Lieut. W. walked with me; he left me, part of the time, to walk on at my pleasure. Have been thinking more of the amnesty matter; penned some ideas for application if I should make one.

Dinner: the bacon ration was about half as much meat as I usually eat when I eat meat at all; and I am but a moderate eater. This bacon and beans does not suit me. The fault is perhaps with the cook. I have not yet been able to see him. I asked them that he be allowed to see me, but the petition was denied. I wanted to give directions about the proportions of my meals, and tell him how I liked them. Sometimes I think he may be a fellow-citizen of African descent with prejudices against me; if so, I feel sure these would be overcome on acquaintance. I never yet knew one of the coloured race who did not like me. Toward coloured people I have always felt cordial sympathy and it has never failed to be reciprocated. Geary got me a can of tomatoes to-day, but too late for dinner; the price was $1.

My eyesight is growing dimmer. I had to use my eye-glasses to-day in separating the sound beans from the unsound. The looking-glass shows that my hair grows white very fast.

5 P. M. Just finished reading in the New York Times the official publication of the suppressed testimony before the Military Commission; that of Montgomery, Dr. Merritt, and Conover.* Merritt is certainly mistaken about seeing Clay in Canada in February last; his is the strongest testimony against Clay; he is mistaken

See Turner's report on "the matter of witnesses who had sworn falsely in relation to the complicity of Jeff. Davis and others is the assassination of President Lincoln," O. R. War of the Rebellion, S. N, 121, pp. 921–23.

or he swore falsely. I am confident that nothing as regards assassination can be proven against Clay. The whole testimony tends to leave the impression on almost any mind that the capture and removal by strategy and violence of Mr. Lincoln and other heads of the Government at Washington was discussed by confidential Confederate agents in Canada,* and connived at by them with assurance of approval at Richmond. But the testimony is not conclusive on this point; far from it. I cannot yet give my assent to a supposition even that Clay was privy to any such scheme or policy; and the whole testimony may be utterly false.

When this Canada mission was established, I supposed its object was to bring about some friendly understanding with leading men of the States Rights School of politics at the North, in order - if peace could not be otherwise and sooner obtained to organize a party there for carrying the fall elections on the basis of peace; leaving all questions of old Union and new Union to be settled amicably in convention on the principle of "mutual convenience and reciprocal advantage," this being the only secure basis of permanent peace between the States, and one which soon would have brought harmonious adjustment upon the recognized principle of the Sovereignty of each State. Last winter I stated to Governor Graham [Confederate Senator from North Carolina] my desire to know more about this mission. From what I saw in the papers, I was apprehensive that our agents were doing no good but rather injury to our cause, and I advised him to call for all correspondence, to move

In July, 1864, the mission, consisting of Clay, Thompson, and Holcombe, in Niagara, Canada, sought through Horace Greeley a peace conference with Lincoln, which Lincoln declined. The other part of their purpose was somewhat as stated by Stephens, according to Davis in "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government," II, 611; also to liberate Confederates in prison near the border and to aid escaped Confederates to return South. See So. Hist. papers; VII, 99, 132-39, 293.

an inquiry in the Senate as to who these agents were and what they were about; I asked General Wigfall [Senator from Texas] to do the same, or gave him the same views I had given Graham; but neither moved in the matter. When, on return of the Commissioners from Hampton Roads, Mr. Davis said, in the public meeting in the African Church, that before the summer solstice we should have the North suing us, as their masters, for terms of peace, perhaps the misguided man was looking to the success of some of these Canadian schemes, either the uprising of the people of the North or the abduction of the heads of their Government. At the time he uttered the sentiment, it seemed to me the emanation of a demented brain, but he may have been relying on something I and the world generally knew nothing about; the declaration produced astonishment in the minds of all sensible men who spoke to me of it. But I have no idea Mr. Davis ever countenanced assassination. No!

I see by the Boston paper that the Hon. Joshua Hill has reached Washington. As a Provisional Governor is to be appointed for Georgia, I do hope he will be the He is a gentleman of high tone and honour, a man of inflexible principle and integrity.

man.

June 8. — Breakfast: from the cook's room, a piece of bread and the worst piece of meat yet sent me. Could not think of attempting to eat it. From sutler's could get nothing but a cup of cold coffee. Took my Bible, stretched myself on bunk to rest while reading. With a fervent prayer to Almighty God to be directed to some chapter of His Word from which I could derive comfort, opened at Lamentations V. Was it accident? Every word was a fit channel for my soul's outpouring.

I have been in this cell two weeks; for four I have been a prisoner. How long those weeks seem in some views, in others how short! Sometimes it seems an age since I left home; at other times the brief moment of a horrid dream. Sometimes it seems impossible that my surroundings are reality; I feel as if I must be waking from the frightful delusion of disturbed slumber on my own bed in my own room at my beloved home. The human mind is a complicated piece of mechanism, the least aberration of its workings disturbs its proper balance. Is it marvellous that so many are pronounced insane? Insanity is only a question of degree. The operation of no human mind is morally and intellectually perfect; the orbit of none is in perfect circle. The orbits of all are more or less elliptical, as are those of the greater and lesser worlds in space. Truth and Right constitute the gravitating centre of the mind's orbit. In astronomy those bodies whose motions discard not only the circle but the ellipse, assuming the parabolic curve and never returning in the same path, or sphere, are known as comets. Minds which become so eccentric in their motions as to wheel out of all regular orbits are considered lunatic. Lunatics are only mental comets. But none, no not one, moves around the true great centre in a perfect circle; all aberrate more or less. What constitutes insanity is only a question of degree. Lieut. W. walked out with me. Has not arranged with sutler about taking my rations and furnishing me meals from the mess with charge for difference. Everything I wish done here seems slowly done, when done at all. Began letter to President Johnson, making special application for amnesty. Wrote to Linton; Lieut. W. was to call for letter for evening's mail, but did not.

Large concourse of strangers visited the fort to-day; the convention of physicians now assembled in Boston, I believe, with ladies, friends, etc. Several visitors took a peep into my cell, but not many satisfied their curiosity if a good sight of me was what they wanted. I was eating my dinner - the worst yet sent and was, for the first time lately, really hungry. I had tried the beef but could make little impression on it by gnawing; cut it, I could not. This beef and some of my potatoes was set before me. I had expected something from sutler's. Geary presently brought in a tin cup some of my tomatoes. I was fishing these up as well as I could with a knife the old rusty cookroom knife before mentioned. Such was the situation when the crowd darkened my windows. Not wishing to be, under these conditions, the observed of all observers, I withdrew to the far end of my cell, where eyes could not reach me. The tomatoes were not good. Ordered a small wooden tub to-day for bathing: Price $2, Geary said.

8 P. M.

Lieut. W. called for my letter to Linton,
Apologized, said the crowd of

but too late to mail it.

visitors detained him.