During his stay in Canada, Mr. Clay was instrumental in inducing the members of the peace party in the North to prevail on President Lincoln to open negotiations with him looking to the settlement of hostilities between the North and the South. An unofficial mission was entered on, but without avail. When he learned of the capitulation of the Confederate armies, Mr. Clay started from Canada on horseback for Texas, but, seeing in the northern press that he was openly charged with complicity in the assassination of President Lincoln, he changed his course and made his way to Macon, Ga., where he might surrender with a view to a thorough investigation. In reward for this expression of honor on the part of Mr. Clay, he was seized, sent to Fortress Monroe, put in irons, where he lay a fellow prisoner of Jefferson Davis for twelve months, without being brought to trial on the false charges of treason and assassination. His health was sadly broken under these cruel and disgraceful conditions, and his release was finally procured by his devoted and gifted wife, whose pleadings with the governmental authorities at last prevailed, and it was believed, not without reason, that the government, as it then was, was glad to appear to display magnanimity in view of the atrocious course pursued concerning one who was thus being served purely on an unfounded presumption, and one, too, who had gone beyond his way seeking a trial, in face of the public charges. Mr. Clay died at Huntsville on January 3, 1882. HOSEA HOLCOMBE Altogether worthy of a place in the historic archives of Alabama are the spiritual heroes who added so much to the moral life of the community, converting disorder into order, and bringing calmness from confusion and chaos. Among these may be named Rev. Hosea Holcombe, a native of North Carolina, and for a period a pastor in upper South Carolina. Mr. Holcombe came to Alabama in the early stages of its statehood and settled at Jonesboro, in Jefferson County, from which point he pursued his early missionary labors, undergoing all the privations and difficulties incident to those days. Without scholastic advantages, Mr. Holcombe turned to practical advantage the slim resources which came within his reach, and by studious application became possessed of more than an ordinary education for one living at that period. He was Alabama's first church historian, and rendered a lasting service to the state by his preserved record of the early churches of Alabama. While statesmen and publicists were laying the foundation stones of a great political commonwealth, the pioneer missionary, especially of the Baptist and Methodist denominations, was abroad with his wholesome influence, checking vice, inculcating virtue, and seeking to bring the lives of men into practical conformity to those principles which make alike for the present, and the life which is to come.