It was ridiculous, as every one who had not gone off his head knew.  But so many had gone off their heads.  And some of Lincoln’s friends were meeting this cry in a way that was raising up other enemies of a different sort.  Even so faithful a friend as Raymond, editor of The Times and Chairman of the Republican National Executive Committee, labored hard in print to prove that because Lincoln said he “would consider terms that embraced the integrity of the Union and the abandonment of slavery, he did not say that he would not receive them unless they embraced both these conditions."(7) What would Sumner and all the Abolitionists say to that?  As party strategy, in the moment when the old Vindictive Coalition seemed on the highroad to complete revival, was that exactly the tune to sing?  Then too there was the other cry that also made a fearful ringing in the ears of the much alarmed Executive Committee.  There was wild talk in the air of an armistice.  The hysteric Greeley had put it into a personal letter to Lincoln.  “I know that nine-tenths of the whole American people, North and South, are anxious for peace—­peace on any terms—­and are utterly sick of human slaughter and devastation.  I know that, to the general eye, it now seems that the Rebels are anxious to negotiate and that we repulse their advances. . . .  I beg you, I implore you to inaugurate or invite proposals for peace forthwith.  And in case peace can not now be made, consent to an armistice for one year, each party to retain all it now holds, but the Rebel ports to be opened.  Meantime, let a national convention be held and there will surely be no war at all events."(8)

This armistice movement was industriously advertised in the Democratic papers.  It was helped along by the Washington correspondent of The Herald who sowed broadcast the most improbable stories with regard to it.  Today, Secretary Fessenden was a convert to the idea; another day, Senator Wilson had taken it up; again, the President, himself, was for an armistice.(9)

A great many things came swiftly to a head within a few days before or after the twentieth of August.  Every day or two, rumor took a new turn; or some startling new alignment was glimpsed; and every one reacted to the news after his kind.  And always the feverish question, what is the strength of the faction that approves this?  Or, how far will this go toward creating a new element in the political kaleidoscope?  About the twentieth of August, Jaquess and Gilmore threw a splashing stone into these troubled waters.  They published in The Atlantic a full account of their interview with Davis, who, in the clearest, most unfaltering way had told them that the Southerners were fighting for independence and for nothing else; that no compromise over slavery; nothing but the recognition of the Confederacy as a separate nation would induce them to put up their bright swords.  As Lincoln subsequently, in his perfect clarity of speech, represented Davis:  “He would accept nothing short of severance of the Union—­precisely what we will not and can not give....  He does not attempt to deceive us.  He affords us no excuse to deceive ourselves.  He can not voluntarily reaccept the Union; we can not voluntarily yield it"(10)