een Mr. Jefferson Davis; and he (Mr. B.) at the
same time left with me a manuscript letter, as follows, to wit:

RICHMOND, VA., January 12, 1865. F. P. BLAIR, ESQ.

SIR: I have deemed it proper, and probably desirable to you, to give you
in this for in the substance of remarks made by me, to be repeated by you
to President Lincoln, etc., etc.

I have no disposition to find obstacles in forms, and am willing, now as
heretofore, to enter into negotiations for the restoration of peace, and
am ready to send a commission whenever I have reason to suppose it will be
received, or to receive a commission if the United States Government
shall choose to send one. That notwithstanding the rejection of our former
offers, I would, if you could promise that a commissioner, minister, or
other agent would be received, appoint one immediately, and renew the
effort to enter into conference with a view to secure peace to the two
countries.

Yours, etc., JEFFERSON DAVIS.

Afterwards, and with the view that it should be shown to Mr. Davis, I
wrote and delivered to Mr. Blair a letter, as follows, to wit:

WASHINGTON, January 18, 1865.

P. P. BLAIR, ESQ.

SIR:--Your having shown me Mr. Davis's letter to you of the twelfth
instant, you may say to him that I have constantly been, am now, and
shall continue ready to receive any agent whom he or any other influential
person now resisting the national authority may informally send to me with
the view of securing peace to the people of our one common country.

Yours, etc.,

A. LINCOLN.

Afterwards Mr. Blair dictated for and authorized me to make an entry on
the back of my retained copy of the letter last above recited, which entry
is as follows:

January 28, 1865

To-day Mr. Blair tells me that on the twenty-first instant he delivered
to Mr. Davis the original of which the within is a copy, and left it with
him; that at the time of delivering it Mr. Davis read it over twice in Mr.
Blair's presence, at the close of which he (Mr. Blair) remarked that the
part about "our one common country" related to the part of Mr. Davis'
letter about "the two countries," to which Mr. Davis replied that he so
understood it.

A. LINCOLN.

Afterwards the Secretary of War placed in my hands the following telegram,
indorsed by him, as appears:

OFFICE UNITED STATES MILITARY TELEGRAPH WAR DEPARTMENT. The following
telegram received at Washington January 29, 1865, from headquarters