Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/382

 own grave, and was then murdered like a dog. The father, several years later, committed suicide. The mother was taken to the home of her son, Mr. Levi Getz, of Rockingham county, where she died some years ago.

These are facts well established by a number of citizens of Woodstock. It is important that they should be placed where they will be preserved, for the day will come when the impartial historian will write a true history of the war. It will be important for him to have access to a correct and true statement of facts. The one-sided stories that have been imposed, even upon our own children, by careless school boards will be swept aside, and the truth will be given to coming generations.

To the Editor of the Dispatch:

Did Abraham Lincoln, at the Hampton Roads conference, offer any compensation whatever for slaves? R. C. W.

The above inquiry having been referred to me, I answer with pleasure.

On January 29, 1865, the Confederate commissioners—Stephens, Hunter and Campbell—left Richmond to meet the Federal commissioners at Fort Monroe. There, on January 31st, they met in conference President Lincoln and Mr. Seward, Secretary of State.

The conference lasted four hours, and Mr. Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederate States, has left on record a detailed report of the discussion there.

Mr. Stephens pressed for a secret military convention between the two belligerents, with the object of uniting the people of the whole country in the defense of the Monroe doctrine, by expelling the French from Mexico, which would of necessity produce a truce, and that would lead to peace. Mr. Lincoln was peremptory that the