When was it to late to kidnap?

[Thomas Thorne]

Once the Union government agreed to reinstitute the prisoner exchanges, the kidnapping lost its reason. Once the Confederate government lost its seat of government and principal cities,where would the exchanged Confederate P.O.W.'s have been sent? How many of the released prisoners would have been healthy enough to return to military duty? Where would they have obtained the needed food,clothing and equipment? Would the U.S.government have submitted to a ransom demand especially with the realization that the numbers of released prisoners exceeded the size of any remaining Confederate field army?

The kidnapping was at best a "Hail Mary" play. I can't believe that any hard headed Confederate official was seriously entertaining the notion in Feb 1865 or thereafter. That any of the conspirators still contemplated kidnapping at this date or later bespeaks their desperation and shame: the desperate need to "do something or anything" to advance their cause and their shame they had not sufficiently and openly participated in the struggle for Southern independence.
Tom