"Our One Common Country" author talk in Stratford, CT

[James Conroy]

The remarkable thing about the Hampton Roads Peace Conference of 1865 was not its failure, near the end of the fourth year of a catastrophic civil war, but its success in bringing together in a reasonable, even cordial discussion five of the combatants' senior leaders, including the President of the United States and the Vice President of the Confederacy, who had been friends in the Congress of 1848, opposing the Mexican War. In researching and writing the book, I learned a great deal about Lincoln, the nature of negotiation, and the dysfunction of our current government.