“One of the most dramatic episodes Mark Tooley captures is the news of the earlier than expected arrival of the President-elect in the Willard Hotel. The news is brought in a message to one of Virginia’s leading delegates, James Seddon. Seddon will soon find service in Richmond as the Confederacy’s Secretary of War.”

Thucydides begins his immortal Peloponnesian War with the embassies of rival city-states of Corinth and Corcyra addressing the Athenian assembly, each side making its case for an alliance. The father of history tells us candidly that of all the speeches he records in his epic study of the war that ensues between Athens and Sparta, many are those he has only heard about. He posits the addresses of envoys by what he believes the rational actor would have said given the circumstances.

Author Mark Tooley has a decided advantage over Thucydides: He has the written records of the month-long Washington Peace Conference of 1861. All the participants in this gathering at the Willard Hotel were deeply aware that this was the last best hope to avert civil war. Tooley references speech after speech of delegates North and South and, significantly, delegates from states that regarded themselves as Western or Border states.

Mark Tooley is well suited to write this groundbreaking book. His long time service in Washington, in and out of government, give him a sense of the interplay of the political and social forces at work then as now. Also, as President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), Tooley understands the significant role played by the clergy of the capital city. Too many of our purely secular historians leave out this needed dimension in understanding our nation’s past.

Virtually every one of the men in Tooley’s book is keenly conscious of the precipice yawning before the assembled “Old Gentlemen.” Yes, they are mostly elderly. They have chosen former President John Tyler as their chairman. Tyler is accompanied by his much younger wife, Julia Gardner Tyler. This book gives merited attention to the women’s ideas and experiences.

The vivacious Mrs. Tyler is clearly in her element, glad to be back in Washington after sixteen years. She hails from a distinguished New York family. But her sympathies are all with the slaveholding South.

The delegates know that Secessionists have already sought to sever seven states from the Union. Virginia and North Carolina seem on the verge of leaving. What have they come to discuss? The remaining Slave States want guarantees that their “peculiar institution” of slavery will be protected by the incoming Republican administration. They demand the right to take their slave “property” into the national territories. They want, in short, President-elect Lincoln to disavow the Chicago Platform on which he was elected and give in to their demands.

Lincoln is off stage through most of this book, traveling by train from Springfield to the nation’s capital. There is surely drama enough in his approach to the District of Columbia. Rumors of war circulate through the muddy streets of Washington. It is even considered a “provocation” by Southerners remaining in Congress to have a military parade in honor of Washington’s Birthday, February 22^nd.

At 75, Gen. Winfield Scott is weighed down with his medals, his sword, and his 350 pounds. But he is hale enough to ensure the counting of the Electoral Votes proceeds without incident in the Capitol.

Gen. Scott has more than his regular soldiers and U.S. Marines to rely upon, however. When threats are made to violently disrupt the formal election of Abraham Lincoln as President, Vermont militia volunteers, dressed in plainclothes, mingle with the crowd in the Capitol building. Several rooms off the main House Chamber are secured, presumably to serve as a temporary arsenal should these 1861-era Minutemen be called upon to defend the Republic.

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