Our One Common Country

Reviews

“Conroy is a terrific writer who tells the story of one of the war’s least known episodes, the Hampton Roads Peace Conference. But it is the way he describes the people around Lincoln, their interaction with him and each other, that makes this such a good read. Great anecdotes—if you’re like me you’ll find yourself pausing every few pages and saying, ‘I never knew that’—my favorite kind of book!”

“A brilliant account of the doomed effort to end the Civil War through diplomacy…In this excellent debut, Boston-based attorney Conroy vividly captures the hope, weariness, despair, and anger of the moment and the complexity of feelings on both sides…A splendid addition to any Civil War library.”

“Conroy’s impressively thorough and engaging document details the events leading up to, during, and immediately after the Hampton Roads Peace Conference, which has never before been the sole subject of a book…Conroy draws on private journals, official notes, newspaper reports, and more as he untangles this important, but often overlooked, moment in history.”

“A richly detailed, carefully analyzed, and well-written account of the Hampton Roads meeting…An excellent and long-needed addition to Civil War historiography.”

“In this massively researched, exceptionally well-written book, James Conroy has illuminated and set in its historical context an episode familiar and yet hitherto not closely examined. By carefully inserting vignettes of the actual fighters into the big picture, he gives his account an immediacy and human dimension rarely found in serious historical works. This is, moreover, a page-turner to be read for sheer pleasure.”

“Exhaustively researched and engagingly written, James Conroy’s account of the Hampton Roads Conference makes an important contribution to the field of Civil War studies. General readers will enjoy the memorable portraits of individuals and the convincing re-creation of popular emotions as the war ground toward its close. Scholars will have to take more seriously the abundant evidence of the priority that Lincoln gave to conciliating Southern whites, in order to gain their cooperation in Reconstruction.”

“The end of the Civil War is one of those bits of history we all think we know: Appomattox and all that. This audiobook opens up the story of the men who were trying to end the carnage weeks and months earlier, most notably through a peace conference at Hampton Roads, Virginia. Narrator Malcolm Hillgartner lets the story carry itself without unnecessary added drama and shades his voice just enough that we can tell when quotations start and end. He conveys passion where it’s warranted, particularly in the Southern editorials, without jarring the overall tenor of the production.”

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