h had missed Stephens at his home and had
followed him late in the year to Richmond, Stephens wrote in the middle
of December a long reply which is one of the most curious documents
in American history. He justified himself upon two grounds. One was
a statement which Davis had made in a speech at Columbia, in October,
indicating that he was averse to the scheme of certain Northern peace
men for a convention of all the States. Stephens insisted that such a
convention would have ended the war and secured the independence of the
South. Davis cleared himself on this charge by saying that the speech
at Columbia "was delivered after the publication of McClellan's
letter avowing his purpose to force reunion by war if we declined
reconstruction when offered, and therefore warned the people against
delusive hopes of peace from any other influence than that to be exerted
by the manifestation of an unconquerable spirit."

As Stephens professed to have independence and not reconstruction for
his aim, he had missed his mark with this first shot. He fared still
worse with the second. During the previous spring a Northern soldier
captured in the southeast had appealed for parole on the ground that he
was a secret emissary to the President from the peace men of the North.
Davis, who did not take him seriously, gave orders to have the case
investigated, but Stephens, whose mentality in this period is so
curiously overcast, swallowed the prisoner's story without hesitation.
He and Davis had a considerable amount of correspondence on the subject.
In the fierce tension of the summer of 1864 the War Department went
so far as to have the man's character investigated, but the report was
unsatisfactory. He was not paroled and died in prison. This episode
Stephens now brought forward as evidence that Davis had frustrated
an attempt of the Northern peace party to negotiate. Davis contented
himself with replying, "I make no comment on this."

The next step in the peace intrigue took place at the opening of
the next year, 1865. Stephens attempted to address the Senate on his
favorite topic, the wickedness of the suspension of habeas corpus; was
halted by a point of parliamentary law; and when the Senate sustained
an appeal from his decision, left the chamber in a pique. Hunter, now
a Senator, became an envoy to placate him and succeeded in bringing him
back. Thereupon Stephens poured out his soul in a furious attack upon
the Administration. He en