It is said that at the Hampton Roads Peace Conference in February, 1865, Lincoln wrote the two words "Reunion" and "Emancipation" on a blank sheet of paper and passed it to the Confederate commissioners, saying that if they wanted peace, they could fill in the rest.
Eight weeks later, after Lee's surrender to Grant and Lincoln's assassination, William T. Sherman faced the remaining Confederate army under Joseph E. Johnston. Sherman in effect repeated Lincoln's offer; and this time the Confederates accepted. The resulting peace plan, if approved by the new administration in Washington, would not only have stopped the fighting, but it might also have spared the nation the political agonies of the Reconstruction era yet to come.
But the North's reaction was a firestorm of outrage, Sherman's critics charging that if his proposal were accepted, it would throw away the larger part of what the war had been about. The authorities in Washington angrily rejected the document, but the questions still remain: would the adoption of this peace plan have robbed the Civil War of much of its meaning, stunting the political future of the United States as a nation, and if so, how could Sherman have had so limited a grasp of what really was at stake in the war he'd done so much to win?
Our speaker this month is Professor James Stanbery, a member of our Round Table for several decades (and he still looks so young!). Jim received his BA from UC Berkeley, and his MA from Cal State Long Beach. After a stint as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Philippines, he became a Professor of Political Science at L.A. Harbor College, where he continues to teach today. Jim has published articles on western theatre Civil War strategy and spoken widely on Civil War topics in and outside California. His interest in the Civil War reaches far back into his youth. He was greatly enriched by several of his teachers in junior high and high school, particularly John Zweers, long-time head of the CWRT of San Gabriel Valley, where Jim attended his CWRT meetings over forty years ago.
Come join us as we probe these important events that began the peace that reunited the country.Janet Whaley
Program Chair
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