Education for Life Author:Francis Greenwood Peabody Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER TWO THE NEGRO AFTER THE CIVIL WAR (1865-1868) AS ONE passes from the years of Civil War to the not less momentous period of National reconstruction... more »,, he is impressed by the historical importance of that small area of Virginia which lies about the town of Hampton. Great events are associated with the names of Gettysburg and Appomattox, but for an epitome of progress in those eventful years one may turn to the story of that peninsula which lies like a clenched hand thrust between the James and York rivers into the broad expanse of Chesapeake Bay. At its slender wrist are Jamestown, where American history began, and York- town, where it began anew; and on its bent finger is set the massive ring of Fortress Monroe. Only nine miles from the Fort, on June 10, 1861, the Northern forces met one of their earliest and most disheartening disasters at Big Bethel, in that ill-advised assault, of which even General Butler said: "Everything was utterly mismanaged." In the roadstead before the Fort, on March 9, 1862, the battle between the Merri- mac and the Monitor revolutionized naval science; and " Butler's Book," 1892, p. 276. at almost precisely the same point, on Feb. 3, 1865, Lincoln and Seward met in conference the Commissioners of the Confederacy and made a last and futile attempt at reconciliation. In the neighboring town of Hampton was given the first evidence of that fiery determination among Southern leaders, which could permit even the destruction of their own homes for the sake of their cause; and at Fortress Monroe itself the Negro race received the first recognition of its rights and took a share in the defence of its freedom. It is one of the most fortunate circumstances of Hampton Institute that it was established on this historic ground, and that its stud...« less