"Frank Garmon's A Wonderful Career in Crime explores the life and times of Charles Cowlam, a convict, spy, detective, congressional candidate, adventurer, and con artist whose exploits spanned the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Gilded Age. His life touched many of the most important figures of the era, including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, and Benjamin F. Butler. Overlooked until now due to his elusive nature, Cowlam led a mesmerizing and colorful life on the margins of society, where his identity ...
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"Frank Garmon's A Wonderful Career in Crime explores the life and times of Charles Cowlam, a convict, spy, detective, congressional candidate, adventurer, and con artist whose exploits spanned the Civil War, Reconstruction, and Gilded Age. His life touched many of the most important figures of the era, including Abraham Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, and Benjamin F. Butler. Overlooked until now due to his elusive nature, Cowlam led a mesmerizing and colorful life on the margins of society, where his identity constantly shifted. One newspaper reported that "he has as many aliases as there are letters in the alphabet." Cowlam was a chameleon in a world of strangers. Garmon suggests that his intrigues reveal how Americans built trust amidst the transience and anonymity of the nineteenth century. Where historians of capitalism have uncovered the vulnerabilities of an economic system built on trust and personal relationships, Cowlam's life exposes the liabilities of a political system built on the same foundations. Rather than perpetrating frauds against unsuspecting passersby, Cowlam reserved his most fabulous schemes for the highest levels of the federal government. He received presidential pardons from Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, convinced Ulysses S. Grant to appoint him U.S. marshal, and conned his way into serving as a detective on the Lincoln assassination investigation. Garmon's fascinating microhistory brings the vast array of Cowlam's machinations to light for the first time"--
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