| Book
Reviews
Dark Union
Dark Union, based largely on materials gleaned from musty libraries
and obscure archives from Canada south to Georgia and west to Indiana
paints a murky-and at times confusing-tale of Abraham Lincoln’s
involvement in a secret web of profiteers, politicians, and various
conspiracies that ultimately led to the President’s death.
The profiteers/politicians piece of what reads more like a mystery
thriller was a semi-clandestine scheme to sell Southern cotton (initially
with Lincoln’s involvement and support) in European markets
to help pay the tremendous Union war debts. Woven into this web,
Dark Union chronicles John Wilkes Booth and others as they plot
to initially kidnap Lincoln, which ended tragically in the presidential
box at Ford’s Theater.
Along the way, the book, by historian Leonard F. Guttridge and Ray
A. Neff of Indiana State University introduces a Doylestown man
among a cast of literally hundreds who participated in the stranger-than-fiction
account of what skeptics would classify as more of a mystery than
a history. To quote from the book’s inside flap, “The
truth is far more complex and mysterious than has ever been revealed-until
now.” The authors declare that Lincoln sanctioned the Confederate
cotton for a European deal as the war was nearing its end in late
1864. It was, they argue, a matter of avoiding national bankruptcy.
However, they also point out, Lincoln began to have serious doubts
about his involvement in a scheme that would be considered trading
with the enemy. At the same time, some of Lincoln’s once-fierce
radical Republican allies got wind of the cotton scheme and immediately
set about developing a plot to remove him from office for being
party to an arrangement considered soft on the hated Confederacy.
To again quote from the inside flap of, “...with holdouts
from crumbling Confederacy scheming to kidnap the President-and
an unstable actor threatening to take matters into his own hands,”-it
was only a matter of time. Source materials from documents ascribed
to various libraries and archives told of “a rouges gallery
of unpublished photograph, to deciphered intelligence locked within
a military tome, to recorded memories of a centenarian whose enterprising
father-unmentioned by history-were pivotal in crafting this work.”
Referring again to details from the book’s inside flap, there
is information that Booth was, as most writers have asserted, not
killed in a tobacco barn after the assassination; rather, he escaped
and fled to India.
Late in the book, the authors introduce one Walter Grant Pollock,
they write, was a resident of Doylestown who at one time served
as a federal detective tracking down leads in the sordid events
that followed the assassination and its related intrigues. They
also indicate that Pollock was a second cousin of the President.
Citing the date of March 21, 1876 (a decade after Lincoln’s
death) other federal detectives interviewed Pollock at his home
to determine what he might know about the unusual deaths of three
men who were involved in the nefarious activity surrounding cotton-for-cash
and the assassination. Pollock supposedly told the detectives that
“the circumstances in each case were so painful that he could
not discuss them.” Pollock also admitted studying pharmacy
and working as a druggist before joining the federal detective service.
He insisted that he was not a member of any conspiracy to poison
anybody, “and if they (the detectives) had any evidence that
said otherwise, they had better turn it over to a grand jury.”
The detectives snapped back that they would do that, and when they
accused him of feigning grief to avoid answering questions, Pollock
promptly ordered them out.
The book notes that arsenic was a suspected cause of death of at
least one of the three men. The authors are so convinced of Pollock’s
involvement that a photo of the Doylestown man in Dark Union identify
him in his “own words and other testimony identify him as
something of ‘a hit man.’” At this point, the
co-authors make these paraphrased observations: Federal detectives
and military representatives meeting to consider possible indictments
of five defendants (including Pollock) resulted in “recommendations
to pursue this course of action.”
However, President Grant in February, 1877, was warned that convictions
(for a number of reasons) were unlikely...and failure to convict
would have “staggering political implications.” Convictions
might be just as politically undesirable, for who could tell what
direction the testimony might take and just what previously undisclosed
secrets might be dislodged by an astute defense. “It was best
that the matter be dropped.” The weary Grant-at the end of
his presidency and wracked by two scandal ridden term-decided that
would be best. Reviewed by Fred Groshens. (Dark Union was published
in 2003 by John Wiley and Sons Co. Hoboken, NJ)
The American Plague: The Untold Story of
Yellow Fever, The Epidemic That Shaped Our History:
308 pages by Molly Cadwell Crosby. Delving into America’s
not so distant past, a recount of one of the greatest epidemics
of our time; Yellow Fever in Memphis Tennessee-taking more lives
than the Chicago Fire, San Francisco Earthquake and the Johnstown
Flood combined. It is a narrative journey into Cuba and West Africa,
where a handful of doctors, including Walter Reed (1851-1902) would
change medical history. Yellow Fever shaped the history of the United
States. Slave ships brought the virus to the western hemisphere,
and over the centuries, it would strike five hundred thousand Americans,
killing one hundred thousand of them. It attacked port towns and
found its lifeblood in the Mississippi River. It touched states
from Texas to Massachusetts, forcing the nation’s capital
from Philadelphia (1790-1800) to Washington and precipitating the
Louisiana Purchase (1803). It paralyzed governments, halted commerce,
and quarantined cities, and altered the outcome of wars. (Four Stars)
Review provided by Ralph Arnold.
Confederate Heroines: 120 Southern Women
Convicted by Union Military Justice, 212 pages by
Thomas P. Lowery.
Many southern women challenged Federal authority in direct ways:
smuggling maps, medicines, and munitions; aiding deserters, spying,
and feeding Confederate Bushwhackers. 75,000 federal court martials
from the National Archives files brings to light for the first time
women of the south caught in the inexorable Union judicial machinery.
A remarkable picture of courage but somewhat repetitive. (Three
Stars) Review provided by Ralph Arnold
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