A MONTH OF ANXIETY.

A MONTH of anxiety and distress for Mr. Davis and his Cabinet was that of April, 1865. At 11 o'clock on the night of Sunday, the 2d, they left Richmond and on the 4th, at Danville, Va., Mr. Davis issued a proclamation to the effect that the armies of the South, relieved of the duty of protecting the capital, were now free to move in any direction, striking the enemy at unexpected times and places. On the 6th he lost touch with Gen. Lee and on the 11th he wrote to Gov. Vance of North Carolina that he was not officially informed of Lee's surrender, but that "scouts said to be reliable and whose statements are circumstantial and corroborative represent the disaster as extreme," and adds: "We must redouble our efforts to meet present disaster. An army holding its position with determination to fight on and manifest ability to maintain the struggle will attract all the scattered soldiers and daily rapidly gather strength. Moral influence is wanting and I am sure you can do much now to revive the spirit and hope of the people."

But Gov. Vance was sizing up the situation from his own angle of view and the next day after the above was written he sent to Gen. Sherman (whose army was then advancing upon the capital of North Carolina. and was only two days' march distant) a message asking for an interview "for the purpose of conferring upon the subject of a suspension of hostilities with a view to further communications with the authorities of the United States touching the final termination of

the existing war." The interview was not held, owing to the exigencies of the situation, but Gen. Sherman sent the governor a safeguard for himself and his state officers, if they chose to remain in Raleigh, and sent a message to the effect that he would do all in his own power to aid the governor in terminating the

war.

Mr.

On the 10th - the day after Lee's surrenderDavis and his party proceeded to Greensboro, N. C., in order to be in close touch with the army of Joseph E. Johnston, then confronted by Gen. Sherman's force of, in round numbers, 100,000 men, splendidly equipped and eager for what was expected to be the closing battle of the four years' contest. Of these, 60,000 had marched from Chattanooga to Savannah, taking in the Atlanta campaign with its 100 days of battle on the way; from Savannah they had marched through the Carolinas; they had worn off all superfluous flesh; their muscles were hardened; they carried not an ounce of unnecessary clothing; they were experienced veterans, knowing just how to conduct themselves on the march, on the picket line and in the hour of battle. No superior command was ever organized and to meet it Gen. Johnston had a force of 73,260, on paper, and an effective force of only 14,000 men, half-starved, disheartened, ill supplied with ammunition and lacking in nearly everything necessary for the conduct of a successful campaign.

A cool welcome extended by the people of Greensboro, N. C., to Mr. Davis and his party, most of whom were compelled to make their home in a railway car, and the news daily received must have had a terribly

depressing effect upon them. For example: on the 14th Gen. Joe Wheeler notified Gen. Johnston that Union prisoners captured told him that Sherman's army had 15 days' rations and expected to march rapidly; on the same date a Confederate general sent this dispatch: "I have the honor to report the desertion of numbers of the troops from the lines around the towns, the Virginia troops generally leaving. I am pained to say that the disposition of the command is not good, there being much demoralization. Large numbers of stragglers are constantly arriving. Arrangements have been made to collect these men but the difficulty is to keep them from deserting." Still another general officer, on that date, reported: “Desertions are becoming very numerous. About 200 men of one battalion abandoned their post last night and the remaining men of this force state openly their intention to return to their homes. I am far from desiring to impute this design to the very gallant men now under my command but the fact of the demoralization is, I fear, indisputable."

Sherman's army marched out of its camps at Goldsboro, N. C., April 10th, marching directly upon Raleigh, which city it occupied four days later. Then it marched twelve miles farther west and there its career as a threatening force was stayed for at this juncture peace negotiations began. In these negotiations the Confederate Postmaster-General, John H. Reagan, was one of Gen. Johnston's advisers, and sent him, on the 17th this memorandum of points to be secured:

"First. The disbanding of the military forces of the Confederacy.

"Second. The recognition of the constitution and authority of the government of the United States on the following conditions:

"Third. The preservation and the continuance of the existing state governments.

"Fourth. The preservation to the people of all the political rights and rights of person and property secured to them by the constitution of the United States and of the several states.

"Fifth.

Freedom from future prosecution or penalties for their participation in the present war. "Sixth. Agreement to a general suspension of hostilities."

Of course these points were fully discussed by Gen. Johnston, Mr. Davis, and the members of his Cabinet. That they represented a modified and conservative state of mind on the part of Davis and his advisers is clear from a paragraph calling Gen. Johnston's attention to the fact that his suggestion had been complied with "by omitting the reference to the consent of the President of the Confederate States and to his employing his good offices to secure the acquiescence of the several states to this scheme for adjustment and pacification." The agreement signed by Sherman and Johnston the next day, when at least one member of the Cabinet Secretary of War Breckinridge - was present, contained all of these provisions but its failure of approval at Washington on the ground that it embodied too much politics necessitated the drafting of another agreement wherein no reference was made to state governments or a condoning of offenses. In the light of subsequent experience in the reconstruction of

the Southern States many of the best people of the North have long regretted that the original propositions assented to by Gen. Sherman were not accepted by the authorities at Washington. To the day of his death this impetuous, sturdy soldier insisted that he was right as to the proper method of re-establishing civil government in the South. Certain it is that by the approval of his original terms for the surrender of Johnston's army many years of suffering by the Southern people would have been averted; there would have been no Ku-Klux Klans or White Leagues; no carpetbag governments and no making of laws by black men fresh from the cotton-fields and less fitted for the duties of legislation than would have been white schoolboys ten years of age. The years of reconstruction constitute an epoch in the nation's history which was a reproach to the North and a calamity to the South.

That Gen. Beauregard had a crude idea of the situation-probably shared by the Southern leaders generally is shown by a suggestion he made to Gen. Johnston on the 18th of April to the effect that in case the negotiations then pending terminated favorably the right should be secured, if possible, for the Confederate troops to march to their homes to be there mustered out of the service, depositing their regimental flags in their respective state capitols for preservation. Twenty years later, during the administration of Mr. Cleveland, a proposition to return to the South the flags captured during the war aroused a storm of indignant protest but a better temper is manifest in these recent years.