The Great Conspiracy

The Great Conspiracy

The Project Gutenberg EBook The Great Conspiracy, Complete, by
Logan [A History of The Civil War in the United States of America]
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Title: The Great Conspiracy, Complete
Author: John Alexander Logan
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7140] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 14,
2003]

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Language: English
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CONSPIRACY, COMPLETE ***

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THE GREAT CONSPIRACY
Its Origin and History
BY
JOHN LOGAN

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 understand than he, how hard, how very hard,
it must be for men of strong nature and intense feeling, after taking a
mistaken stand, and especially after carrying their conviction to the
cannon's mouth, to acknowledge their error before the world. Hence,
while he has endeavored truly to depict--or to let those who made
history at the time help him to depict--the enormity of the offence of
the armed Rebellion and of the heresies and plottings of certain
Southern leaders precipitating it, yet not one word will be found, herein,
condemnatory of those who, with manly candor, soldierly courage, and
true patriotism, acknowledged that error when the ultimate arbitrament
of the sword had decided against them. On the contrary, to all such as
accept, in good faith, the results of the war of the Rebellion, the writer
heartily holds out the hand of forgiveness for the past, and good
fellowship for the future.
WASHINGTON,