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[519] actors, warrants the strong expressions of regret at the. failure made by Mr. Greeley and the Southern commissioners. No peace movement appears to have so much embarrassed Mr. Lincoln's administration. Greeley had called the special attention of the President to the presence of these Southern gentlemen who were in the confidential employment of the Confederate government, and could at any time be invested with the authority to act on questions of peace. He declared that unless Mr. Lincoln met these commissioners ‘in the same spirit he would be held personally responsible by his countrymen and by posterity for every drop of blood that was thereafter shed and every dollar that was thereafter spent.’ Thus urged, the President requested Greeley to go quietly to Niagara Falls and find out what he could; a request which the great peacemaker eagerly accepted. Mr. George N. Sanders, a prominent politician of the Douglas school, was found to be at the Clifton House, from whom it appears the first communication was made July 12, 1864, to Mr. Greeley that Hon. Clement C. Clay, James P. Holcombe and George N. Sanders were ready to go to Washington if granted a safe passport. Mr. Greeley replied July 17th to the note of Mr. Sanders by addressing his letter to Clay, Jacob Thompson and Holcombe, and stating that he was informed they were ‘duly accredited from Richmond as the bearer of propositions looking to the establishment of peace,’ and tendering safe conduct. Immediately on receiving this communication Clay and Holcombe responded that they were not ‘duly accredited,’ as stated, but that they were authorized to declare that if the circumstances disclosed in the correspondence were communicated to Richmond, the credentials would be given either to themselves or that ‘other gentlemen clothed with full powers would be immediately sent to Washington to terminate at the earliest possible moment the calamities of the war.’ This important information that the specific authority to propose terms of peace had
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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