war will be prolonged
indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can
you possibly do so south of the river, when you can take with you very
few more than two thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be
unreasonable to expect, and I do not expect [that] you can now effect
much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably
because of it.

"I beg you will not consider this a prosecution or persecution of
yourself. As you had learned that I was dissatisfied, I have thought it
best to kindly tell you why."

* * * * *

There was an odd coincidence during this momentous first week in July.
During the preceding winter Mr. Lincoln had been exceedingly bothered by
certain Democrats, notably that gentleman of unsavory repute, Fernando
Wood, who had urged upon him all sorts of foolish schemes for
"compromising" or "settling the difficulties,"--phrases which were
euphemisms of the peace Democracy to disguise a concession of success to
the South. The President endured these sterile suggestions with his
wonted patience. But toward the close of June, Alexander H. Stephens,
Vice-President of the Confederacy, was seized with the notion that, if
he should go to Washington on a personal mission to Mr. Lincoln,
purporting to be about prisoners of war, he might then "indirectly ...
turn attention to a general adjustment." Accordingly he set forth on his
way to Fortress Monroe; but very inopportunely for his purposes it fell
out that the days of his journey were the very days in which General
Lee was getting so roughly worsted at Gettysburg. So it happened that it
was precisely on the day of the Southern retreat, July 4, that he
notified the admiral in Hampton Roads that he was the "bearer of a
communication in writing from Jefferson Davis, commander-in-chief of the
land and naval forces of the Confederate States, to Abraham Lincoln,
commander-in-chief of the land and naval forces of the United States;"
and he asked for leave to proceed to Washington. But his ingenious
phraseology was of no avail. Mr. Lincoln said: "The request of A.H.
Stephens is inadmissible. The customary agents and channels are adequate
for all needful communication and conference between the United States
forces and the insurgents." Thus the shrewd instinct of the Northerner
brought to naught a scheme conceived in the spirit of the old-time
Southern politics, a scheme which was certa