under a delusion. They were crying out for
peace when there was no peace,--when there _could_ be no peace
consistent with the interest and security of the country. The result of
this delusion, were it not dispelled, would be that the Chicago
Convention, or some other convention, would nominate a man pledged to
peace, but willing to concede Southern independence, and on that tide of
popular frenzy he would sail into the Presidency. Then the deluded
people would learn, too late, that peace meant only disunion. They would
learn it too late, because power would then be in the hands of a Peace
Congress and a Peace President, and it required no spirit of prophecy to
predict what such an Administration would do. It would make peace on the
best terms it could get; and the best terms it could get were Disunion
and Southern Independence.

The Peace epidemic could be stayed, and the consequent danger to the
country averted, it seemed to me, only by securing in a tangible form,
and before a trustworthy witness, the ultimatum of the Rebel President.
That ultimatum, spread far and wide, would convince every honest
Northern man that war was the only road to lasting peace.

To get that ultimatum, and to give it to the four winds of heaven, were
my real objects in going to Richmond.

I did not shut my eyes to the possibility of our paving the way for
negotiations that might end in peace, nor my ears to the blessings a
grateful nation would shower on us, if our visit had such a result; but
I did not _expect_ these things. I expected to be smeared from head to
foot with Copperhead slime, to be called a knight-errant, a seeker after
notoriety, an abortive negotiator, and a meddlesome volunteer
diplomatist; but I expected also, if a good Providence spared our lives,
and my pen did not forget the English language, to be able to tell the
North the truth; and I knew that the _Truth_ would stay the Peace
epidemic, and kill the Peace party. And by the blessing of God, and the
help of the Devil, it did do that. The Devil helped, for he inspired Mr.
Benjamin's circular, and that forced home the bolt we had driven, and
shivered the Peace party into a million of fragments, every fragment now
a good War man until the old flag shall float again all over the
country.

If we accomplished this, "the scoffer need not laugh, nor the judicious
grieve," for our mountain did not bring forth a mouse,--our "mission to
Richmond" was not a failure.

It was