Our One Common Country: Abraham Lincoln and the Hampton Roads Peace Conference of 1865
James B. Conroy
Language: English
Pages: 1
ISBN: 1482966093
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
[Read by Malcolm Hillgartner]
Our One Common Country explores the most critical meeting of the Civil War. Given short shrift or overlooked by many historians, the Hampton Roads Conference of 1865 was a crucial turning point in the War between the States. In this well written and highly documented book, James B. Conroy describes in fascinating detail what happened when leaders from both sides came together to try to end the hostilities. The meeting was meant to end the fighting on peaceful terms. It failed, however, and the war dragged on for two more bloody, destructive months.
Through meticulous research of both primary and secondary sources, Conroy tells the story of the doomed peace negotiations through the characters who lived it. With a fresh and immediate perspective, Our One Common Country offers a thrilling and eye-opening look into the inability of our nation's leaders to find a peaceful solution. The failure of the Hampton Roads Conference shaped the course of American history and the future of America's wars to come.
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a sharp cover note, as if Lincoln’s were not sharp enough. “I will add that General Ord’s conduct in holding intercourse with General Longstreet upon political questions not committed to his charge is not approved. . . . You will please in future instruct officers appointed to meet rebel officers to confine themselves to the matters specifically committed to them.” A newspaperman close to Grant said he took it as “an open rebuke.” It did not make him fonder of Stanton. Lincoln’s negativity on
boom of cannon awakened Washington and Richmond, bringing joy to one, despair to the other. Gideon Welles made an entry in his diary. “Guns are firing, bells ringing, flags flying, men laughing, children cheering, all are jubilant.” In Richmond, a citizen wrote, “God help us, we must take refuge in unbelief.” When Uncle Gideon went to see him in the morning, the president was effervescent. There would be no final battle of annihilation. The Army of Northern Virginia was no more. The war would
other boys. A month later, Seward took Mrs. Hunter to see the president, who ordered her husband’s release. He devoted himself to farming and his studies, barely making a living. A friend said, “Mr. Hunter regarded it as his duty to accept the union in good faith” and wished to help restore it. “It was deeply unfortunate that this sentiment was not at once recognized and acted on by the dominant party, instead of adopting, as they did, the policy of hate, military rule, and
to have the benefit of Mr. Stephens’s judgment before they met. Having neither sought nor respected Mr. Stephens’s judgment for years, his unexplained interest in collecting it now must have struck his vice president as odd. Then Davis let Stephens in on what everyone wanted to know—why Blair had come to Richmond. Even Stephens may have been speechless as Davis recounted the old man’s message: that the South could either be subjugated for a generation, or have a victory parade in Mexico City
elegant clerk. They took a train to Annapolis to steam down Chesapeake Bay to Hampton Roads. Governor Augustus Bradford welcomed them at Maryland’s statehouse. Seward urged him to assemble the legislature to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. Bradford was ahead of him. The State Senate would vote that very day, the General Assembly on Friday. The result was not in doubt. One of four loyal slave states, Maryland had just adopted its own ban on slavery. With Maryland in hand, Seward and Chew were