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Introduction

While in Richmond on April 4, Lincoln met with Judge John A. Campbell, a Confederate official he had met at a secret peace conference two months earlier.  Campbell knew that the end of the Confederacy was near and was looking for ways to withdraw gracefully. Though in hindsight it appears short-sighted and ill-advised, Lincoln’s meeting with Campbell was an expression of his non-vindictive intentions.

Abraham Lincoln, autograph letter signed to Ulysses S. Grant
City Point, Va., 6 Apr. 1865
AMs 541/24

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