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1994.THE
PEACE CONFERENCE
AT NIAGARA FALLS
IN 1864THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT
NIAGARA FALLS IN 1864
AN EPISODE OF THE CIVIL WAR
By FRANK H. SEVERANCE
There were not many episodes of the Civil War of wide
import in the vicinity of Buffalo and the Niagara. This
region was remote from the scenes of conflict and its Civil
War record is chiefly that of the rest of the North—the
recruiting of regiments, the drilling, the uniforming, the
march through thronged streets, and the final departure by
train of hundreds of the young men of the town to the
accompaniment of cheers and tears, the beat of drums and
the heavier beat of aching hearts; the amusing, mercenary
or ignoble features of substitute-hiring, draft-dodging, and
the warlike declarations of the stay-at-homes; the women's
relief work, the Sanitary Commission, the fairs and ship-
ments of supplies; the church services, the elation and the
grief at news of battle, the suspense and uncertainty, the
desolation of families, the loss to the community of the
youth who should have been its source of strength in the
coming years—these were the episodes of the Civil War in
Buffalo as in most communities of the North during those
four years of heavy trial. It is not of this common aspect
of the War that I would make note.
There are a few incidents of this period, occurrences on
the Lakes and along the Canadian border which constitute
7980
PEACE CONFERENCE AT
chapters of Civil War history; such, for instance, as the
plot to capture the United States gunboat Michigan, release
the Rebel prisoners on Johnson’s Island in the west end of
Lake Erie, and ravage the lake cities. There are several
narratives of this affair.1
Another episode, local in a sense, but National in bearing,
which has received little attention from students of our
history, was the so-called Peace Conference at Niagara
Falls, in July, 1864. I submit a brief account of it, drawn
chiefly from the newspapers of that time.
Several distinguished Southerners found it expedient for
one reason and another to sojourn during much of the
Civil War period in Canada. By the early summer of
1864, it was well known that some of the more prominent
of these men were at St. Catharines and at Niagara Falls.
Perhaps the most conspicuous of them was Clement
Claiborne Clay, a man of distinguished lineage, whose
grandfather was a Revolutionary soldier and whose father
had been Governor of Alabama. Clay himself had been a
member of the United States Senate, but withdrew from
that body when his State seceded from the Union. In
March, 1861, a few weeks after his withdrawal, he was
expelled, as were others of the Southern members who had
similarly withdrawn. He was at once elected to the Con-
federate Congress as Senator from Alabama, and early in
1864 was sent to Canada as a secret agent of the Confed-
erate cause. Just what he had done in the capacity of secret
agent is difficult to state. He is charged with having shared
in plans for raids against the frontier cities, and also with
abetting the adventurers who plotted to burn New York
City. For some weeks he kept a suite of rooms at the
Clifton House and was ostensibly a gentleman of leisure,
1. By far the best, written by Miy Frederick J. Shepard for the Buffalo
Historical Society, is to be found in Vol. IX of its Publications.NIAGARA FALLS IN 1864.
81
spending a pleasant summer at a comfortable scenic point
in the North, away from the heat and the turmoil of his
home.
With him, at least a portion of the time, was Jacob
Thompson, one of the most distinguished North Carolinians
of the Civil War period. Thompson enjoyed a long career
in public service, had served as Secretary of the Interior in
President Buchanan’s Cabinet, resigning that office in
January, 1861, and removing to Mississippi where he
became an adherent of the Confederacy. The next year he
was made Governor of Mississippi, holding that office until
1864, when, for a time, he was in military service, attached
to the staff of General Beauregard. He appears to have
retained that connection when in the spring of 1864 he
disappeared from the South, presently to be reported at
various points in Canada. Like all the rest of these South-
ern emigres, he was on a secret mission, though that mission
took various forms according to circumstances. It is known
that one of Thompson’s plots was to release the Confederate
prisoners of war at Camp Douglas in the suburbs of
Chicago, and with them to attempt to seize that city. He
was also said to have been in a number of incendiary
schemes, one of which was to burn Buffalo. An encyclo-
pedia sketch of him says that he plotted to. introduce
diseases, such as yellow fever, by means of infected rags,,
into Buffalo, Cleveland and other lake ports. Thompson
was sometimes at Toronto, sometimes in the vicinity of
Windsor and Amherstburg, across the river from Detroit,
at other times was reported on the Niagara frontier, and
again was lost sight of entirely. While he was undoubtedly
in consultation with others of his kind at the Clifton
House, he is not known to have had any leading part in the
incident of July, 1864, which I am to relate.82
PEACE CONFERENCE AT
A decenter man involved in the same plottings was
James Philemon Holcombe, son of an eminent Virginia
clergyman, himself a professor of law and belles lettres for
several years at the University of Virginia. He had served
in 1861 in the Virginia Secession Convention and for the
three succeeding years as a member of the Confederate
Congress. In July, 1864, we find him, also ostensibly a
tourist, stopping at the Clifton House, but in daily consul-
tation with Clay, George N. Sanders of Kentucky, and
others.
Clay and Holcombe, and perhaps other Confederates,
had made their way from the Southern States to Bermuda,
sailing thence in an English vessel to Halifax, then traveling
through Canada to Toronto, where Thompson made his
headquarters much of the time, while Clay, Holcombe and
Sanders came on to St. Catharines and Niagara Falls.
Mr. Lincoln had been renominated at the Baltimore
convention in June. Although his adherents had overcome
all opposition in the convention, there were many besides
the Democratic party in the North who were not in har-
mony with his policy. He had antagonized many public
men by failure to accept their advice. The extreme Aboli-
tionists were as dissatisfied at his temperate course as were
the most ardent sympathizers with the South. The most
formidable force against Mr. Lincoln was the widespread,
illogical complaint and criticism of the so-called Peace party.
Of this phase of political opinion of the time, the ever-
ready, voluble mouthpiece was Horace Greeley. As editor
of the Tribune, Mr. Greeley assumed all the burdens of the
Nation, and with unfailing self-sufficiency had a cure for
every ill. He was especially ready in extending advice,
pertinent and impertinent, to the patient man of the White
House. Greeley learned of the presence of these plottingNIAGARA FALLS IN 1864.
83
Confederates at Niagara Falls. Ascribing to them a char-
acter which they really did not have—of authorized agents
of the Confederacy, eager to treat for peace—he seized the
opportunity for a new appeal to the least resolute and hope-
ful wing of the Republican party. He appears to have
written, on his own responsibility, to the coterie of rebels in
refuge at Niagara. I do not find this letter or telegram of
Greeley’s anywhere published, although several letters
which followed were soon after made public. I can only
surmise as to what Mr. Greeley wrote—he has no mention
of the message in his “American Conflict”—by the following
reply:
Niagara Falls, July 5, 1864.
My Dear Mr. Greeley: In reply to your note, I have
to advise having just left Hon. George N. Sanders, of Ken-
tucky, on the Canada side. I am authorized to state to you,
for our use only, not the public, that two ambassadors of
Davis & Co. are now in Canada, with full and complete
powers for a peace, and Mr. Sanders requests that you'
come on immediately to me, at Cataract House, to have a
private interview, or if you will.send the President’s pro-
tection for him and two friends, they will come on and
meet you. He says the whole matter can be consummated
by me, you, them, and President Lincoln. Telegraph me
in such form that I may know if you come here, or they to
come on with me.
Yours,	^ T
W. C. Jewett.
William Cornell Jewett, writer of the above note, is
characterized by the Buffalo Express, July 23d, as “A mere
madcap and intermeddler who acted as jackal for the
rebels.” Henry J. Raymond, in his “Life of Lincoln,”
speaks of him as “an irresponsible and half insane adven-
turer.” Greeley in a letter to Lincoln, alludes to him as “our
irrepressible friend, Colorado Jewett.” I find no explana-
tion of his nickname. It is plain from the correspondence84
PEACE CONFERENCE AT
that Mr. Jewett was a busy go-between, for he turns up
now at the International Hotel, on the American side of
the falls, writing letters to Greeley; now over the river at
the Clifton House in conference with Clay and Sanders.
He followed the letter above given with the following
telegram:
H. Greeley, Tribune:
Will you come here? Parties have full power. Wrote
you yesterday.	Jewett.
Jewett’s letter and telegram Mr. Greeley sent on to
President Lincoln with a long letter of his own on the
situation. “Of course,” he wrote, “I do not indorse Jewett’s
positive averment that his friends at the Falls have ‘full
powers’ from J. D.,1 though I do not doubt that he thinks
they have.” He calls Mr. Lincoln’s attention to the spec-
tacle of “our bleeding, bankrupt, almost dying country
longing for peace”; alludes to the fact that Alexander H.
Stephens had not been permitted a year before to visit
Washington and confer with officials there with a view to
peace terms, and continues: “I entreat you, in your own
time and manner, to submit overtures for pacification to the
Southern insurgents, which the impartial must pronounce
frank and generous. I would give the safe-conduct re-
quired by the rebel envoys at Niagara, upon their parole to
avoid observation and to refrain from all communication
with their sympathizers in the loyal States. But whether
through them or otherwise, do not, I entreat you, fail to
make the Southern people comprehend that you, and all of
us are anxious for peace, and prepared to grant liberal
terms.”
Then Mr. Greeley went on to suggest what he called a
“plan of adjustment.” The Union was to be restored and
i. Jefferson Davis.NIAGARA FALLS IN 1864.
85
declared perpetual; slavery was to be forever abolished;
complete amnesty was to be granted with a full restoration
of the privileges of citizenship; the Union was to pay four
hundred million dollars in 5% United States stock to the
late Slave States, loyal and secession alike, in compensation
for the losses of their loyal citizens by the abolition of
slavery. There were still other features of this “plan of
adjustment,” the last one being that a National Convention
should be assembled to ratify the adjustment and to make
necessary changes in the Constitution of the United States.
“I do not'say,” added Greeley, “that a just peace is now
attainable, but I do say that a frank offer by you to the
insurgents of terms which the impartial say ought to be
accepted will, at the worst, prove an immense and sorely
needed advantage to the national cause. It may save us
from a Northern insurrection.”
To this President Lincoln sent the following reply:
Washington, D. C., July 9, 1864.
Hon. Horace Greeley:
Dear Sir: Your letter of the 7th, with enclosures, re-
ceived. If you can find any person anywhere professing
to have any proposition of Jefferson Davis, in writing, for
peace, embracing the restoration of the Union and abandon-
ment of slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to him he
may come to me with you, and that if he really brings such
proposition, he shall, at the least, have safe-conduct with
the paper (and without publicity if he chooses) to the point
where you shall have met him. The same if there be two
or more persons.
Yours truly,
A. Lincoln.
Mr. Greeley finding himself thus deputized to meet the
alleged peace emissaries of Jefferson Davis, replied at
some length. Among other things he said:86
PEACE CONFERENCE AT
Whether there be persons at Niagara (or elsewhere)
who are empowered to commit the rebels by negotiation,
is a question; but if there be such, there is no question at
all that they would decline to exhibit their credentials to
me, much more to open their budget and give me their best
terms. 'Green as I may be, I am not quite so verdant as to
imagine anything of the sort. I have neither purpose nor
desire to be made a confidant, far less an agent, in such
negotiations. But I do deeply realize that the rebel chiefs
achieved a most decided advantage in proposing or pre-
tending to propose to have A. H. Stephens visit Washing-
ton as a peacemaker, and being rudely repulsed; and I am
anxious that the ground lost to the national cause by that
mistake shall somehow be regained in season for effect on
the approaching North Carolina election. I will see if I
can get a look into the hand of whomsoever may be at
Niagara; though that is a project so manifestly hopeless
that I have little heart for it, still I shall try.
This letter failed to reach the President until after a still
later one was received. July 13th, Mr. Greeley wrote to
Mr. Lincoln that he had received information on which he
could rely; that Hon. Clement C. Clay, of Alabama, and
Hon. Jacob Thompson, of Mississippi, who were then at
Niagara Falls, were desirous of conferring with the Presi-
dent if they could be given safe conduct to and from Wash-
ington. Greeley suggested that Sanders should be desig-
nated to accompany them, and said much else by way of
pointing out to the President the salvation of the country, a
thing that Greeley never failed to do.
By this time the letters were flying thick and fast, back
and forth between New York and Niagara Falls. George
N. Sanders wrote to Mr. Greeley, dating his letter “Clifton
House, Niagara Falls, Canada West, July 12, 1864”:
I am authorized to say that Honorable Clement C. Clay,
of Alabama, Professor James P. Holcombe, of Virginia*NIAGARA FALLS IN 1864.	87
and George N. Sanders, of Dixie, are ready and willing
to go at once to Washington, upon complete and unqualified
protection being given either by the President or Secretary
of War. . . .
Mr. Greeley does not appear to have turned over to
President Lincoln all of his correspondence with the rebels.
In reply to his letter of the 13th, the President wrote to
Greeley: “I am disappointed. I was not expecting you to
send my letter, but to bring me a man, or men. Mr. Hay
goes to you with my answer to yours of the 13th.”
That answer in substance informed Greeley that, if the
alleged commissioners would consent to come, on being
shown the President’s letter of the 9th inst., they were to
go to Washington with Greeley. Mr. Lincoln added: “I
not only intend a sincere effort for peace, but I intend that
you shall be a personal witness that it is made.”
After the exchange of other messages, Mr. Greeley and
Mr. Hay came on to Buffalo and thence to Niagara, where
they lodged at the International Hotel. John Hay, then a
young man of 26 years, had gained the rank of major by
field service and had been Mr. Lincoln’s private secretary
almost from the beginning of his administration. Hay’s
part in the Niagara conference was a curious one. Mr.
Greeley remained for the most part on the American side
of the river; the Confederates stayed at the Clifton
House; and Major Hay played messenger-boy between the
two. Back and forth he went in the effort to bring some-
thing tangible out of the somewhat nebulous situation. He
was the representative of the President and maintained
throughout the whole affair the exact point of view of Mr.
Lincoln. He had come to Niagara understanding that
these refugee rebels were empowered to negotiate. Mr.
Greeley had given his word that they were so authorized;PEACE CONFERENCE AT
but when he had communicated with Clay and his associ-
ates, he had not given them clearly to understand the condi-
tions imposed by Mr. Lincoln. Both parties were therefore
sadly misled.
The Niagara affair was not the least incident in training
which was to fit John Hay for his diplomatic expertness in
years to come. He soon discovered that the alleged agents
not only were not accredited from Jefferson Davis, but that
they were not ready to go to Washington on the terms
imposed by Mr. Lincoln. On July 18th, the President had
written the following:
Executive Mansion, Washington, July 18, 1864.
To Whom it May Concern:
Any proposition which embraces the restoration of peace,
the integrity of the whole Union, and the abandonment of
slavery, and which comes by and with an authority that
can control the armies now at war against the United
States, will be received and considered by the Executive
Government of the United States, and will be met by liberal
terms on substantial and collateral points and the bearer or
bearers thereof shall have safe conduct both ways
(Signed) Abraham Lincoln.
With this message in his pocket, Major Hay crossed the
Niagara, Mr. Greeley accompanying him, and at the
Clifton House they laid the message before Professor
Holcombe. Clay does not appear to have been present at
this meeting. There was a short conference, after which
the parties separated, Mr. Greeley returning to New York
and John Hay returning to the International Hotel to await
a formal answer from the Confederates which Professor
Holcombe promised. That answer, received the next day,
signed by C. C. Clay and James P. Holcombe, was a long
statement to the effect that they could not accept theNIAGARA FALLS IN 1864.
President's proposition. The general tenor of the whole
document may be judged from the following extract:
... Had the representatives of the two Governments
met to consider this question, the most momentous ever sub-
mitted to human statesmanship, in a temper of becoming
moderation and equity, followed as their deliberations would
have been by the prayers and benedictions of every patriot
and Christian on the habitable globe, who is there so bold
as to pronounce that the frightful waste of individual hap-
piness and public prosperity, which is daily saddening the
universal heart, might not have been terminated, or if the
desolation and carnage of war must still be endured through
weary years of blood and suffering, that there might not at
least have been infused into its conduct something more
of the spirit which softens and partially redeems its brutal-
ities? Instead of the safe-conduct which we solicited, and
which your first letter gave us every reason to suppose
would be extended for the purpose of initiating a negotia-
tion in which neither Government would compromise its
rights or its dignity, a document has been presented which
provokes as much indignation as surprise. It bears no feat-
ure of resemblance to that which was originally offered, and
is unlike any paper which ever before emanated from the
Constitutional Executive of a free people. Addressed “to
whom it may concern," it precludes negotiation, and pre-
scribes in advance the terms and conditions of peace. It
ieturns to the original policy of “no bargaining, no negotia-
tions, no truces with rebels, except to bury their dead, until
every man shall have laid down his arms, submitted to the
Government, and sued for mercy."
What may be the explanation of this sudden and entire
change in the views of the President, of this rude with-
drawal of a courteous overture for negotiation at the mo-
ment it was likely to be accepted, of this emphatic recall of
words of peace just uttered, and fresh blasts of war to the
bitter end, we leave for the speculation of those who have
the means or inclination to penetrate the mysteries of his
Cabinet, or fathom the caprice of his imperial will. It is90
PEACE CONFERENCE AT
enough for us to say that we have no use whatever for the
paper which has been placed in our hands. We could not
transmit it to the President of the Confederate States with-
out offering him an indignity, dishonoring ourselves, and
incurring the well-merited scorn of our countrymen.
No sooner was the story of this abortive conference
spread abroad, than official denials were published. From
Washington came the statement that “the Administration
have never had before them for consideration any proposi-
tion from rebel authorities relating to pacification.” Judah
P. Benjamin, Confederate Secretary of State, published a
letter in which he declared that it was without even the
knowledge of the Richmond Government that Clay, Hol-
combe and Sanders opened their correspondence with
Greeley. “They were without any authority from this
Government to treat with that of the United States on any
subject whatever.”
A great amount of newspaper comment was evoked the
country over, varying according to locality and political
bias. Nowhere did the affair stir up livelier feeling than in
the South. The Richmond Examiner of July 26th con-
tained a long article on the subject, from which I quote
the following characteristic passages:
For the first time we have the pleasure of heartily ap-
proving a State paper of Abraham Lincoln. It is his letter
addressed “To Whom it May Concern.” It concerns
Messrs. Holcombe, C. C. Clay and George N. Sanders, and
we would fondly believe no other person or persons whom-
soever. When officious individuals go creeping round by
back doors asking interviews with Lincoln for a full inter-
change of sentiments, it gives us sincere gratification to see
them spurned, yes, kicked, from the said back door. To
Abraham we deliberately say “Bravo,” or, if he likes it
better, “Bully.” Think of an ex-Senator from AlabamaNIAGARA FALLS IN 1864.	91
and a Virginian Member of Congress, for we say nothing
of the third negotiator, exposing themselves, gratuitously,
idly and unbidden to receive such an ignominious rebuff at
the hands of the truculent buffoon of Illinois.
The editor continues in caustic vein to review the events
at Niagara. Sanders throughout he treats with scorn;
Greeley he alludes to as “That sanguinary philanthropist,
a paltry abolitionist editor,” and other like phrases. He
concludes that the conference was planned purely to help
the Peace party in the enemy’s country and that Lincoln’s
letter was to be used by the Northern Democrats to show
“how ferociously and unrelentingly the present Yankee
Administration is bent on war and repulses the slightest
hint of peace. As usual with such excessively cunning
schemes, this one not only defeats itself, but helps the
cause which it was possibly intended to damage. To
exhibit an ex-Senator and Member of Congress of the
Rebel States, thus timidly crawling by a roundabout way
to the footstool of the emperor of the Yahoos, whining and
snivelling about peace and liberal negotiations, and haughtily
refused even admittance to the sovereign presence, will
serve not the Peace but the War party, because it will be
used to create the impression that the Confederacy must be
in the agonies of death when two such distinguished legis-
lators make so pitiful an attempt to reach the ear of
offended majesty.”
The newspapers of the time in discussing the matter of
the Niagara conference, pay their respects in unstinted
phrases to the Kentucky adventurer, George N. Sanders.
He was not a man of established reputation like Clay and
Holcombe; but in this affair he seems to have been the
most active of them all. The Buffalo Express, in one of its
numerous editorials on the subject, calls Sanders “one of92
PEACE CONFERENCE AT
the pillars of the Democratic Party,” says “he has given
more dinners and dispensed more liquor at the expense of
the Democratic party than any man living,” and continues:
“He has for years been a bright and shining light in its
ranks, enjoying the confidence of its leaders as a sort of
Warwick and was exceedingly handy in contributing to
ambitious aspirants especially if they chanced to be wealthy.
In the outbreak of the Rebellion, Sanders took the side of
treason and the Confederacy, regarding it as an ample
field for vast and lucrative speculations abroad. He
became a Confederate contractor and left for Europe. His
first field for operations was in England, where he con-
tracted for ironclad vessels of war and blockade runners,
and is said to have realized very handsomely therefrom.
The English Cabinet, however, discovered that the building
of contraband ships would not pay in the long run and
Sanders’ vocation was interfered with and rendered profit-
less for further prosecution in that direction. He re-
crossed the Atlantic, taking position at the Clifton House,
Niagara Falls, where he could find ready access to the
Northern politicians with Confederate sympathies.”
An interesting phase of this episode is found in the
sequel. Sanders may have been astute politician enough to
have planned the conference less with the expectation of
gaining peace terms from the President, than to make
capital, by the alleged failure of the effort, for the Demo-
cratic National convention which was to be held later in the
summer at Chicago. Certain it is, according to the scat-
tered records in the Buffalo papers of the time, that many
of the Democratic party leaders of New York State came
to Niagara Falls and were there found in conference with
Sanders, Clay and Holcombe. Among them were Dean
Richmond and former Governor Washington Hunt, whoNIAGARA FALLS IN 1864.
had become a Democrat and was one of the delegates to
the Chicago convention. The Chicago platform, on which
George B. McClellan and the forgotten Pendleton took
their stand, attacked Mr. Lincoln and his war policy in
terms identical with those employed by Sanders and Clay.
How futile was this peace appeal to the country the election
showed, when Mr. Lincoln received 212 electoral votes to
21 for McClellan.
The Niagara Peace Conference of 1864 affords abundant
opportunity for discussion. A glance at the partisan press
of those days proves that. My own reading of the incident
has served chiefly to strengthen my admiration of the clear
vision, strength and high purpose of Abraham Lincoln.
On the other hand, it shows Horace Greeley even less
astute, less sagacious and less resolute than I had heretofore
conceived him to be. By concealing the conditions which
the President demanded, Mr. Greeley contrived to put both
parties at cross-purposes. His explanation, as elaborately
set forth in the Tribune, and in “The American Conflict,”
did not change the facts. If he thought that no precedent
conditions should be prescribed, he should have tried to
persuade the President to agree with him. If he could not
do so, he should have refused to act as an agent. Mr.
Greeley, by his own account, was very much of the mind
of the Chicago convention, that the war was a failure, and
that the North should beg for the best terms it could get.
Indeed, from the fatal moment in the early winter of i860,
when he said what was at once interpreted by the rebels to
be a justification of the right of secession upon the prin-
ciples of the Revolution, down to his obsequious description
of Clay, Thompson and Sanders as “distinguished Ameri-
cans of the other party to our civil war,” Mr. Greeley’s faith
in the final triumph of the Union was apparently very94
PEACE CONFERENCE IN 1864.
flickering. Certainly a man who doubted and desponded
and despaired was not a proper agent for a man like Mr.
Lincoln, whose tranquil faith never faltered.