and an injustice. The statement in the House of Representatives on Thursday last, made by General Banks during the debate on the proposed amnesty bill, was more entirely correct than, perhaps, he had reason to credit.
What I now relate are facts: Mr. Horace Greeley received a letter, dated June 22d, 1865, from Mrs. Jefferson Davis. It was written at Savannah, Georgia, where Mrs. Davis and her family were then detained under a sort of military restraint. Mr. Davis himself, recently taken prisoner, was at Fortress Monroe; and the most conspicuous special charge threatened against him by the "Bureau of Military Justice" was of guilty knowledge relating to the assassination of President Lincoln. The principal purpose of the letter was imploring Mr. Greeley to bring about a speedy trial of her husband upon that charge, and upon all other supposed cruelties that were inferred against him. A public trial was prayed that the accusations might be as publicly met, and her husband, as she insisted could be done, readily vindicated. To this letter Mr. Greeley at once forwarded an answer for Mrs. Davis, directed to the care of General Burge, commanding our military forces at Savannah. The morning of the next day Mr. Greeley came to my residence in this city, placed the letter from Mrs. Davis in my hand, saying that he could not believe the charge to be true; that aside from the enormity and want of object, it would have been impolitic in Mr. Davis, or any other leader in the Southern States, as they could not but be aware of Mr. Lincoln's naturally kind heart and his good intentions toward them all; and Mr. Greeley asked me to become professionally interested in behalf of Mr. Davis. I called to Mr. Greeley's attention that, although I was like-minded with himself as to this one view of the case, yet there was the other pending charge of cruel treatment of our Union soldiers while prisoners at Andersonville and other places, and that, unless our Government was willing to have it imputed that Wirz was convicted and his sentence of death inflicted unjustly, it could not now overlook the superior who was, at least popularly, regarded as the moving cause of those wrongs; and that if Mr. Davis had been guilty of such breach of the rules for the conduct of war in modern civilization, he was not entitled to the right of, nor to be manumitted as a mere prisoner of war. I expressed the thought that my services before a military tribunal would be of little benefit. I hesitated; but finally told Mr. Greeley that I would consult with some of our common friends, whose countenance would give strength to such an undertaking, if it was discovered to be right, and that none but Republicans and some of the radical kind were likely to be of positive aid; indeed, any other would have been injurious. It occurred to me, from recollecting conversations with Mr. Henry Wilson, the previous April, while we were together at Hilton Head, South Carolina, that if Mr. Davis were guiltless of this latter offence, an avenue might be opened for a speedy trial, or for his manumission as any other prisoner of war. I did consult with
