This step was taken by Mr.
Davis because he saw that further effort on the part of the Confederates must be utterly futile.

When he failed at this conference to secure any recognition of his government, he spitefully turned to the prolongation of the struggle.

Every life destroyed in the conflict thereafter was needless slaughter, and the blood of the victims cries out against the Confederate Government for compelling the sacrifice.
When at last through sheer exhaustion the Confederate Armies ceased resistance and surrendered, they did so on precisely the same terms that had been offered by the Government of the Union three months before.

In the _interim_ the Confederate leaders had been deluding their people with the pretense that the "Lincoln Government" had outraged the South in refusing to recognize Confederate Nationality even long enough to treat with it for peace.

"Nothing beyond this," exclaimed Mr.Robert M.T.Hunter in a speech delivered at a meeting in Richmond held immediately after the Peace Conference to which he had been one of the commissioners,--"Nothing beyond this is needed to stir the blood of Southern men." In the course of his inflammatory address Mr.Hunter made the _naive_ confession: "If our people exhibit the proper spirit they will bring forth the deserters from their caves; and the skulkers, who are avoiding the perils of the field, will go forth to share the dangers of their countrymen." The "skulkers" and "deserters" referred to were no doubt brave men who, having fought as long as there was hope, were not ambitious to sacrifice their lives to carry on the shameless bravado of the political leaders of the Rebellion.
Mr.Hunter spoke with singular intemperance of tone for one who was usually cool, guarded, and conservative.