I then asked him what he proposed to do with Jefferson Davis, who was still in prison at Fortress Monroe, charged with complicity in the assassination of Lincoln. I saw that he was much embarrassed by the inquiry, and told him that he owed it to the truth of history, to Davis himself and to public justice to give him a fair trial. I reminded him also that Wurz, who had just been tried by a court-martial for wanton and murderous brutality to the Union prisoners, with the judgment in the case then in the hands of the Government, but not announced, would be condemned and executed, as he was poor and friendless. I said that if Wurz was guilty of studied brutality to prisoners he deserved to die, but that if he was simply executing the policy of the government of the Confederacy, as was then publicly charged, of deliberately and systematically murdering Union prisoners by giving them unwholesome or insufficient food, and withholding the necessary and possible attention to the sick and dying, the responsible criminal was Jefferson Davis. In answer, the President asked how that could be done, to which I responded by saying that a court-martial, consisting of Generals Grant, Sherman, Thomas, Sheridan and Meade, could well be charged with so grave an inquiry, as their judgment would be accepted by the country and the world. If they condemned Davis, he deserved to be executed. If they acquitted him, as I believed they would, he would stand acquitted of one of the most colossal crimes ever charged against an individual. To my surprise, the President answered that there was strong prejudice growing up against court-martials. He was quite right in that declaration, as up to that time he had used them freely and almost wholly in the administration of justice in all cases having any connection with the war. He had denounced Davis as an assassin, and in his new relations with the South, which changed his conditions materially, he was anxious to protect Davis, and evidently did not wish his accusations to be passed upon by a competent court. I then said to the President that it was his duty to discharge Davis; that Davis should either be tried or given his liberty at an early day, as he had already been long in prison, and I reminded him also that he could not try a man for treason who was President of a government that had beleaguered our Capitol for four years, and that had been recognized by our own Government and by the leading governments of the world as a belligerent power. The discussion of the Davis question, that was a very unpleasant one to the President, brought the conference to a finish, and every prediction that I made to him about his reconstruction policy was fulfilled to the letter. Curtin took only an incidental part in the conference, and we parted with ceremonial courtesy, never to meet again.