James Gilmore

September 10, 1822 (age 80)

Apparently, Gilmore's career was very successful, for in 1857, he retired from business with a competency. The Civil War found him relatively unemployed and in possession of a knowledge of Southern conditions which he had derived from his frequent business trips to that region. His first venture was the Continental Monthly, a periodical devoted to anti-slavery propaganda. Although its publication gave Gilmore a great deal of rather flatulent self-satisfaction, it was suspended after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Meanwhile, his flood of books had begun. The first, Among the Pines (1862), professed to be a true picture of life in the Southern states. It was followed rapidly by six other rather colorless volumes, the last of which, On the Border, appeared in 1867. During these years also, Gilmore contributed random articles to the New York Tribune. It was logical that Greeley and Gilmore should cherish the same implacable distrust of Lincoln. In 1863, Gilmore was therefore an understandable choice as an emissary to Gen. Rosecrans to determine whether he was a candidate whom the Tribune might support for the presidential nomination in the following year. It was on this j ourney that Gilmore met James F. Jaquess, the Methodist parson-colonel who wanted to go to Richmond and convert Jefferson Davis to peace. Almost against his will, Gilmore became associated with this zealous project. At Rosecrans’s request, he went to Washington, outlined Jaquess’s hopes to Lincoln, and aided the Colonel in obtaining a furlough for his purpose. This visit was not without other result, for it converted Gilmore into an admirer of the President. When the Jaquess mission failed, Gilmore was too busy writing and lecturing to devote his attention immediately to remedies, but in April 1864, he interviewed Lincoln, and according to his own stories, he persuaded the President to permit a second attempt. Although neither Jaquess nor Gilmore could carry credentials as representatives, Lincoln drew up a statement of peace terms to guide their conversation. These included the perpetual abolition of slavery and the immediate recognition of the supremacy of the Union. In return for this surrender, Lincoln proposed a compensation to the slaveholders of $500, 000, 000, the restoration of the states to the Union with all their rights, and an amnesty to those engaged in the rebellion. Finally in the first part of July, Gilmore and Jaquess were passed through the lines and transported to Richmond. Once there it was difficult to secure an interview with Jefferson Davis because they were wholly unaccredited, but they finally persuaded or deceived the Confederate President into a willingness to see them, and on the evening of July 17 the conference took place in the old Customhouse. Gilmore’s later narratives of the prelude to this interview conceal by flippancy and the dimness of recollection the motive which led to the dispatch of the mission. Probably both Lincoln and he hoped that it would produce some statement of Confederate war aims so extreme that it could be used in the North to stem the growing clamor of the peace partisans. If such were their hopes, they were not disappointed. Davis vigorously denied that slavery was the barrier to a reconciliation between the nations, insisting rather that the point at issue was the right to self-government. When the interview was over, Gilmore was apprehensive that they would not be allowed to return, but on July 21, he made his report to President Lincoln in safety. It now remained to get the news before the public. With Jaquess, he visited some northern governors, and the two made several speeches to secure further publicity. It is not unlikely that the results of the mission had some minor influence upon the presidential campaign of 1864. His fortune was so diminished that he reentered business in 1873, but in spite of this employment, he kept himself in practise with incidental writing. In 1880, he published The Life of James A. Garfield, a campaign biography which had an extensive sale, and in 1881, with Lyman Abbott, he edited The Gospel History. In 1883, he was able again to retire and devote his time solely to writing and lecturing. Although he gave a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute, most of his addresses seem to have been delivered to societies interested in genealogy or local history. Of his later literary productions, John Sevier as a Commonwealth-Builder (1887) is typical. He died at Glens Falls, New York.

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The Rear-Guard of the Revolution

( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Down in Tennessee, and Back by Way of Richmond

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On the Border

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Letters of a War Correspondent during the American Civil War ... Edited, with notes, by J. R. Gilmore.

( Title: Letters of a War Correspondent during the Americ...)

Among the Guerillas

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Among the pines; or, South in secession-time, by Edmund Kirke

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My Southern Friends

James Robers Gilmore Edit Profile

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Background

James Robers Gilmore was the son of Turner Fales and Mary A. Gilmore. He was born on September 10, 1822, in Boston, Massachusets.

Education

Although destined for college, Gilmore deserted his preparations for it and entered business, to become at twenty-five the head of a new firm which conducted a shipping and cotton business in New York City.

His facile command of language completed the background of his literary qualifications.

Career

Apparently, Gilmore's career was very successful, for in 1857, he retired from business with a competency. The Civil War found him relatively unemployed and in possession of a knowledge of Southern conditions which he had derived from his frequent business trips to that region.

His first venture was the Continental Monthly, a periodical devoted to anti-slavery propaganda.

Although its publication gave Gilmore a great deal of rather flatulent self-satisfaction, it was suspended after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Meanwhile, his flood of books had begun.

The first, Among the Pines (1862), professed to be a true picture of life in the Southern states. It was followed rapidly by six other rather colorless volumes, the last of which, On the Border, appeared in 1867.

During these years also, Gilmore contributed random articles to the New York Tribune. It was logical that Greeley and Gilmore should cherish the same implacable distrust of Lincoln.

In 1863, Gilmore was therefore an understandable choice as an emissary to Gen. Rosecrans to determine whether he was a candidate whom the Tribune might support for the presidential nomination in the following year.

It was on this j ourney that Gilmore met James F. Jaquess, the Methodist parson-colonel who wanted to go to Richmond and convert Jefferson Davis to peace. Almost against his will, Gilmore became associated with this zealous project. At Rosecrans’s request, he went to Washington, outlined Jaquess’s hopes to Lincoln, and aided the Colonel in obtaining a furlough for his purpose. This visit was not without other result, for it converted Gilmore into an admirer of the President.

When the Jaquess mission failed, Gilmore was too busy writing and lecturing to devote his attention immediately to remedies, but in April 1864, he interviewed Lincoln, and according to his own stories, he persuaded the President to permit a second attempt.

Although neither Jaquess nor Gilmore could carry credentials as representatives, Lincoln drew up a statement of peace terms to guide their conversation. These included the perpetual abolition of slavery and the immediate recognition of the supremacy of the Union. In return for this surrender, Lincoln proposed a compensation to the slaveholders of $500, 000, 000, the restoration of the states to the Union with all their rights, and an amnesty to those engaged in the rebellion.

Finally in the first part of July, Gilmore and Jaquess were passed through the lines and transported to Richmond.

Once there it was difficult to secure an interview with Jefferson Davis because they were wholly unaccredited, but they finally persuaded or deceived the Confederate President into a willingness to see them, and on the evening of July 17 the conference took place in the old Customhouse.

Gilmore’s later narratives of the prelude to this interview conceal by flippancy and the dimness of recollection the motive which led to the dispatch of the mission. Probably both Lincoln and he hoped that it would produce some statement of Confederate war aims so extreme that it could be used in the North to stem the growing clamor of the peace partisans.

If such were their hopes, they were not disappointed. Davis vigorously denied that slavery was the barrier to a reconciliation between the nations, insisting rather that the point at issue was the right to self-government.

When the interview was over, Gilmore was apprehensive that they would not be allowed to return, but on July 21, he made his report to President Lincoln in safety. It now remained to get the news before the public.

With Jaquess, he visited some northern governors, and the two made several speeches to secure further publicity. It is not unlikely that the results of the mission had some minor influence upon the presidential campaign of 1864.

His fortune was so diminished that he reentered business in 1873, but in spite of this employment, he kept himself in practise with incidental writing.

In 1880, he published The Life of James A. Garfield, a campaign biography which had an extensive sale, and in 1881, with Lyman Abbott, he edited The Gospel History. In 1883, he was able again to retire and devote his time solely to writing and lecturing.

Although he gave a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute, most of his addresses seem to have been delivered to societies interested in genealogy or local history. Of his later literary productions, John Sevier as a Commonwealth-Builder (1887) is typical.

He died at Glens Falls, New York.

Achievements

Gilmore contributed random articles to the New York Tribune. Under the pseudonym “Edmund Kirke, ” Gilmore published a card on July 22, in the Boston Transcript, containing the high lights of Davis’s ultimatum, and followed it with a longer account in the September and December issues of the Atlantic Monthly.