whole ground, and Breckinridge confirmed what he had said as to the uneasiness of the Southern officers and soldiers about their political rights in case of surrender.
While we were
