The Dahlgren Raid is one of those events virtually unknown to anyone who isn’t a real Civil War buff, but the conspiracy theories around it should eclipse the Kennedy Assassination as the tinfoil-beanie brigade’s debate of choice. If the wildest theories are true, Stanton covertly sanctioned the raid to assassinate Jefferson Davis, and in response, the Confederate Secret Service orchestrated Lincoln’s assassination.  All “Boston Corbett as Jack Ruby!” jokes aside, the social and political fallout from the raid could be of paramount importance in American history.

This blog is written by the author of an Ulric Dahlgren biography, and in this (very poorly coded) entry, he entertains the thoughts of a fellow researcher.

In a commentary (“Reflections on Come Retribution”) published in the Winter 1989 issue (Vol. III, No. 4) of The International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence, 567-573, I stressed our discovery of the covert executive-level authorization and funding of secret service activities in the CSA and suggested that it perhaps followed a familiar USA model, namely, that Congress appropriated (starting with Geo. Washington) a “privy purse” to be disbursed at the direction of the President, by his executive agent, the Secretary of State, to the mission agent (say, Secretary of War, for further relay down the line). This provided “executive deniability” for the President and offered two or more cabinet level officials who could “take the fall” if something went wrong.

via Rantings of a Civil War Historian » Dave Gaddy’s Take.