Butcher's Cleaver : (A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services. )

A superb offering, mastertfully written and very hard to put down. Buy it and savor the read.

What role the Confederate Secret Services may have played in the assassination of Lincoln remains one of the great mysteries of the Civil War -- and probably an insoluble one, as Secretary of State Judah Benjamin burned most of the Service's papers before the Confederate government abandoned Richmond in April 1865. This novel depicts how the idea of breaking the Union by assassinating its leader might have begun to take shape in the course of the tumultuous events which culminated in the failure of Lee's attempt to smash the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg.

Among the vast amount that has been written on the Civil War, little is to be found on the intelligence services of either side. "The Butcher's Cleaver" throws some interesting light on this understandably dark area.