The Hampton Roads Conference

The most famous and important meeting of the War for the Constitution (the American "Civil War") took place in Virginia aboard the U.S. steamer River Queen on February 3, 1865. And yet it receives barely a mention in our mainstream history books, except to say that "it was a futile effort that achieved nothing."

Known as the Hampton Roads Conference (named after its location at the famous ship anchorage in southeastern Virginia), in attendance on one side of the table were Confederate States Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Confederate Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell, and Confederate Senator Robert M. T. Hunter; and on the other side, United States President Abraham Lincoln and United States Secretary of State William H. Seward.

According to conventional history, the meeting opened with a "frank, honest, and kind-hearted Lincoln" offering generous promises to the "erring South," including $400,000,000 in compensation for her slaves upon emancipation - if only the seceded states would return to the Union, to "our one common country." The Confederate commissioners, however, viewed the meeting as a negotiation between "our two countries," demanding that the North recognize the constitutionally established independence of the Southern states. Lincoln refused to budge, in return demanding the C.S.A.'s complete surrender to the "national authority" of the U.S.A.

Four hours later the meeting adjourned with both parties at a stalemate. Conventional sources tell us that Lincoln had bent over backwards to accommodate the South, and that the conference only failed due to the intractable and defiant stubbornness of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, who placed political theory (regarding secession) above the lives of C.S. and U.S. soldiers.

Is any of this true? Absolutely not, and award-winning historian Lochlainn Seabrook's delightfully edifying book The Hampton Roads Conference: The Southern View proves it. Packed with 32 essays, articles, and commentaries written by both Victorian men and women, Southerners and Northerners, this illustrated, information-dense compendium of facts and figures destroys the many mainstream myths surrounding the conference, demonstrating once and for all the vital importance of this, the sixth and final meeting in which the two opposing sides would meet face-to-face. Seabrook includes a descriptive introduction, complete source notes, a detailed index, a comprehensive bibliography, and helpful appendices. The Hampton Roads Conference: The Southern View is available in paperback and hardcover. (All text copyright © Sea Raven Press)

Award-winning historian Lochlainn Seabrook is the author and editor of nearly 100 books, including: Abraham Lincoln Was a Liberal, Jefferson Davis Was a Conservative; Lincoln's War: The Real Cause, the Real Winner, the Real Loser; The Unholy Crusade: Lincoln's Legacy of Destruction in the American South; Heroes of the Southern Confederacy: The Illustrated Book of Confederate Officials, Soldiers, and Civilians; What the Confederate Flag Means to Me; The Great Yankee Coverup: What the North Doesn't Want You to Know About Lincoln's War; Confederacy 101: Amazing Facts You Never Knew About America's Oldest Political Tradition; Confederate Flag Facts: What Every American Should Know About Dixie's Southern Cross; Support Your Local Confederate: Wit and Humor in the Southern Confederacy; Women in Gray: A Tribute to the Ladies Who Supported the Southern Confederacy; Everything You Were Taught About American Slavery is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!; Honest Jeff and Dishonest Abe: A Southern Children's Guide to the Civil War; The Constitution of the Confederate States of America Explained; A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest.