“No right cause impelled you to dissolve the Union, only fear—misguided fear, I might add—that I would act precipitately against slavery. I was willing to let it remain in place where it was and slowly to wither there.”
“Mr. President, I hold no brief for slavery, as you may know. But I do believe the rights of a state to be of higher importance than those of the Federal—or Confederate—government.”
“This war has undermined the powers of the separate states, North and South alike,” Lincoln said. “Both Washington and Richmond levy direct taxes and directly conscript men, no matter how the governors moan and bellow like branded calves. Can any separate state hope to resist their power? You know the answer as well as I.”
Lee stroked his beard. Lincoln had a point. Even his precious Virginia, by far the greatest of the Confederate states, followed first the will of the national government, then its own. He said, “I am but a soldier; let those wiser in such matters settle them as seems best.”
“If you were ‘but a soldier,’ General Lee, we wouldn’t be sitting here talking with each other right now.” Lincoln’s mouth twisted in that melancholy grin of his.” And I wish to thunder that we weren’t!” His gaze sharpened again. “Weren’t for those repeaters you’ve broken out with like a dog’s new spring fleas, I don’t think we would be, either. If I knew where you were getting ‘em, I’d buy a batch for my own side, I tell you that.”
“I believe you, Mr. President.” Lee meant it. Lincoln was an inventor of sorts; he’d once patented a device for getting riverboats across stretches of low water. Anyone in the North who came up with a new rifle or cartridge made a beeline for the White House, hoping to impress him with it. Lee went on carefully,” As for our new rifles, we do not import them from overseas. They come from within the Confederacy.”
“So say the rebels we’ve captured,” Lincoln answered. “I own I find it hard to credit. The rifles are better than any we make, and you Southerners haven’t a tithe of our factories. So how did you turn out so many so fast?”
“The how of it is not important, Mr. President.” Lee could not discuss the Rivington men and their secret with his nation’s chiefest enemy—with the man, indeed, who was his nation’s chiefest reason for existing. Oddly, though, he found he wanted to. Of all the men he’d met, Lincoln seemed least likely to call him a lunatic; the Federal President had a breadth of vision that might be wide enough to take in the notion of men corning back from 2014. Lee’s brows came together. Again, how could the man before him be capable of the outrages Andries Rhoodie ascribed to him? Lee shrugged. That how was not important, either. “What is important is that my men and I are here. As I said before, I believe we can stay here, and that other Confederate armies are likely to continue to win victories. Your war to subjugate the South has failed.”
“I will not give it up,” Lincoln said, stubborn still.
“Then the United States will give up on you,” Lee predicted. “But the choice is not altogether in your hands, sir. When I leave the White House, my next call will be at the British ministry, to pay my respects to Lord Lyons. Since I shall be in the position to do that, how can he fail to recognize the Confederate States as a nation which has succeeded in winning its independence?”
He did not say—he did not need to say—that if Great Britain recognized the Confederacy, France and the other European powers would surely follow her lead…and not even the stubbornest U.S. President could continue war on the Southern states in the face of that recognition.
Lincoln’s long, sad face grew longer and sadder. Even now, though, he refused to yield, saying, “Lord Lyons hates slavery. So do the British people.”
“Britain recognizes the Empire of Brazil, does she not, despite its being a slaveholding land? For that matter, Britain recognized the United States before the start of our unfortunate war, and does still, in spite of your continuing to hold slaves—last year’s Emancipation Proclamation was remarkably silent on the subject of Northern Negroes in bondage.”
Always sallow, Lincoln turned a couple of shades darker. “They are being attended to. Come victory, all in the United States would have been free.” He cocked his head at Lee. “And you have just claimed to be no great friend of slavery yourself, General.”
Lee lowered his eyes, acknowledging the hit. “The most I will say for it is that, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, it may be the most practicable means for blacks and whites harmoniously to live together in this land.”
“It is an evil, sir, an unmitigated evil,” Lincoln said. “I shall never forget the group of chained Negroes I saw going down the river to be sold close to a quarter of a century ago. Never was there so much misery, all in one place. If your secession triumphs, the South will be a pariah among nations.”
“We shall be recognized as what we are, a nation among nations,” Lee returned.” And, let me repeat, my being here is a sign secession has triumphed. What I would seek to do now, subject to the ratification of my superiors, is suggest terms to halt the war between the United States and Confederate States.” Lincoln refused to call Lee’s country by its proper name. As a small measure of revenge, Lee put extra weight on that name.
Lincoln sighed. This was the moment he had tried to evade, but there was no evading it, not with the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia in his parlor. “Name your terms, General,” he said in a voice full of ashes.
“They are very simple, Mr. President: that Federal troops withdraw from such parts of the territory of the Confederate States as they now occupy. As soon as that is done—perhaps even while it is being done—we shall depart from Washington City, and U.S.A. and C.S.A. will be at peace.”
“Simple, eh?” Lincoln leaned forward in his chair, the picture of a man determined not to be cheated in a horse trade. “What about West Virginia?”
“That is a delicate area,” Lee admitted. When Virginia left the Union, its northern and western counties refused to go along; Federal guns had protected them in their secession from secession. Now the area was one of the United States in its own right. Lee could not doubt that was what the bulk of its people wanted, even if Virginia still claimed the territory. He countered, “What of Missouri and Kentucky?”
Both states sent representatives to the Confederate Congress as well as to Washington. Kentucky was the birth state of Lincoln and of Jefferson Davis, too, while Missouri’s civil war was as much neighbor against neighbor as North against South. Lincoln was right. Deciding borders wouldn’t be simple.
“Well, what about Missouri and Kentucky?” the Federal President said.” Asking me to leave the valley of the Mississippi, where we as yet remain supreme, is hard enough. But if you expect us to pull off our own soil so you can walk in, you can think again, sir. Emancipation is already far along there as well—you may not want those states, for you will have to fight a new war to restore their colored folk to servitude.”
It was Lee’s turn to sigh. That might be true wherever the Federal armies had gone. But it was a worry for politicians, and for the future. Now—”This sort of talk gets us nowhere, Mr. President, save to the spilling of more blood, which is what I now seek to prevent. Will you undertake to remove your soldiers from all disputed territory but those two states and what you people call West Virginia, with the status of those areas to be settled by negotiation at a later date?”
“Have you the authority to offer such terms?” Lincoln asked.