ent speeches and by public events. The writer
is by no means insensible to the breach of privilege, of which, under
ordinary circumstances, notwithstanding the unfolding of events, he
would be guilty, in detailing in print private conversations; but he
believes that the public will sustain the propriety of the present
revelations, now that the persons chiefly concerned have become enemies
of the nation and of mankind.

Not, as he may possibly be accused, with the purpose of adding a
syllable of unnecessary length to the narrative, but for the sake of
vividness in presenting the idea of the _personnel_ of the Southern
leaders, soon to be known only as historical characters, and of
scrupulous accuracy in representing their sentiments, to which, in this
case, a notice of time, place, and manner seems as necessary as that of
matter, the writer has taken not a little pains, through all the usual
means, to remember, and will endeavor to state, the conversations,
always with logical, and nearly always, he believes, with verbal
accuracy, in order that the conclusions to be drawn from them by the
reader may have the better support.

It is well known that public men in Washington, out of business hours,
are visited without formal introduction or letters, especially upon
their reception-days, and that the privilege of a single interview
implies no distinction to the visitor. The urbanity and frankness with
which proper approaches are met, especially by the Southern leaders, are
also well known. Young men, with unprejudiced minds, upon whom public
characters are always anxious to impress the stamp of their own
principles, are perhaps received with quite as much frankness as others.

* * * * *

The first interview sought was with Mr. Toombs, the most daring and
ingenuous, and perhaps the most gifted in eloquence of the Southern
leaders, whose house, at that time, was a lofty building upon F Street,
only two doors from the residence of Mr. Seward. A negro servant, who,
with all the blackness of a native African, yet with thin lips and
almost the regular features of a Caucasian, appeared to the writer to be
possibly the descendant of one of the superior, princely African tribes,
showed the way to an unoccupied parlor. The room was luxuriously
furnished with evidences of wealth and taste: a magnificent pianoforte,
several well-chosen paintings, and a marble bust of some public
character standing upon