Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 4.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

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[22] members at the juncture when the destiny of the Union was going to be decided. Mr. Stephens, when only a few steps distant from the White House and the Capitol, on the receipt of the first news of a Federal defeat would easily be able to go and propose terms of peace to Mr. Lincoln, confer with the diplomatic body, and treat individually with the principal members of Congress. An alliance with the Central and the Western States might, as we have already indicated, have closely followed the recognition of the Confederacy, and offered to the South for the price of her victories the supremacy which the election in 1860 had lost to the Slave party. Nobody was better fitted than Vice-President Stephens for the accomplishment of such a task, for he had been among the last to declare secession from the Union, and his opponents themselves recognized the elevation of his character, of which he gave a new proof by returning, after the war, to the Federal Senate without grudge and without illusion.

The request of Mr. Stephens, transmitted to Washington by the admiral, got there a few hours after the news of the final repulse of General Lee. Hence the answer was an easy matter: it was peremptory. The accredited agents were sufficient to settle the question of exchanges, and the commissioner extraordinary was not recognized nor allowed to proceed to Washington. Mr. Stephens understood the situation: he did not insist, but returned to Richmond.

We left, about the 20th of June, Rosecrans and Bragg on the banks of Duck River. After six months of preparation a new campaign is to begin: the time has come for us to follow it. Since the battle of Murfreesborough different motives have imposed the same reserve upon the two adversaries. The season has not allowed Rosecrans to advance beyond the theatre of that bloody struggle. Later, thanks to the arrival of Van Dorn, the Confederates have beenable, on one hand, to inflict upon their antagonists two serious discomfitures—at Thompson's Station and on the banks of the Coosa River; and, on the other hand, they have been able to remain masters of the fertile districts lying to the southward of Duck River—the only districts that can feed a numerous cavalry. It is in vain that Rosecrans has wearied the government at Washington by his