STATE OF PARTIES--THE FEELING OF THE PEOPLE--THE "PEACE" PARTY--IMPORTANT LETTER FROM GOVERNOR VANCE IN JANUARY, 1864--HIS REËLECTION--THE WAR PARTY--THE PEACE PARTY--THE MODERATES--GOVERNOR GRAHAM'S LETTER OF MARCH, 1865--EVACUATION OF RICHMOND. He who would write a history of public events passing in his own day will find, among the many obstacles in the way of a clear and correct delineation, that he is continually met with doubts and hesitations in his own mind as to the impartiality of his views and decisions. The prejudices of party feeling must inevitably confuse and blind to some extent even the clearest judgment; and while a consciousness of this renders the faithful historian doubly anxious to exercise strict impartiality, he will find himself embarrassed by the divisions and subdivisions of opinion, bewildered by conflicting representations, and in danger of becoming involved in contradictions and inconsistencies. In the first chapter of these sketches it was remarked, with reference to the North and the South, that there was too much to be forgotten and too much to be forgiven between them, to hope at present for a fair and unprejudiced history of the war on either side. In relation to the parties that existed among ourselves during the war, it is equally true that the time has not yet arrived for a fair statement or comparison of their respective merits or demerits. While there is much that may be written and much that has been written which may with propriety be given to the public, there is much more that must at present be suppressed or receive only a passing notice. More especially is this true in regard to the secession party and its adherents. Yet in presenting even these slight sketches of the state of things during the war in North-Carolina, it would be impossible to ignore them, and unfair to represent them as without influence among us. For while it is incontestably true that the great mass of our people engaged reluctantly in the war, and hailed the prospect of peace and an honorable reünion, yet there was at the same time hardly a town in the State or an educated and refined community which did not furnish their quota of those who, without having been _original secessionists_, yet had thrown themselves with extreme ardor on the side of the Southern States rights, and were ready to go all lengths in support of the war, and who are even now, though helpless and powerless, unwilling to admit that they were either in the wrong or in the minority. With many of them it was the triumph of heroic sentiment and generous feeling over the calmer suggestions of reason, for they were chiefly among our most refined and highly cultivated citizens. As a party, if not numerous, they were well organized and compact; they were socially and politically conspicuous, and did most of the writing and talking. They differed from the great body of their fellow-citizens, chiefly in the intensity of their loyalty toward