A talk of peace began once more, but the men of the South were determined to yield nothing as long as a rifle could be raised.  Nothing but their unrestricted independence would satisfy them.  The man who could call nothing his own but what was on his back was as much determined on his country’s independence as those who were the possessors of broad acres and scores of negroes.

Congressman Boyce, of South Carolina, began to call for a peace conference in the Confederate Congress.  Montgomery Blair, the father of General Frank P. Blair, then commanding a corps in Sherman’s Army, begged the North to halt and listen to reason—­to stop the fratricidal war.  Generals, soldiers, statesmen, and civilians all felt that it had gone on long enough.  Some held a faint hope that peace could be secured without further effusion of blood.  A peace conference was called at Hampton Roads, near the mouth of the Potomac.  President Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward, on the part of the North, and Vice-President Stephens, Honorable R.T.M.  Hunter, and Judge Campbell, on the part of the South, attended.  Lincoln demanded an “unconditional surrender” of the army—­emancipation of the slaves and a return to our former places in the Union.  Mr. Stephens and his colleagues knew too well the sentiment of the Southern people to even discuss such a course.  Not a soldier in ranks would have dared to return and face the women of the South with such a peace and on such terms as long as there was the shadow of an organized army in the field.

General Ord, of the Union Army, a humane and Christian gentleman, wrote and sought an interview with General Longstreet.  He wished that General to use his influence with General Lee and the officers of the army to meet General Grant, and with their wives mingling with the wives of the respective Generals, talk over the matter in a friendly manner, and see if some plan could not be framed whereby peace could be secured honorable to all parties.  All had had glory enough and blood sufficient had been shed to gratify the most savage and fanatical.  These officers or the most of them had been old school-mates at West Point, had been brother officers in the old army, their wives had mingled in pleasant, social intercourse at the army posts, and they could aid as only women can aid, in a friendly way, to bring back an era of good feelings.  General Ord further intimated that President Lincoln would not turn a deaf ear to a reasonable proposition for compensation for the slaves.  General Longstreet accepted the overtures with good grace, but with a dignity fitting his position.  He could not, while in the field and in the face of the enemy, with his superior present, enter into negotiations for a surrender of his army, or to listen to terms of peace.  He returned and counseled Lee.  Urged him to meet Grant, and as commander-in-chief of all the armies in the South, that he had a wide latitude, that the people were looking to him to end the war, and would