Dark Union: The Secret Web of Profiteers, Politicians, and Booth Conspirators That Led to Lincoln's Death

Guttridge and Neff have done a meticulous job of exposing the power elite operating in Washington and New York in 1865 and why they had decided that Lincoln had to go! Lincoln wanted reconciliation with the South with full citizen rights just as before the Civil war. He did not want the South looted and plundered. Wealthy and powerful people in the North had other ideas. Great fortunes were to be made by stealing the cotton in the South and selling it in Europe for large sums of money to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. In today's dollars that would be billions of dollars. The Power Elite got it their way. John Wilkes Booth, who really did escape, was just an instrument used to attain the Power Elite's goals. There has always been a Power Elite operating behind the scenes through out history. Kings, Presidents, Prime Ministers, call them what you like, are mostly puppets. The puppet masters operate behind the scenes and pull the strings. You don't have to look far to find out who they are. Who has all the gold? The power players who control the money supply have the real power and the politicians have to dance to the tune the Power Elite plays. One only has to study the JFK assassination to see how this all plays out. They got rid of Kennedy just like they got rid of Lincoln. For those who do not believe there is a Power Elite operating behind the scenes, I'm reminded what Senator Meachum says to Swagger in the film Shooter (2007). "Oh you poor dumb fool. You still don't get it. There are no Republicans or Democrats. There is no left or right. There are only haves and have not's. It's all about the money. Now which side do you want to be on son? Are you in or out?" That sums it up pretty good. For all the reviewers who said Guttridge and Neff did not document their sources, you must not have read the notes on pages 244-273. It's all there. And yes, be leery of establishment historians who owe their livelihood to perpetuating a false history which protects the Power Elite from being exposed.

A fascinating read. While not a historian myself, I do have a problem with critics here who find alliances between North and South brewing a conspiracy to be "unbelievable" because the 2 sides would ever agree on anything. This is why black-ops against leaders always succeed - we are too conditioned to accept the power that large sums of money truly has over individuals. (You can find examples of Arabs and Isrealis who mutually profit from businesses.) It's time we wake up and realize the control that banks and bankers have over world societies, by way of war-created debt and their media ownership. The plot detailed in this book is simply a result of that - and I think that's why this book has been raked over the coals. It's simply more evidence of that centuries of increasing control.

I picked up this book because I've read Guttridge's other books, even though this one seemed like a departure for him.I've read a lot of books on conspiracies, especially on the Kennedy assassination, and this one stacks up to the best of them. While the authors' arguments aren't perfect in some places and in others I would have liked to see some more evidence, the story they pull together from the evidence they do have--and it is a lot of evidence--is interesting and in many ways convincing.

Tom Thatcher has obviously read the recent North & South article slamming this very good book, although he uses that article's arguments as if they were his own. He also fails to note that the authors of that article, Ed Steers and Joan Chaconas, are hardly unbiased individuals: Steers has the arguments of his own book to protect, while Chaconas, who works at the Surrat Museum, has her job and myths that enable it to protect. Nor does Thatcher note that the article was based on a brief and hardly thorough review of Neff and Guttridge's extensive evidence. Instead he says--and it's possible at this point to speculate that he didn't even read this book--that Neff and Guttridge can't get their facts straight, whereas it's clear that Thatcher can't get his straight. I would recommend you read the book and decide for yourself.