COTTON STEALING. A Novel.
—"WHO RICHES GAINS BY WRONG, IS BUT A THIEF."CHICAGO: JOHN R. WALSH & CO.
1866.Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1865, By J. E. CHAMBERLAIN, In the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, For the Northern District of Illinois. CHICAGO: J. W. TIDMARSH, PRINTER. CHICAGO TYPE FOUNDRY, J. CONAHAN, STEREOTYPER
PREFACE.
Every phase of the Cotton Trade, within the army lines during the war, was so conducted that it obtained the name of "COTTON STEALING;" and the parties engaged were called "COTTON THIEVES." The mere fact that a man was concerned in cotton speculating, was prima facie evidence of corruption, putting the speculator before Treasury Agent, Army Official, and Detective, as saying—
Early in the trade, small thieves could steal small lots of cotton, and enjoy the proceeds. After Army, Treasury, and Navy sharks fell on their track, not only their profits, but the cotton and capital invested was lost, while their precious bodies were overshadowed by a military prison, and their mouths gagged by a bayonet. Then the business fell into the hands of great thieves, who shall be nameless.
"Truth is stranger than fiction." Although every incident set forward is believed to be true, still, as fiction, the work must either stand or fall. No one man, no single State, nor any particular year is designed. When names are mentioned, the acts are removed as far as possible, to prevent identification; page: iv-5[View Page iv-5] because, although founded on fact, and built of materials furnished by actual experience of the cotton trade, the novel is a witness rather than judge—written by no believer in the doctrine of human perfection, nor the possible power of any individual to remodel the age, nor the probability of a single work reaching the moral heart of the nation. It has been written by a Western man as a cotemporaneous novel, to stand the test of to-day—by a Western man whose whole nature revolts against the attempts to deify the participants of the war, by magnifying virtues and extenuating faults, in some cases ignoring them entirely. There is one tribunal among a free people which no wrong-doer can escape—enlightened public opinion. At its bar let friends and neighbors try every officer or soldier who comes home rich beyond his monthly pay. Wealth greater than this must be explained to the home tribunal, which alone can inflict the punishment of public condemnation. Will they do it? Keeping this in mind whenever the "I" appears, and any shall ask—Who is this "I"? this is the answer:—I am a Western man with a story to tell. Will any one read—will any one hear it?
