who were wholly satisfied with Lincoln’s position.  Riddle, 25.  Possibly, this was the second conference mentioned by Lincoln.  It has scarcely a feature in common with the conference of April 4, which has become the subject of acrimonious debate.  N. and H., III, 422-428; Boutwell, II, 62-67; Bancroft, II, 102-104; Munford, 270; Southern Historical Papers, 1, 449; Botts, 195- 201; Crawford, 311; Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, first session, Thirty-Ninth Congress; Atlantic, April, 1875.  The date of this conference is variously given as the fourth, fifth and sixth of April.  Curiously enough Nicolay and Hay seem to have only an external knowledge of It; their account is made up from documents and lacks entirely the authoritative note.  They do not refer to the passage in the Hay Ms, already quoted.

There are three versions of the interview between Lincoln and Baldwin.  One was given by Baldwin himself before the Committee on Reconstruction some five years after; one comprises the recollections of Colonel Dabney, to whom Baldwin narrated the incident in the latter part of the war; a third is in the recollections of John Minor Botts of a conversation with Lincoln April 7, 1862.  No two of the versions entirely agree.  Baldwin insists that Lincoln made no offer of any sort; while’ Botts in his testimony before the Committee on Reconstruction says that Lincoln told him that he had told Baldwin that he was so anxious “for the preservation of the peace of this country and to save Virginia and the other Border States from going out that (he would) take the responsibility of evacuating Fort Sumter, and take the chances of negotiating with the Cotton States.”  Baldwin’s language before the committee is a little curious and has been thought disingenuous.  Boutwell, I, 66.  However, practically no one in this connection has considered the passage in the Hay Ms or the statement in Riddle.  Putting these together and remembering the general situation of the first week of April there arises a very plausible argument for accepting the main fact in Baldwin’s version of his conference and concluding that Botts either misunderstood Lincoln (as Baldwin says he did) or got the matter twisted in memory.  A further bit of plausibility is the guess that Lincoln talked with Botts not only of the interview with Baldwin but also of the earlier interview mentioned by Riddle and that the two became confused in recollection.

To venture on an assumption harmonizing these confusions.  When Lincoln came to Washington, being still in his delusion that slavery was the issue and therefore that the crisis was “artificial,” he was willing to make almost any concession, and freely offered to evacuate Sumter if thereby he could induce Virginia to drop the subject of secession.  Even later, when he was beginning to appreciate the real significance of the moment, he was still willing to evacuate Sumter if the issue would not be pushed further