Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

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Chapter 11:

• The commission to Washington city
-- arrival of Crawford -- Buchanan's alarm -- note of the commissioners to the New Administration -- mediation of justices Nelson and Campbell -- the difficulty about forts Sumter and Pickens -- Secretary Seward's assurances -- duplicity of the Government at Washington -- Fox's visit to Charleston-secret preparations for coercive measures -- visit of Lamon -- renewed assurances of good faith -- notification to Governor Pickens -- developments of secret history -- systematic and complicated perfidy exposed.

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The appointment of commissioners to proceed to Washington, for the purpose of establishing friendly relations with the United States and effecting an equitable settlement of all questions relating to the common property of the states and the public debt, has already been mentioned. No time was lost in carrying this purpose into execution. Crawford—first of the commissioners—left Montgomery on or about February 27, and arrived in Washington two or three days before the expiration of Buchanan's term of office as President of the United States. Besides his official credentials, he bore the following letter to the President, of a personal or semiofficial character, intended to facilitate, if possible, the speedy accomplishment of the objects of his mission:

To the President of the United States.

sir: Being animated by an earnest desire to unite and bind together our respective countries by friendly ties, I have appointed Martin J. Crawford, one of our most esteemed and trustworthy citizens, as special Commissioner of the Confederate States to the Government of the United States; and I have now the honor to introduce him to you, and to ask for him a reception and treatment corresponding to his station, and to the purposes for which he is sent.

Those purposes he will more particularly explain to you. Hoping that through his agency these may be accomplished, I avail myself of this occasion to offer to you the assurance of my distinguished consideration.

(Signed) Jefferson Davis. Montgomery, February 17, 1861.

It may here be mentioned, in explanation of my desire that the commission, or at least a part of it, should reach Washington before the close of Buchanan's term, that I had received an intimation from him, through a distinguished Senator of one of the border states,¹ that he would be