I have endeavored to procure copies of all the official letters written by Governor Vance at this important crisis in our affairs, but, with one exception, have failed. Copies of these letters, together with his letter-book then in use, with other important documents, were packed in a box which was captured at Greensboro, and taken to Washington City, as I have elsewhere mentioned. These records will doubtless be restored to the State at no distant day; and our people will yet have proof that their Governor did all that man could do--I may say all that a man thwarted by undue interference could do--to save the State and her capital from outrage, and humiliation, and anarchy. I subjoin General Sherman's reply to the letter delivered by the commission: HEADQUARTERS MILITARY DIVISION } OF THE MISSISSIPPI, IN THE FIELD, } GULLY'S STATION, N.C., April 12, 1865. } _To his Excellency Z.B. Vance, Governor of the State of North-Carolina_: Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of this date, and inclose you a safeguard for yourself and any members of the State government that choose to remain in Raleigh. I would gladly have enabled you to meet me here, but some interruption occurred to the train by the orders of General Johnston, after it had passed within the lines of my cavalry advance; but as it came out of Raleigh in good faith, it shall return in good faith, and will in no measure be claimed by us. I doubt if hostilities can be suspended as between the army of the Confederate government and the one I command; but I will aid you all in my power to contribute to the end you aim to reach--the termination of the existing war. I am, truly, your obedient servant, W.T. Sherman, Major-General. In however unfavorable a light strict regard for the truth of history places General Sherman as a disciplinarian and leader of the great army that swept the Southern States with a besom of destruction; however dark the pictures of lawless pillage and brutal outrage, unrestrained and uncensured by the Commanding General--if indeed they were not especially directed and approved by him and his officers; however unenviable General Sherman's fame in _these_ respects, equal regard for truth demands that in representing him at the council-board he shall appear in a much more commendable aspect, exhibiting there feelings of humanity and a capacity for enlarged and generous statesmanship entirely worthy of a really great general. If General Sherman's views and plans for closing the war had been adopted by his government, there can be no doubt that peace would have been _accomplished_ in less than two months from the surrender of our armies; peace that would have been speedily followed by good-will in every Southern State, in spite of the waste and burning track of his army.