The Cotton Deals

[L Verge]

Thanks, Roger. I actually know the nutshell of the cotton issue, but I'm looking for more meat inside that shell - such as what you just provided.

Higham's book (although I never finished reading it) is one of those that I knew - along with Dark Union and an unpublished ms - are based on the "cotton killed Lincoln" theory. Since reading The Lincoln Deception, however, I have become more intrigued with the theory. I have learned a great deal from two online sources: http://www.thebhc.org/publications/BEHpr...-p0312.pdf and http://www.abrahamlincolnclassroom.org. The more I read, the more powerful names kept popping up. Some of Lincoln's closest friends and political allies were increasingly involved in the trading (and some would add the word "scandal" at the end of that sentence).

Fernando Wood's high-jinks became obvious to me while reading Michael Kline's Baltimore Plot, but now I'm intrigued with the likes of Thurlow Weed, Orville Browning, Ward Hill Lamon, Benjamin Butler, and others being involved. On the opposite side, Stanton and Welles were hesitant to join in and Grant and Sherman considered the trading policies a detriment to the war effort in many respects. Lincoln even helped his Confederate widow sister-in-law, Emilie Helms, get her cotton on the market. The whole issue seems to be a separate sub-plot under the whole North-South issue.