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the very height of useful promise, at the age of 52 years, he back- farewell to all the scenes of his greatness and followed his native State into her gallant but desperate struggle for independence.
On the day when McDowell's defeated and demoralized host was driven back upon Washington from the plains of Manassas, July 21, 1861, Mr. Hunter became Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Davis.
It is not generally known, though I believe it to be true, that the original plan of those who founded the Confederate government at Montgomery, Ala., was to make Mr. Hunter President of the Con- federacy, and Jefferson Davis General-in-Chief of its armies in the field. Whether such a course would have won success or not may be questioned, but certain it is that no wiser counsellor, no better financier in the desperate straits of the Confederate exchequer, no more devoted patriot than Mr. Hunter could have been found in all the limits of our new republic.
He soon became President />;'# lem. of the Confederate Senate, and all through the disheartening struggle gave his best efforts to the success of our doomed cause.
Among his last acts in its behalf was his visit to Hampton Roads as one of the commissioners to negotiate for peace between the North and the South.
His report of that memorable conference with Mr. Lincoln is an accurate record of what transpired, and is a valuable contribution to history.
Of his life after the war I need not speak.
Imprisoned as he was by Federal tyranny, insulted by a barbarous enemy with a cruelty which was equalled only by fiendish ingenuity, he was released from captivity only to return to Font Hill to find his home devastated by their deeper malignity.
Yet, in the closing years of his well-spent life, he still cherished the hope of better days for the republic, and he devoted his few re- maining years to philosophical reflection and dissertation and a calm review of the motives which had impelled him to espouse the cause of the South, and vindicated the principles of her people by his masterly essays and articles of great historic value. The papers of the Southern Historical Society abound with these admirable writ- ings and justified the assertion of one who knew him well: " That he was the most accomplished, wisest, most disinterested, best and gentlest of all the men who were his contemporaries." He was the
