Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1868. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... The interval of five years between 25 and 80 years' service would give officers ample time to consider whether they would retire from the service or follow it to the end. This alternative ought to be presented to them in the most explicit manner. Any prospective increase of pension would defeat the object of the whole arrangement, by bribing officers to remain whose retirement was demanded by the interests of the public service, of the officers below them, and, in a majority of cases, of the officers themselves. Mr. Childers' Committee was aware of the importance of this consideration, for they remarked that the pension should be so graduated as to give an officer, after thirty years' service, little or no inducement to remain in the corps solely on account of any prospect of better retirement at a greater age. At fifty, an officer should practically have to make his election between seeking the higher commands in the corps, or (if his qualifications or circumstances unfit him for them) retiring from the service; but the practice of the Committee was inconsistent with their principle, for they proposed to continue the graduated increase of pension up to forty years' service or sixty years of age. It is true that the annual increment of pension recommended by the Committee drops after thirty years' service from 25 to 15; but, if it really be desirable that officers should at fifty years of age have to elect between seeking the higher commands or retiring from the army, without being induced to remain by 'any prospect of better retirement at a greater age, ' why is that prospect proposed to be held out to them? I shall not enter on the question of rates of pension, because they cannot be determined until the rates of pay have been settled. When appointm...

    Edwin De Leon, a Confederate propagandist charged with wooing Britain and France, opens up this vital dimension of the war in the earliest known account by a Confederate foreign agent.First published in the New York Citizen in 1867-68, De Leon's memoir subsequently sank out of sight until its recent rediscovery by William C. Davis, one of the Civil War field's true luminaries. Both reflective and engaging, it brims with insights and immediacy lacking in other works, covering everything from the diplomatic impact of the Battle of Bull Run to the candid opinions of Lord Palmerston to the progress of secret negotiations at Vichy. De Leon discusses, among other things, the strong stand against slavery by the French and a frustrating policy of inaction by the British, as well as the troubling perceptions of some Europeans that the Confederacy was located in South America and that most Americans were a cross between Davy Crockett and Sam Slick. With France's recognition a priority, De Leon published pamphlets and used French journals in a futile attempt to sway popular opinion and pressure the government of Napoleon III. His interpretation of the latter's meeting with Confederate diplomat John Slidell and the eventual mediation proposal sheds new light on that signal event. De Leon was a keen observer and a bit of a gossip, and his opinionated details and character portraits help shed light on the dark crevices of the South's doomed diplomatic efforts and provide our only inside look at the workings of Napoleon's court and Parliament regarding the Confederate cause. Davis adds an illuminating introduction that places De Leon's career in historical context, reveals much about his propagandist strategies, and traces the history of the Secret History itself. Together they open up a provocative new window on the Civil War.

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