Hampton Roads Conference

Hampton Roads Conference

Hampton Roads Conference, February 3, 1865, a four-hour meeting between Northern and Southern leaders in an attempt to end the American Civil War. Spokesmen for the Union were President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward. The Confederacy was represented by Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell, and Senator R. M. T. Hunter. They met aboard the River Queen, a Union steamboat anchored in Hampton Roads near Fort Monroe, Virginia.

President Lincoln offered peace on condition that the seceded states return to the Union, accept the freeing of their slaves, and disband their troops. Although the South's military defeat was at hand, its delegates did not have authority to accept any offer of peace unless it guaranteed independence to the Confederacy. As neither side would back down, the conference ended without producing any results.