Civil War Material from the William Reese Company

Item 29 offers another archive, and a most interesting one from near the end of the Civil War. It pertains to the unsuccessful Hampton Roads Peace Conference. At the suggestion of Horace Greeley and others, leaders from the North and South got together on a boat off of Hampton Roads, Virginia, on February 3, 1865. Representing the Union was President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward. For the Confederacy, there was Vice-President Alexander Stephens, Virginia Senator Robert Hunter, and Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell. Lincoln and Stephens conversed about old times, they both having been Whigs before that party broke apart in the early 1850s. However, the conference was doomed from the start. The Confederates were not authorized to accept anything that did not recognize Confederate sovereignty, and Lincoln would not accept anything that recognized the southern states as anything other than a part of the Union. They talked for four hours, and Lincoln offered compensation to slave owners in return for the South voluntarily accepting emancipation, but the issue of southern independence made these other questions moot. After the four hours of discussions, the parties broke up, and the war continued, though it would only last a little over two months longer before the South was compelled to surrender. They would have been better off accepting the terms offered, as the war's outcome was virtually assured by this time. Among these documents is Campbell's handwritten report, an important document since it was agreed that no official notes would be taken. $100,000.

This next item could be an example of business as usual in the Civil War South, or alternatively, a case of denial. It is a broadside announcement of an Administrator's Sale! Land & Negroes. The sale was scheduled for the first Tuesday in December 1862. Offered was 640 acres of land on the Oostanaula River, five miles west of Calhoun, Georgia. No details are provided about the slaves. Any buyer would have had to have had a lot of confidence in a southern victory to buy slaves at this point. President Lincoln has issued the Emancipation Proclamation the previous September 22, and it was scheduled to go into effect on January 1, 1863 in all states then in rebellion against the Union. In less than a month, those slaves would be free, at least under federal law, though so long as the Confederacy could hold out, they would remain de facto property. Item 16. $4,750.

The William Reese Company may be reached at 203-789-8081 or amorder@reeseco.com. Their website is www.reeseco.com.