Lee, Breckinridge, and Campbell
Lee, Breckinridge, and Campbell
The Confederate Peacemakers of 1865
In the late winter of 1865, the newly appointed Confederate Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge believed that the war was lost, reunion all but inevitable, and with Lee’s endorsement the Confederate Congress might press Jefferson Davis to sue for peace. For months prior to Appomattox, Lee, Breckinridge, and Assistant Secretary of War John A. Campbell strategized on how the Confederacy might avoid an absolute military subjugation. As late as April 2, Breckinridge and Campbell were devising a new peace strategy, and on April 7 Lee and the secretary of war discussed how they might yet avoid outright surrender. Highlighting the interplay between the military and political goals of the war, Davis’s essay places Lee’s exchanges with Grant between April 7 and 9 into context: if Lee could stall as long as possible and perhaps convince the Union general to agree to an armistice, perhaps the Confederacy might yet survive intact or at the very least the Union would be forced to make significant concessions.
Keywords: Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, John C. Breckinridge, Surrender
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