Finally, Botts concludes, presciently,
"...if any Copperhead in the North or Traitor in the South shall hereafter charge that Abraham Lincoln made unnecessary war upon the South, or that he came into office under a pledge to war upon Southern institutions, his friends may exultingly point to this record for a refutation of the slander, and to show what great personal sacrifices that generous-hearted man was prepared to make to avert the heavy calamities of a civil war, and to throw the responsibility where it properly belongs.
Botts was about thoroughly pro-Union as you could get. It is no surprise he would be pro-Union in his comments.
He dined on one occasion with Union Generals in Virginia during the war and was arrested shortly thereafter by Confederate forces for carrying a gun on an active battlefield. IIRC, Botts claimed he was carrying the gun for someone else and was released later the same day.
I just noticed that at the top of page 195 of the Botts book, the date of April 5 is given for the meeting of Lincoln and Baldwin.
Supposedly Baldwin was a strong Union supporter. But I note that Baldwin early on became a colonel on the Confederate side (see: Col. J. B. Baldwin and Several Balwin mentions under Local/County/State Politics). The second link mentions that people accused Baldwin, who ran for and won an election, of having Union sympathies and of being (gasp!) a 'Hamiltonian' (gotta love it). Apparently his loyalty to Virginia trumped his love for the Union.