February 3, 1865---"Our One Common Country."

FEBRUARY 3, 1865:         

The Hampton Roads Peace Conference:

Having secured the abolition of slavery just over 100 hours earlier, President Abraham Lincoln quietly travels to City Point, Virginia, to meet with the Confederate Peace Commissioners sent by his Confederate counterpart, Jefferson Davis to discuss a possible end to the Civil War.  The meeting takes place aboard General Grant’s floating headquarters, the River Queen.

None of the three Commissioners is a stranger to Lincoln, and two --- Alexander Hamilton Stephens (“Little Aleck”) the Vice-President of the Confederacy, and former Associate Justice John A. Campbell --- are old friends, while Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter is an old political associate. Of the three, Stephens is the most dedicated to ending the war on virtually any terms. Stephens, though the Confederate Vice-President, is deeply estranged from Davis, and has been for years. 

John A. Campbell

R.M.T. Hunter

Davis is willing to treat with Lincoln on two possible points, a general cease-fire, and recognition by the United States of Confederate independence. Davis is intrigued by the idea of an alliance between the U.S.A. and the C.S.A. to drive the French-backed puppet “Empire” of Maximilian I out of Mexico. 

Jefferson Davis

Davis has couched his approval of the proposed Mexican adventure in terms of the Monroe Doctrine, but he is also eying the States of northern Mexico as expected additions to his Confederacy: "No circumstances would have a greater effect" [on European monarchists with ambitions in America] "than to see the arms of our countrymen from the North and the South united in a war upon a foreign power assailing principles of government common to both sections and threatening their destruction." Full Confederate independence is Davis’ necessary condition precedent for such an alliance.  

Lincoln knows that the Confederate cause is now a hopeless one; independence is a pipe dream. Having battered the Confederacy into literal pieces, Lincoln has no intention of granting the rebels their independence. The idea of a joint war upon Mexico goes nowhere.   

Aleck Stephens, however, sees another avenue and quite without his Chief Executive’s authorization, offers an immediate cease-fire with conditions to be spelled out through negotiations. Lincoln answers that, "The restoration of the Union is a sine qua non with me."  Seeing no other alternative, Campbell, the former Supreme Court Justice, immediately agrees to the President’s terms, shocking even Stephens the closet Unionist, who is engaging in political maneuvering and still unready to make concessions.

Lincoln presses the issue of reunification, explaining in detail his plans for Reconstruction. He promises compensation for seized property and emancipated slaves if the Confederacy willingly disbands.  

Oddly enough, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William H. Seward, argues with his Chief over the point openly in front of the Commissioners, saying that the Union cannot possibly afford a compensation scheme.

Lincoln, in a wise retort, answers, "Ah, Mr. Seward . . . you may talk so about slavery, if you will; but if was wrong in the South to hold slaves, it was wrong in the North to carry on the slave trade and sell them to the South . . . and to have held on to the money thus procured without compensation, if the slaves were to be taken by them again."

William H. Seward

Seward, chastened somewhat, opines that the 13^th Amendment cannot not possibly be ratified anyway if the southern States rejoin the Union forthwith.

In truth, reunification could have no impact and had no impact on ratification but Lincoln does not correct Seward this time, except to say that he will not allow the re-enslavement of anyone already emancipated.

Lincoln is playing carrot-and-stick, though not only for the obvious reasons. Concerned that the fracturing Confederate armies will devolve into roving gangs of bushwhackers as the war goes on, he is trying to sweeten the idea of voluntary reunification of the country.  He is willing to make significant concessions for peace, barring only disunion and the continuation of slavery.

When Hunter asks how the newly freed slaves will look after themselves, Lincoln does not mention the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill now working its way through Committee in Congress; instead he tells a rather ugly anecdote about an Illinois farmer who tells a neighbor that he has discovered a way to save time and labor in feeding his hogs. "What is it?" asks the neighbor. "Why, it is," said the farmer, "to plant plenty of potatoes, and when they are mature, without either digging or housing them, turn the hogs in the field and let them get their own food as they want it." "But," the neighbor inquired, "how will they do when the winter comes and the ground is hard frozen"? "Well," replied the farmer, "let 'em root."

“Let ‘em root” sounds cruel; it belies Lincoln’s support for the Freedmen’s Bill and it belies his desire to undercut slavery; but in truth it may have been a story calculated to soothe the ruffled feathers of the three Peace Commissioners who are feeling increasingly frustrated by Lincoln’s ironclad insistence on Union and Emancipation.

If so, it is an unsuccessful gambit. As the Peace Conference winds down, R.M.T. Hunter remarks that the Conference leaves to the South no option but “unconditional submission.”  Seward responds that "yielding to the execution of the laws under the constitution of the United States, with all its guarantees and securities for personal and political rights . . . [is not] properly considered as unconditional submission to conquerors, or as having anything humiliating in it."  

For himself, Lincoln constantly and consciously refers to “Our one common country” time and again.

In a token of goodwill, Lincoln then arranges for the parole of numbers of Confederate Prisoners of War.  He then proffers a General Amnesty to all Confederates who lay down their arms peaceably. The Conference ends on that note.

Although it is a secret Conference, word soon leaks out regarding the terms upon which Lincoln negotiated. Even his political enemies in the North cheer him for painting the South into a corner.

In the South, Jefferson Davis blasts Lincoln, and announces, “No negotiated peace!” Lincoln’s perceived intransigence has the brief effect of boosting Southern resolve, an effect Davis relishes. But soon enough the offer of compensation for lost property leaks out and it turns the heads of hungry and struggling Southerners; the idea of a General Amnesty inspires many Confederate soldiers to give up what has become an increasingly fruitless battle. 

A circa 1865 stereopticon slide of Union seamen at Hampton Roads

After Hampton Roads, the unyielding Davis as President and Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate States of America plays no further effective role as leader of the South.

Although the political effects of the Hampton Roads Peace Conference are nil, the social effects are immense. By offering the South a peace it can live with, Lincoln renders the quixotic Southern goals of the war meaningless and the price of surrender acceptably low. Although the war goes on for another eight weeks, aboard the River Queen Lincoln enunciates the terms upon which Lee and Grant, Johnston and Sherman, other field commanders, and millions of war-weary civilians find their way out of the war. 

No more prescient judgment on Lincoln could have been made by a contemporary than the February 1865 observation of General Ethan Allen Hitchcock U.S.A., made in the aftermath of the Hampton Roads Conference. General Hitchcock said of Abraham Lincoln:

 The President’s abilities are very great and his integrity and love of country are most profound. We have had no greater President ---  and depend upon it, by- and-bye this will be seen & acknowledged.