By Dr. Ian Hunt
Long before the American Civil War ended, President Abraham Lincoln was focusing on peace.
By December 1864, the Confederacy was on the rocks. Under Ulysses S. Grant, the U.S. Army was putting relentless pressure on Robert E. Lee and his troops in the area surrounding Richmond and Petersburg. In the South, Gen. William T. Sherman had taken Atlanta.That month, Lincoln delivered a message to Congress in which he said there would be no compromise on reuniting North and South or on ending slavery. The Confederacycould have peace at any time by accepting those two conditions, he said, but Jefferson Davis would not bend. “It is an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory,” Lincoln said.
Just two months later, things appeared increasingly desperate for the Confederacy. Both Grant and Sherman continued to build upon their successes by whittling away the last vestiges of Confederate military power while President Lincoln prepared to commence his second term. In the first week of February emissaries from the CSA met with Lincoln to discuss possible terms for peace. That meeting, however, would go nowhere as Lincoln refused to back down from a restoration of national authority with no compromise on the abolition of slavery. The Southerners, meanwhile, had been instructed by Jefferson Davis to accept nothing less than a complete recognition of the Confederacy as a nation. The Hampton Roads Conference would conclude with no significant movement towards peace.
And so the war continued, with the Confederacy losing ground with every passing day. Lee’s army was crumbling before his eyes. Richmond had fallen. Lincoln had even visited the former Confederate capital and tried out Jefferson Davis’s seat. This was not Lincoln taking a victory lap so much as getting a first-hand look at one of the most important developments of the war.
The very next day, Lincoln produced a remarkable document, one that is now part of the collection of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Written just 10 days before Lincoln’s death, it spelled out for the final time what he felt the Confederates must do to achieve peace.
When Lincoln visited the shattered city of Richmond, he was approached by John Campbell, one of the Confederate emissaries who had met with Lincoln in February to discuss reunification. This time, he was even more desperate to find a path to peace for Virginia. Campbell inquired as to what would be required and Lincoln offered a written response on April 5, 1865.
Lincoln's message to John Campbell listing his requirements for an end to the war.
“As to peace, I have said before, and now repeat, that three things are indispensable,” the president wrote.
- Restoration of national authority everywhere. This meant the Confederate states would acknowledge they were part of the United States of America and were subject to federal authority like every other state.
- No backtracking on slavery. Enslaved people freed by the Emancipation Proclamation would remain free. The constitutional process to end slavery would continue.
- Complete surrender by all Confederate forces. Lincoln wanted to minimize the possibility of armed resistance continuing in pockets for years to come.
“All propositions coming from those now in hostility to the government; and not inconsistent with the foregoing, will be respectfully considered, and passed upon in a spirit of sincere liberality,” Lincoln added, meaning that he was open to other proposals so long as they included these three “indispensable” elements. He concluded his writing with another reminder that the abolition of slavery was non-negotiable.
Today, Lincoln’s list of conditions – his final written thoughts on what it would take to end America’s bloodiest war – belongs to the people of Illinois. The list is part of the ALPLM’s collection.
His offer was essentially set aside, however, as events raced forward and tragedy struck.
First, Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia, leaving a hodgepodge of Confederate resistance spread across the South, with the largest concentration being forces under Gen. Joe Johnston in North Carolina. Then, on April 14, Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth. He died the following morning.
An illustration of Abraham Lincoln's assassination.
Republican authorities in Washington were furious. Many believed that Booth was not acting on his own and that the Confederate leadership had been involved in Lincoln’s assassination. They wanted to make the South pay. U.S. military leaders were ordered to continue to apply pressure on what was left of the Confederate military. Within days the various Confederate commands began to surrender and the fighting would soon come to an end. All that was left was to rebuild the nation.
So the delicate work of reuniting the nation and building new lives for millions of enslaved people was not guided by Abraham Lincoln, a man of principle who had successfully guided the nation through its bloodiest conflict. Instead, it was divided among the new president, Southern-sympathizing Andrew Johnson; Republican leaders furious with Southerners whom they blamed for both the war and Lincoln’s death, and finally military officers with an array of feelings about Reconstruction and the future of African Americans.
What did that mean? Look at Virginia. It took five long years before the state was fully restored to its pre-Civil War status. It ratified the 13th Amendment, which ended slavery, but refused to ratify the 14th and 15th, which guaranteed due process and voting rights. Virginia and other Southern states were no longer in rebellion, but they certainly were not embracing America’s new direction.
A school for formerly enslaved people being burned during the 1866 "Memphis Massacre"
One can only imagine how different Reconstruction might have been had Lincoln survived his second term and directed Reconstruction instead of his vice president, Andrew Johnson. Looking at Lincoln’s list of indispensable conditions for peace inspires us to wonder about the possibilities.
Hunt is the ALPLM’s chief of acquisitions.