Abraham Lincoln and the Fifth Column

IT is a curious coincidence, and not altogether a happy one, that Mr. Milton’s history of defeatism and treason during the Civil War should appear in the same year as Mr. Wood Cray’s The Hidden Civil War. In this instance comparisons are inevitable. It is as true as it is polite to say that both books are excellent, each in its own way, and that perhaps Mr. Milton’s history supplements and illustrates Mr. Gray’s.

Mr. Milton tells the sad and dreary story of (he perversion of the Northern Democratic partisans — who sincerely opposed the coercion of the South, who abhorred the violations of the Constitution by the Republican administration, who advocated peace and compromise—into partners in downright sedition and treason. Spurred on by active “Southern Sympathizers,” their movement developed into secret machinations against the government. Such underground organizations as the Knights of the Golden Circle, Sons of Liberty, and others boasted hundreds of thousands of members pledged, in many cases, to armed resistance. For several years the dubious chances of the Union Armies were deeply threatened by a fifth column, ready and willing to stab in the back. Mr. Milton recounts all this — a familiar story to many — in an easy, agreeable style. R. E. D.