Our One Common Country by James B. Conroy Page B

suffered from it.” He would bring no official message, merely his government’s leave to make his own suggestions. Nor would he divulge them to anyone in Washington unless Davis thought something might come of them. Their conversation would be unbalanced. “I will confidentially unbosom my heart frankly and without reserve. You will on your part, of course, hold in reserve all that is not proper to be said to one coming as I do merely as a private citizen, and addressing one clothed with the highest responsibilities.” Both letters reached Davis that day. 4 *
    * Davis’s memoirs would later mischaracterize them. He had let Blair come to Richmond to retrieve “personal objects,” he said, leaving the dishonorable circumstances of their loss unmentioned, as well as his knowledge that Blair was on a peace mission when he came. An impression was left that the old man had sprung it on him.
    On the following day, a blustery New Year’s Eve, Davis had his cheerless Secretary of War James Seddon send Blair a pass through the lines with a cover note restricting him “to the purposes indicated in his letter of application.” Whether Davis showed Seddon both letters or only the pretext is unclear, but word got around the War Department that Blair was coming, on his honor to confine himself to a search for missing papers.
    Late on New Year’s Day, Seddon’s letter came to Union forces “below Chaffin’s Bluff,” to which it had mistakenly been sent. The letter reached Grant on January 2, but Preston had left for home with Montgomery and Henry, thinking himself rebuffed. Despite his disappointment, Preston had enjoyed a “very pleasant trip,” his daughter Lizzie said, “seeing and hearing much that was of great interest to him,” and returned “in the finest spirits possible,” hoping Davis might yet see him. The same could not be said of Davis’s Secretary of War. When the War Department clerkJohn Jones came to work that day, Seddon “had his head between his knees before the fire.” It was not an inspiring sight. “Affairs are gloomy enough,” Jones thought. “The question is how Richmond and Virginia shall be saved. General Lee is despondent.”

    Inevitably, rumors of Blair’s journey were afoot in Washington City, but most of Lincoln’s circle pleaded innocence with a clear conscience. The Times reported that if Blair had gone to Richmond, “he has done so without the knowledge of high officials here.” The highest official was preserving his ignorance. As a Cabinet meeting broke up, Gideon Welles noticed “Old Mr. Blair” sitting in an adjoining room. His appointment with the president was canceled.
    Blair had already briefed Horace Greeley, who came down from Manhattan for the occasion. Not without reason, the old man shared a suspicion that Stanton, the fiercest of all hawks, had sabotaged his mission, out of enmity for the Blairs, for peace negotiations, or both. In 1862, when Secretary of War Stanton was being vetted for the Cabinet, Montgomery had described him to Lincoln as an able lawyer, faint praise for a prospective Secretary of War, especially with the addendum that Stanton was corrupt. Whether Stanton got wind of this particular slander or not, others had come to his attention.
    On Wednesday, January 4, Greeley’s Tribune ran a special dispatch from Washington, the accuracy of which “we have no doubt.” Blair’s mission had died at City Point, it said, because the Secretary of War had told General Grant he did not approve of it, which the Tribune much regretted. “We do not know, and at no time have felt confident, that the rebels are yet prepared to agree to any terms of pacification that our Government either would or should deem acceptable; but we can imagine no possible harm that could result from ascertaining precisely what they are ready to do.” The