Notes

continuing to hold slaves-last year's Emancipation Proclamation was
remarkably silent on the subject of Northern Negroes in bondage."
Always sallow, Lincoln turned a couple of shades darker. "They are being
attended to. Come victory, all in the United States would have been free."
He cocked his head at Lee. "And you have just claimed to be no great friend
of slavery yourself, General."
Lee lowered his eyes, acknowledging the hit. "The most I will say for it is
that, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an
enlightened public sentiment, it may be the most practicable means for
blacks and whites harmoniously to live together in this land."
"It is an evil, sir, an unmitigated evil," Lincoln said. "I shall never forget the
group of chained Negroes I saw going down the river to be sold close to a
quarter of a century ago. Never was there so much misery, all in one place.
If your secession triumphs, the South will be a pariah among nations."
"We shall be recognized as what we are, a nation among nations," Lee
returned. "And, let me repeat, my being here is a sign secession has
triumphed. What I would seek to do now, subject to the ratification of my
superiors, is suggest terms to halt the war between the United States and
Confederate States." Lincoln refused to call Lee's country by its proper
name. As a small measure of revenge, Lee put extra weight on that name.
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Lincoln sighed. This was the moment he had tried to evade, but there was
no evading it, not with the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in
his parlor. "Name your terms, General," he said in a voice full of ashes.
"They are very simple, Mr. President: that Federal troops withdraw from
such parts of the territory of the Confederate States as they now occupy. As
soon as mat is done-perhaps even while it is being done-we shall depart
from Washington City, and U.S.A. and C.S.A. will be at peace."
"Simple, eh?" Lincoln leaned forward in his chair, the picture of a man
determined not to be cheated in a horse trade. "What about West Virginia?"
"That is a delicate area," Lee admitted. When Virginia left the Union, its
northern and western counties refused to go along; Federal guns had
protected them in their secession from secession. Now the area was one of
the United States in its own right. Lee could not doubt that was what the
bulk of its people wanted, even if Virginia still claimed the territory. He
countered, "What of Missouri and Kentucky?" Both states sent
representatives to the Confederate Congress as well as to Washington.
Kentucky was the birth state of Lincoln and of Jefferson Davis, too, while
Missouri's civil war was as much neighbor against neighbor as North
against South. Lincoln was right. Deciding borders wouldn't be simple.
"Well, what about Missouri and Kentucky?" the Federal President said.
"Asking me to leave the valley of the Mississippi, where we as yet remain
supreme, is hard enough. But if you expect us to pull off our own soil so
you can walk in, you can think again, sir. Emancipation is already far along
there as well-you may not want those states, for you will have to fight a
new war to restore their colored folk to servitude." It was Lee's turn to sigh.
That might be true wherever the Federal armies had gone. But it was a
worry for politicians, and for the future. Now-"This sort of talk gets us
nowhere, Mr. President, save to the spilling of more blood, which is what I
now seek to prevent. Will you undertake to remove your soldiers from all
disputed territory but those two states and what you people call West
Virginia, with the status of those areas to be settled by negotiation at a later
date?"
"Have you the authority to offer such terms?" Lincoln asked.
"No, sir," Lee admitted at once. "As I said before, I shall have to submit
them to Richmond for my President's approval. I was speaking informally,
in an effort to bring the fighting to a close as quickly as possible. If you
could arrange to reconnect the telegraph lines between here and Richmond,
you would be able to treat directly with President Davis, without my
serving as intermediary." Lincoln waved a hand. "Reconnecting the
telegraph'd be simple enough." Lee knew that was so only for a nation with
the abundant resources the United States enjoyed, but held his peace.
Lincoln continued,
"Still and all, I think I'd sooner talk with you. You have sense enough for a
whole raft of Presidents, seems to me." If he noticed he'd included himself
there, he gave no sign of it.
"As you wish, Mr. President," Lee said. "My feeling is, if the bloodshed
once stops, we can then sit down across from one another at a table and
settle these remaining issues. They may bulk large in your vision now, but
they are of small importance when set beside the main question of the war,
which is whether the South should be free and independent."
"They look plenty big from over here, but then, what you rightly call the
main question has been answered the wrong way." Lincoln shook his head.
"And now I have to make the best of it for my country. Very well, General
Lee, if we cannot bring you back-and it seems we can't-we shall have to
learn to live Page 130
alongside you. I'd sooner do that talking than shooting." "So would I, sir,"
Lee said eagerly. "So would every soldier in the Confederate army, and, if I
might make so bold as to speak for them, very likely the soldiers in your
army as well." "You're very likely right, General. How is it that soldiers are
always so much more willing to pack in a war than civilians?" "Because
only soldiers actually fight," Lee answered.
"They understand how much of what is afterwards called glory is but
memory trying to put a good face on terror and torment."
"General Lee, I wish to heaven you'd chosen the Northern side," Lincoln
burst out. "You see clear enough to have won this war for us before the
South ever started turning out these cursed repeating rifles that have sent so
many of our lads to their graves too young."
"Too many on both sides have gone to their graves too young," Lee said.
Lincoln nodded; at last the two men had found a point upon which they
agreed without reservation. Lee stood to go. Lincoln rose from his chair in
sections, like a carpenter's fancy ruler unfolding. Looking up at him, Lee
added, "It is decided, then? You will order an armistice and withdrawal on
the terms I outlined?"
"I will." Lincoln's mouth twisted on the words as if they were pickled in
vinegar. "Would you be so kind as to put them in writing, to prevent any
misunderstanding?"
Lee reached into his waistcoat pocket. "I have pen and paper, at least an
order pad. May I trouble you for ink?" Lincoln waved him to a desk against
the wall. He bent to use the inkwell, wrote rapidly. When he was done, he
handed the pad to the President of the United States.
Lincoln read rapidly through the couple of paragraphs. "They are as you
said, General. Will you be kind enough to lend me your pen?" He set his
signature beside Lee's. " Now let me have that second copy, if you please."
Lee tore off the original, gave Lincoln the sheet below it. The Federal
president folded it and put it away without looking at it, as if he had already
seen more of the words on it than he cared to. Lee dipped his head to
Lincoln. "If you will excuse me-?"
"You don't need to wait on my leave," Lincoln said with more than a little
bitterness. "Conquerors, after all, do as they please."
"History has never recorded any man less anxious to be noted as a
conqueror than I."
"Maybe so, but history will also note you are one." Lee and Lincoln walked
together to the door of the reception room. Lincoln opened it, gestured for
Lee to precede him through. In the antechamber outside, Lee's staff officers
stood chatting amicably enough with a couple of bright-looking young men
in civilian clothes. All heads turned toward the general and the President.
No one spoke, but a single question was visible in the eyes of all. Lee
answered it: "We shall have peace, gentlemen." His aides shouted and
clapped their hands. The two men in civilian suits also smiled, but more
hesitantly. Their gaze swung to Lincoln. "I see no good prospects remaining
for the continuation of this war," he said. Where to Lee that was a matter for
rejoicing, Lincoln sounded funereal. Lee imagined-what he would have felt,
presenting his sword to General Grant in a conquered Richmond. In
deliberately lighter tones, Lincoln continued, "General Lee, let me present
my secretaries, Mr. John Hay and Mr. John Nicolay. They're good lads; they
should enjoy the privilege of meeting the latest hero."..""Hardly that," Lee
protested. He shook each secretary's hand. "I am pleased to make your
acquaintance, gentlemen."
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"Pleased to meet you, too, General Lee, but I'd sooner have done it under
different circumstances," Hay said boldly.
"Now see here, sir-" Walter Taylor began.
Lee held up a hand to head off his aide's anger. "Let him speak as he will,
Major. Would you wish otherwise, were your cause overthrown?"
"I suppose not," Taylor said grudgingly.
"There you are, then." Lee turned back to Lincoln. "Mr. President, if you
will excuse me, I should like to give the good news of our"-he searched for
the least wounding way to put it-"our agreement that there should be an
armistice to the brave men who have borne so much these past three years."
"I'll come with you, if you don't mind," Lincoln said. "If this thing must be,
we ought to put the best face we can on it and let them see us in accord."
Surprised but pleased, Lee nodded. The crowd of ragged Confederates on
the White House lawn had doubled and more since he went in to confer
with Lincoln. The trees were full of men who had climbed up so they could
see over their comrades. Off in the distance, cannon still occasionally
thundered; rifles popped like firecrackers. Lee quietly said to Lincoln, "Will
you send out your sentries under flag of truce to bring word of the armistice
to those Federal positions still firing upon my men?"
"I'll see to it," Lincoln promised. He pointed to the soldiers in gray, who had
quieted expectantly when Lee came out. "Looks like you've given me
sentries enough, even if their coats are the wrong color." Few men could
have joked so with their cause in ruins around them. Respecting the Federal
President for his composure, Lee raised his voice: "Soldiers of the Army of
Northern Virginia, after three years of arduous service, we have achieved
that for which we took up arms-"
He got no farther. With one voice, the men before him screamed out their
joy and relief. The unending waves of noise beat at him like surf from a
stormy sea. Battered forage caps and slouch hats flew through the air.
Soldiers jumped up and down, pounded on one another's shoulders, danced
in clumsy rings, kissed each other's bearded, filthy faces. Lee felt his own
eyes grow moist. At last the magnitude of what he had won began to sink
in.
Abraham Lincoln turned away from the celebrating rebels. Lee saw that his
hollow cheeks were also wet. He set a hand on Lincoln's arm. "I'm sorry,
Mr. President. Perhaps you should not have come out after all."
"You don't suppose I'dve heard them in there?" Lincoln asked.
Lee sought a reply, found none. He looked to the bottom of the steps, where
Traveller remained calm in the midst of chaos. With a last nod to Lincoln,
he went down the stairway to his horse. As he'd told the U.S. President, he
had another call to make in Washington.
Neither the Stars and Stripes nor the Confederacy's Stainless Banner flew
over the building up to which Lee rode. No soldiers crowded in front of it to
gape and point save the few who had followed him through the streets of
the city, and they were gaping and pointing at him rather than his
destination. Nevertheless, after the White House, this nondescript, twostory
structure with the Union Jack on the Page 132
roof was the most important place in the city for the South.
He walked up the slate pathway to the front door, rapped once on the
polished brass knocker, and waited. Over the British ministry, he had not
even the rights of a conqueror. His staff officers dismounted from their
horses but did not presume to follow him, not here.
The door opened. An elderly, very bald man in formal attire peered out at
him. "You would be General Lee?" he asked. His accent was soft in a way
different from Lee's Virginia speech.
"I am he," Lee said, bowing. "I should like to pay my respects to Lord
Lyons, if I may."
"He has been expecting you, sir," the elderly man said. "If you will come
with me-?" He led Lee down a long hall, past several chambers where
clerks' heads came up from their papers so they could stare at him, then into
a sitting room. "Your excellency, the famous Confederate general, Robert E.
Lee. General, Lord Richard Lyons."
"Thank you, Hignett. You may go." The British Minister to the United
States got up from his overstuffed armchair.
Lee already had his hand out. "I am delighted to meet you at last, your
excellency," he said sincerely. The South had been struggling to win British
recognition since before the war with the Union began."
"General Lee," Lord Lyons murmured. He was in his late forties, with a
round, very red face, dark hair and side whiskers, and almost equally dark
circles under his eyes. An elegantly tailored suit came close to disguising
his plumpness. "Please make yourself comfortable, General. You are indeed
the man of the moment."
"Thank you, your excellency." Lee sat in a chair not far from the one from
which Lord Lyons had risen.
"As I have, ah, come to Washington City, I thought it fitting that I pay my
respects to you, since your government has no present minister in
Richmond."
Lord Lyons steepled his fingertips. "A state of affairs you hope will
change."
"I do, your excellency. Either the Confederate States of America are an
independent nation, or they are but a dependency of the United States. No
other earthly power claims the right to govern us, and my presence here
argues against the second interpretation of our status that I mentioned."
"Argues powerfully, you are too discreet to say. Am I correctly informed
that you visited President Lincoln before you came here?"
"Yes, your excellency." Lee concealed his surprise, and after a moment
realized surprise was foolish. It was the business of the British minister to
be well informed.
"May I enquire as to the results of that meeting?" Lord Lyons said. Lee
briefly sketched the terms of the armistice agreement with Lincoln. Lord
Lyons listened intently. When Lee was done, the minister gave a slow nod.
"He has in effect, then, conceded the independence of the Confederacy."
"In effect, yes. What choice had he, sir? Our armies have in the current
campaigning season been uniformly victorious-" "This due in no small
measure to the new repeaters with which you have equipped yourselves,"
Lord Lyons interrupted. He could not hide the keen interest in his voice.
Behind a calm Page 133
exterior, Lee smiled. Everyone was keen to find out where those repeaters
came from. He wondered what Lord Lyons would have made of the true
answer. He remained unsure just what to make of it himself.
But that was by the way. "Yes, your excellency, with the aid of our new
rifles, we have halted or driven back the Federals on all fronts-else I should
not be here conversing with you. President Lincoln rightly recognized"-he
chose the word with deliberation-"that it would be only a matter of time
before we freed our territory and wisely chose to spare his soldiers the
suffering they would have to undergo in struggles bound to be futile."
"With these victories to which you refer, the Confederate States do seem to
have retrieved their railing fortunes," Lord Lyons said. "I have no reason to
doubt that Her Majesty's government will before long recognize that fact."
"Thank you, your excellency," Lee said quietly. Even had Lincoln refused
to give up the war-not impossible, with the Mississippi valley and many
coastal pockets held by virtue of Northern naval power and hence relatively
secure from rebel AK-47s-recognition by the greatest empire on earth
would have assured Confederate independence.
Lord Lyons held up a hand. "Many among our upper classes will be glad
enough to welcome you to the family of nations, both as a result of your
successful fight for self-government and because you have given a black
eye to the often vulgar democracy of the United States. Others, however,
will judge your republic a sham, with its freedom for white men based upon
Negro slavery, a notion loathsome to the civilized world. I should be less
than candid if I failed to number myself among the latter group."
"Slavery was not the reason the Southern states chose to leave the Union,"
Lee said. He was aware he sounded uncomfortable, but went on, "We
sought only to enjoy the sovereignty guaranteed us under the Constitution, a
right the North wrongly denied us. Our watchword all along has been, we
wish but to be left alone."
"And what sort of country shall you build upon that watchword, General?"
Lord Lyons asked. "You cannot be left entirely alone; you are become, as I
said, a member of the family of nations. Further, this war has been hard on
you. Much of your land has been ravaged or overrun, and, in those places
where the Federal army has been, slavery lies dying. Shall you restore it
there at the point of a bayonet? Gladstone said October before last, perhaps
a bit prematurely, that your Jefferson Davis had made an army, the
beginnings of a navy, and, more important than either, a nation. You
Southerners may have made the Confederacy into a nation, General Lee,
but what sort of nation shall it be?" Lee did not answer for most of a
minute. This pudgy little man in his comfortable chair had put into a
nutshell all of his own worries and fears. He'd had scant time to dwell on