EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, December 26, 1864.

MY DEAR GENERAL SHERMAN:

Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift, the capture of Savannah.

When you were about leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that "nothing risked, nothing gained," I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours; for I believe none of us went further than to acquiesce.

And taking the work of General Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantages; but in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole,-Hood's army,—it brings those who sat in darkness to see a great light. But what next?

I suppose it will be safe if I leave General Grant and yourself to decide.

Please make my grateful acknowledgments to your whole army-officers and men.

Yours very truly,

A. LINCOLN.

Although the great majority of the country agreed with Mr. Lincoln that the issue between North and South" could only be tried by war, and decided by victory," advocates of peace conferences still nagged the President, begging that if they were allowed to go South or if commissioners from the South were allowed to come North everything could be adjusted. Among these peace-makers was Francis P. Blair, Sr. He knew the South well, he believed honestly enough, no doubt, that mediation would be successful. Finally at the end of December the president gave him a

pass through the lines. Blair saw President Davis and from him received a letter saying that if Blair would promise that a confederate commissioner, minister or other agent would be received by President Lincoln he would appoint one at once with a view to secure peace to the two countries."

Mr. Lincoln answered:

"You having shown me Mr. Davis's letter to you of the 12th instant, you may say to him that I have constantly been, am now, and shall continue ready to receive any agent whom he, or any other influential person now resisting the national authority, may informally send to me, with the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country."

It is evident from the letters of the two leaders that neither yielded on the essential point at issue. Jefferson Davis recognized "two countries," Abraham Lincoln " one common country." The upshot of Mr. Blair's mediation was that President Davis sent three commissioners, Alexander H. Stephens, R. M. T. Hunter and John A. Campbell, all members of the Confederate government, to Grant's headquarters for conference. Lincoln sent Seward to meet the commissioners with instructions that three things were indispensable to mediation:

I. The restoration of the national authority throughout all the States.

2. No receding by the executive of the United States. on the slavery question from the position assumed thereon in the late annual message to Congress, and in preceding documents.

3. No cessation of hostilities short of an end of the war and the disbanding of all forces hostile to the gov

ernment.

Before Seward had met the commission Lincoln decided to join him and a meeting was arranged at Fortress Monroe, the Confederate envoys being conducted to the steamer River Queen where Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward were quartered.

The meeting of the men, all of them acquaintances in earlier days, was cordial and they began and ended their conference in an entirely friendly mood. But from the outset it was evident that nothing would come of it. There was but one way to end the war, Mr. Lincoln told them frankly, and that was for those who were resisting the laws of the Union to cease their resistance. He would grant no armistice-would in no way recognize the Statesso long as they were in arms. He would make no promises as to reconstruction after the war had ceased until they had given him a pledge of reunion and of cessation of resistance. Mr. Hunter attempted to argue this point with him. There was precedent, he said, for an executive entering into agreement with persons in arms against public authority. Charles I. of England repeatedly recognized the people in arms against him in this way. "I do not profess to be posted in history," replied Mr. Lincoln. "On all such matters I will turn you over to Seward. All I distinctly recollect about the case of Charles is that he lost his head."

But while Lincoln held firmly to what he regarded as the essentials to peace, he did not hesitate to give the comnissioners some very good advice. "If I resided in Georgia, with my present sentiments," Mr. Stephens reports him as saying, "I'll tell you what I would do if I were in your place. I would go home and get the Governor of the State to call the legislature together, and get them to recall all the State troops from the war; elect senators and members to Congress, and ratify this constitutional amendmentrospectively, so as to take effect-say in five years.

Such a ratification would be valid, in my opinion. I have looked into the subject, and think such a prospective ratification would be valid. Whatever may have been the views of your people before the war, they must be convinced now that slavery is doomed. It cannot last long in any event, and the best course, it seems to me, for your public men to pursue would be to adopt such a policy as will avoid, as far as possible, the evils of immediate emancipation. This would be my course, if I were in your place."

And so the Hampton Roads conference ended without other result than a renewed confirmation of what Lincoln had contended from the beginning of the agitation for peace measures-that the South would never grant until defeated what he claimed as vital to any negotiation-a recognition of the Union.

It was understood by the country that Mr. Lincoln's reelection meant not only a continuation of the war but the emancipation of the slaves by a constitutional amendment. The Emancipation Proclamation was never intended by the president for anything but a military measure. He had been careful to state this in delivering it and when called upon to retract it by a large body of the North because it turned the war into a contest to "free negroes,” he had gone to great pains to explain his view. Thus in a letter written in August '63 to his political friends in Illinois, he said:

"You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. I think the Constitution invests its commander-in-chief with the law of war in time of war. The most that can be said-if so much-is that slaves are property. Is there has there ever been-any question that by the law of war, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed