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

[Eva Elisabeth]

Welcome Mr. Conroy! This is such an interesting topic!! It must have been a weird situation - with Stephens and Lincoln being friends and enemies at once, meeting to discuss while all knowing in advance it would be to no avail. Or did any of the five participants truly expect any success? Stephens called the mission a "humbug" from the outset (though he should at least have considered it a success that Lincoln promised Stephens to return his nephew, a prisoner on Johnson's Island), and for Lincoln there was no need to negotiate any of his positions as victory was near. Did Jefferson Davis believe in a success?

There's also one dialogue I especially like as I find it representative for A. Lincoln's diplomacy as well as his ready wit and humble personality. When Hunter urged “that the recognition Mr. Davis’s power to make a treaty, was the first and indispensable step to peace” and referred “to the correspondence of King Charles the First, and his Parliament, as a reliable precedent, of a constitutional ruler, treating with rebels”, Lincoln replied: “Upon questions of history, I must refer you to Mr. Seward, for he is posted in such things, and I don’t profess to be bright. My only distinct recollection of that matter is, that Charles lost his head.” (This “settled Mr. Hunter for a while.”)

It seems the book is not available in paperback, is it? Will it be sometime?