TON, March, 3, 1865, 12 P.M.

"LIEUTENANT GENERAL GRANT: The President directs me to say to you that
he wishes you to have no Conference with General Lee, unless it be for
the capitulation of General Lee's Army, or on some other minor and
purely Military matter. He instructs me to say to you that you are not
to decide, discuss, or confer upon any political question. Such
questions the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to
no Military Conferences or Conventions. Meanwhile you are to press to
the utmost your Military advantages.
"EDWIN M. STANTON,
"Secretary of War."

General Grant received this dispatch, on the day following, and at once
wrote and sent to General Lee a communication in which, after referring
to the subject of the exchange of prisoners, he said: "In regard to
meeting you on the 6th inst., I would state that--I have no authority to
accede to your proposition for a Conference on the subject proposed.
Such authority is vested in the President of the United States alone.
General Ord could only have meant that I would not refuse an interview
on any subject on which I have a right to act; which, of course, would
be such as are purely of a Military character, and on the subject of
exchange, which has been entrusted to me."

Thus perished the last reasonable hope entertained by the Rebel
Chieftains to ward off the inevitable and mortal blow that was about to
smite their Cause.

The 4th of March, 1865, had come. The Thirty-Eighth Congress was no
more. Mr. Lincoln was about to be inaugurated, for a second term, as
President of the United States. The previous night had been vexed with
a stormy snow-fall. The morning had also been stormy and rainy. By
mid-day, however, as if to mark the event auspiciously, the skies
cleared and the sun shone gloriously upon the thousands and tens of
thousands who had come to Washington, to witness the second Inauguration
of him whom the people had now, long since, learned to affectionately
term "Father Abraham"--of him who had become the veritable Father of his
People. As the President left the White House, to join the grand
procession to the Capitol, a brilliant meteor shot athwart the heavens,
above his head. At the time, the superstitious thought it an Omen of
triumph--of coming Peace--but in the sad after-days when armed Rebellion
had ceased and Peace had come, it was remembered, with