lina; and Mr. Davis, in his message of 2 May, said: “The armies in northern Virginia and Tennessee still oppose, with unshaken front, a formidable barrier to the progress of the invader.” That progress, however, was not long to be stayed. By an order issued on 17 July, 1864, Mr. Davis removed Gen. Joseph E. Johnston from the command of the army opposed to Gen. Sherman in Georgia. The cause and alleged injustice of this removal have not yet ceased to be subjects for controversy, it being asserted by Mr. Davis's opponents that personal reasons influenced him against an officer with whom he had never been very friendly, while his supporters, denying this, fully justify the act. The reasons given in Adjt.-Gen. Cooper's brief despatch were, that Gen. Johnston had “failed to arrest the advance of the enemy to the vicinity of Atlanta, and expressed no confidence that he could defeat or repel him.” In answer to which Gen. Johnston wrote: “I assert that Sherman's army is much stronger, compared with that of Tennessee, than Grant's compared with that of northern Virginia. Yet the enemy has been compelled to advance much more slowly to the vicinity of Atlanta than to that of Richmond and Petersburg, and penetrated much deeper into Virginia than into Georgia.” Gen. John B. Hood, successor of Gen. Johnston, was obliged to evacuate Atlanta on 1 Sept. Mr. Davis then visited Georgia and endeavored to raise the spirits of the people there, and to restore harmony between the Confederate and state governments. Gov. Brown, who had opposed the conscription act, continued to be hostile to the administration, notwithstanding an interview with Mr. Davis in which the latter tried to convince him that his complaints were unjust. He reviewed and addressed Hood's army on 18 Sept., and afterward, in speeches made in Macon, Augusta, and elsewhere, strove to inspire the people with the spirit of renewed resistance, and to persuade them that an honorable peace was impossible. As is evident from the tone of these and other speeches, the peace party in the south was daily gaining strength. Besides those who really desired peace, there were others who hoped that a rejected attempt to treat with the National government might fire the south with indignation. As early as 30 Dec., 1863, Gov. Zebulon B. Vance, of North Carolina, had written to Mr. Davis urging negotiation. The latter, in his answer, dated 8 Jan., 1864, cited previous unsuccessful attempts to communicate with the authorities at Washington, and concluded that another would be undesirable. In January, 1865, however, after an interview with Francis P. Blair, Sr., who had gone to Richmond, unofficially, in the hope of bringing about peace, Mr. Davis agreed to send three commissioners to confer with the National government. The result was an unsatisfactory meeting on a steamer in Hampton Roads. On the return of the commissioners public meetings were held, at which there seemed to be a return of the enthusiasm of the early days of the war. Peace with the independence of the south was now seen to be impossible, and the horrors of subjugation by the north were painted in gloomy colors by the speakers. Mr. Davis, always an able and impressive speaker, made what has been called the most remarkable speech of his life. But this outburst of enthusiasm was only temporary. The evacuation of Atlanta had been followed by Sherman's march to the sea, and Hood's disastrous campaign in Tennessee. Gen. Hood himself said, in speaking of it, when taking leave of his army in January, 1865: “I alone am responsible for its conception.” These reverses, however, with Grant's steady advance on Rich- mond, and, above all, the re-election of President Lincoln, had produced a growing conviction in the south that defeat was inevitable. The Confederate congress that met in November, 1864, was outspoken in opposition to the administration, and in January, 1865, the Virginia delegation urged a change in the cabinet, expressing their want of confidence in its members. As a consequence of this, James A. Seddon, then secretary of war, sent in his resignation.
In his last message to congress, dated 13 March, 1865, Mr. Davis, while acknowledging the peril of the Confederacy, asserted that it had ample means of meeting the emergency. On Sunday, 2 April, 1865, while seated in his pew in St. Paul's church, Richmond, he was handed a telegram from Gen. Lee, announcing the latter's speedy withdrawal from Petersburg, and the consequent necessity for the evacuation of the capital. That evening, accompanied by his personal staff, members of the cabinet, and others, he left by train for Danville. On his arrival there he issued, on 5 April, a proclamation of which he afterward admitted that, “viewed by the light of subsequent events, it may fairly be said it was over-sanguine.” In it he said: “Relieved from the necessity of guarding particular points, our army will be free to move from point to point, to strike the enemy in detail far from his base.” Danville was abandoned in less than a week, and after a conference at Greensboro, N. C., with Gens. Johnston and Beauregard, in which his hopes of continuing the war met with little encouragement, he went to Charlotte, where he heard of the assassination of Mr. Lincoln. His wife had preceded him with a small escort, and it was just after he had overtaken her, while encamped near Irwinsville, Ga., that the whole party were captured, on 10 May, by a body of cavalry under Lieut.-Col. Pritchard. He was taken to Fort Monroe, and kept in confinement for two years.
On 21 Sept., 1865, the U. S. senate called on the president for information on the subject of his trial, and in response reports were submitted from the secretary of war and the attorney-general, their substance being that Virginia was the proper place for the trial, and that it was not yet possible peacefully to hold a U. S. court in that state. On 12 Oct., in reply to a letter from President Johnson, Chief-Justice Chase said that he was unwilling to hold court in a district still under martial law. On 10 April, 1866, the judiciary committee of the house of representatives reported that there was no reason why the trial should not be proceeded with, and that it was the duty of the government to investigate, without delay, the facts connected with Lincoln's assassination. On 8 May, 1866, Mr. Davis was indicted for treason by a grand jury in the U. S. court for the district of Virginia, sitting at Norfolk under Judge Underwood, the charge of com-
