Booknotes: The Plot to Perpetuate Slavery

New Arrival:

• The Plot to Perpetuate Slavery: How George McClellan, Southern Spies and a Confidence Man Nearly Derailed Emancipation by Phil Roycraft (McFarland, 2024).

If you're like me, the memory banks are empty in regard to what the alleged plot referenced in this title could possibly be about.

From the description: "In the aftermath of the September 1862 Battle of Antietam, President Abraham Lincoln issued the most significant presidential decree in American history, the Emancipation Proclamation, which would forever free all slaves in territory not under Union control. Nevertheless, his chief military commander in the field, Major General George B. McClellan, was outraged. Within days, two former Union officers nefariously crossed the lines into rebeldom, an initiative resulting in an elaborate subterfuge to scam Lincoln into withdrawing the Proclamation in return for nebulous promises of peace."

Perusing the Preface and Introduction of The Plot to Perpetuate Slavery: How George McClellan, Southern Spies and a Confidence Man Nearly Derailed Emancipation, the "confidence man" referred to in the book's subtitle is John Wesley Greene. Author Phil Roycraft claims that his "ten years of exhaustive research" and use of "historical forensics" has revealed a plot "never revealed during the war or since, which casts a new light on the dramatic events of 1862" (pg. 1).

More from the description: "This book tells the story, obscured in a veil of secrecy for 150 years, of the cloak and dagger chess match between Union detectives and Southern operatives in the months before emancipation become effective. Despite an ominous warning by author Herman Melville five years before, the scheme to perpetuate slavery almost succeeded, for it was engineered by a man the National Police Gazette once declared the "King of the Confidence Men.""

On pages 4 and 5 of the Introduction, the author summarizes the book's "series of disquieting conclusions" that are "(b)ased on largely circumstantial but compelling evidence" in eight bullet points, which you can read for yourself via the 'Look Inside' feature found by clicking on the bolded title link provided above.