with his government, to act as agents to furnish rebel soldiers who had
escaped to Canada, and who desired to return South, with all the necessary
clothing, rations and money, &c., to enable them to go to Montreal or
Quebec, where there were regularly established rebel agencies, who upon
the arrival of such soldiers so furnished with money, for all the money so
advanced, with perhaps interest, was returned. In this way Mr. Holcombe
enlisted, besides the feelings, the interests of a great many prominent
business men, whose means had been advanced to rebels, and all along the
Grand Trunk and Great Western railway, in all the principal towns and
cities, he succeeded in establishing such agencies, which although at
first intended only for those who were rebel soldiers, finally became
nothing more than recruiting rendezvous for the rebel army, which all the
skedadlers, refugees from the Northern and Border States who wished to
join the Southern army, were received, fed, clothed and quietly
transported to the South. Upon the departure of Mr. Holcombe south, his
business was turned over to C.C. Clay, who after that acted in this
capacity. It was during Holcombe's stay in Canada, that the speculative
brain of George N. Sanders, first originated the great humbug of the
Niagara Falls peace conference, at which there was but one rebel official,
and he was not authorized to act in any such capacity. But the speculative
Sanders, having lived like Barnum nearly his whole life, upon humbugs,
made his last and greatest effort to humbug the American people, into the
belief that the Southern people really desired peace, and that he Clay and
Holcombe, although not regularly authorized by the Rebel government, still
could speak for and influence the Southern people. While in reality the
whole conference was nothing on the part of Sanders & Co., but the last
act of a desperate political gamester, who ventured his all upon one last
throw of dice, to win or lose it all. If Sanders, Holcombe, Clay and
others, could have made the people of the North believe the South really
desired peace, and that the only obstacle in the way was the obstinacy of