and asked whether it could not by some means be avoided.  It is also tolerably certain that Mr. Lincoln gave very plainly to be understood by his remarks, and also as usual by a story, his desire that Jefferson Davis and a few other of the leading rebels should not be captured, but rather should find it possible to escape from the country.  It is in other ways well known that he had already made up his mind not to conclude the war with a series of hangings after the historic European fashion of dealing with traitors.  He preferred, however, to evade rather than to encounter the problem of disposing of such embarrassing captives, and a road for them out of the country would be also a road for him out of a difficulty.  What else was said on this occasion, though it soon became the basis of important action, is not known with accuracy; but it may be regarded as beyond a doubt that, in a general way, Mr. Lincoln took a very liberal tone concerning the terms and treatment to be accorded to the rebels in the final arrangement of the surrendering, which all saw to be close at hand.  It is beyond doubt that he spoke, throughout the conference, in the spirit of forgetting and forgiving immediately and almost entirely.

From this interview General Sherman went back to his army, and received no further instructions afterward, until, on April 18, he established with General Johnston the terms on which the remaining Confederate forces should be disbanded.  This “Memorandum or basis of agreement,"[60] then entered into by him, stipulated for “the recognition by the executive of the United States, of the several state governments, on their officers and legislatures taking the oaths prescribed by the Constitution of the United States;” also that the inhabitants of the Southern States should “be guaranteed, so far as the executive can, their political rights and franchises, as well as their rights of person and property;” also that the government would not “disturb any of the people by reason of the late war,” if they should dwell quiet for the future; and, in short, that there should be “a general amnesty,” so far as it was within the power of the executive of the United States to grant it, upon the return of the South to a condition of peace.

No sooner were these engagements reported in Washington than they were repudiated.  However they might have accorded with, or might have transcended, the sentiments of him who had been president only a few days before, they by no means accorded with the views of Andrew Johnson, who was president at that time, and still less with the views of the secretary of war, who well represented the vengeful element of the country.  Accordingly Mr. Stanton at once annulled them by an order, which he followed up by a bulletin containing ten reasons in support of the order.  This document was immediately published in the newspapers, and was so vituperative and insulting towards Sherman[61] that the general, who naturally did not feel himself