394 Norta CaRro.tina Troops, 1861-’65.

satisfaction to-day for the terrible punishment they had re-
ceived in the battle of the Crater, to which they referred.

The Confederate loss in this affair was, according to Gen-
eral F. Lee, 2,949, including 1,000 captured. The enemy
report a loss of 98 killed and 509 wounded, 481 missing of
their infantry; and four killed, fourteen wounded and twen-
ty-five missing of the artillery. That afternoon General
Ransom meets General Hartranft and during the flag of
truce 120 Confederate dead and 15 badly wounded are turned
over to us. Nearly one-half of the Confederate loss to-day
fell on Ransom’s Brigade, Colonel Rutledge reporting 1,364
lost out of his 2,300. General Lee says in his report: “All
the troops engaged behaved most handsomely, including two
brigades under Brigadier-General Ransom.”

Somehow the war had not been fought out on the line last
summer; but if we are now spoiling for a fight, General
Grant evidently has enough people with him at last to read-
ily accommodate us, and get home by next summer. His
losses can be supplied; ours cannot.

26 March. The brigade moves out to the right, and Lieu-
tenant-Colonel G. G. Luke, who has just returned,
takes command of the Fifty-sixth. On the east front and
particularly near the Crater, night after night witnesses the
most continuous musketry firing, the reverberating vol-
leys, heard back in the city, rivaling discharges of artillery.
Behind such rackets the most important movements
are made. Gaps might probably be found now in either line,
as in ours particularly 17 June, and 30 July, 1864.
But only on one side was there a thought of making an-
other advance. On the other side the alternative might
now be presented of fighting our way through to Gen-
eral Jos. E. Johnston’s army then retiring through the Caro-
linas before General Sherman, or a race for the mountains of
Virginia.

FAILURE TO NEGOTIATE PEACE.

If there was the faintest hope of a reconsideration of the
Hampton Roads affair, it was vain. The time had passed.
For it now appears that the interview referred to across the

Firry-SixtH REGIMENT. 395

line between General Ord and General Longstreet, took place
about the first of March. Pursuant thereto General Lee
wrote to General Grant, 2 March, 1865, “sincerely desiring
to leave nothing untried which may put an end to the calam-
ities of war,” and adding: “I am authorized to do whatever
the result of the proposed interview may render necessary or
advisable.” Evidently our President and Confederate Sen-
ate had at length fully acquiesced in the measure so earnestly
seconded by General Lee at its initiation. But it was now
too late.

General Grant replied from City Point, 4 March, 1865:
“Tn regard to meeting you on the 6th instant, 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. Gen. 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 sub-
ject of exchanges, which have been entrusted to me.”

The situation had changed since January. Mr. Lincoln
himself could not now control it, and General Lee was
put upon his mettle; for to the last he was resolved to die
rather than submit to an unconditional surrender of the
Army of Northern Virginia.

The record of this event is thus expanded because many
of the most intelligent of the rank and file of this regiment
were deeply interested in all that was heard of it at the front,
and on a satisfactory compromise being attained, were ready
with more than its quota if the joint expedition to oust the
unfortunate Maximilian from Mexico were seriously called
for. Though the too diplomatic instructions to our commis-
sioners proved fatal, no one doubted the sincerity of Mr.
Davis’ convictions or that he had the courage of them. When
the subsequent steps taken to reopen the matter all failed, he
followed with a message to the Confederate Congress, 13
March, 1865, making a very able presentation of his side of
this affair, and in the concluding sentence portraying with
prophetic ken the “Fool’s Errand,” ( the attempt to set up
earpet-bag State Governments): “There remains then for