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.
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| John A. Campbell |
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| 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.
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| 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."
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| William H. Seward |
Seward, chastened
somewhat, opines that the 13th 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.
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| 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.
