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A narrative history of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference, the bipartisan, last-ditch effort to prevent the Civil War, an effort that nearly averted the carnage that followed. In February 1861, most of America's great statesmen - including a former president, dozens of current and former senators, Supreme Court justices, governors, and congressmen - came together at the historic Willard Hotel in a desperate attempt to stave off Civil War. Seven southern states had already seceded, and the conferees battled against time to craft a compromise to protect slavery and thus preserve the union and prevent war. Participants included former President John Tyler, General William Sherman's Catholic step-father, General Winfield Scott, and Lincoln's future Treasury Secretary, Salmon Chase - and from a room upstairs at the hotel, Lincoln himself.