John Alexander Logan
The Great Conspiracy
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2019 OK Publishing
EAN 4064066052867
Table of Contents
Chapter I. A Preliminary Retrospect
Chapter II. Protection and Free Trade
Chapter III. Growth of the Slavery Question
Chapter IV. Popular Sovereignty
Chapter V. The Presidential Contest of 1860— The Crisis Approaching
Chapter VI. The Great Conspiracy Maturing
Chapter VIII. The Rejected Olive Branch
Chapter IX. Slavery's Setting, and Freedom's Dawn
Chapter X. The War-drum "On to Washington"
Chapter XI. The Causes of Secession
Chapter XII. Copperheadism vs. Union Democracy
Chapter XIII. The Storm of Battle
Chapter XIV. The Colored Contraband
Chapter XV. Freedom's Early Dawn
Chapter XVI. "Compensated Gradual Emancipation."
Chapter XVII. Border-state Opposition
Chapter XVIII. Freedom Proclaimed to All
Chapter XIX. Historical Review
Chapter XX. Lincoln's Troubles and Temptations
Chapter XXII. Freedom's Sun Still Rising
Chapter XXIII. "Thirteenth Amendment" in the Senate
Chapter XXIV. Treason in the Northern Camps
Chapter XXV. "The Fire in the Rear"
Chapter XXVI. "Thirteenth Amendment" Defeated in the House
Chapter XXVII. Slavery Doomed at the Polls
Chapter XXVIII. Freedom at Last Assured
Chapter XXIX. Lincoln's Second Inauguration
Chapter XXX. Collapse of the Armed Conspiracy
Chapter XXXII. Turning Back the Hands!
Preface
In the preparation of this work it has been the writer's aim to present in it, with historical accuracy, authentic facts; to be fair and impartial in grouping them; and to be true and just in the conclusions necessarily drawn from them. While thus striving to be accurate, fair, and just, he has not thought it his duty to mince words, nor to refrain from "calling things by their right names;" neither has he sought to curry favor, in any quarter, by fulsome adulation on the one side, nor undue denunciation on the other, either of the living, or of the dead. But, while tracing the history of the Great Conspiracy, from its obscure birth in the brooding brains of a few ambitious men of the earliest days of our Republic, through the subsequent years of its devolution, down to the evil days of Nullification, and to the bitter and bloody period of armed Rebellion, or contemplating it in its still more recent and, perhaps, more sinister development, of to-day, he has conscientiously dealt with it, throughout, in the clear and penetrating light of the voluminous records so readily accessible at the seat of our National Government. So far as was practicable, he has endeavored to allow the chief characters in that Conspiracy—as well as the Union leaders, who, whether in Executive, Legislative, or Military service, devoted their best abilities and energies to its suppression—to speak for themselves, and thus while securing their own proper places in history, by a process of self-adjustment as it were, themselves to write down that history in their own language. If then there be found within these covers aught which may seem harsh to those directly or indirectly, nearly or remotely, connected with that Conspiracy, he may not unfairly exclaim: "Thou canst not say I did it." If he knows his own heart, the writer can truly declare, with his hand upon it, that it bears neither hatred, malice, nor uncharitableness, to those who, misled by the cunning secrecy of the Conspirators, and without an inkling or even a suspicion of their fell purposes, went manfully into the field, with a courage worthy of a better cause, and for four years of bloody conflict, believing that their cause was just, fought the armies of the Union, in a mad effort to destroy the best government yet devised by man upon this planet. And, perhaps, none can better